40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 12

Episode Date: April 8, 2015

Sin, Forgiveness and Noah

you are listening to a podcast produced and distributed by christholdfast.com please visit christholdfast.com for additional resources this is 40 minutes in the old testament Well, thank you for joining us for episode 12 of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. Today, we are going to talk about dinosaurs. No one's laughing. No one's laughing. That's an off-air joke. We were talking about whether or not we were ever going to talk about dinosaurs, and it was like, man, don't make me talk about dinosaurs.

and yeah i expected to shoot well brandon's muted and so we're gonna throw that right back at daniel we're gonna let him talk about uh the theological implications of dinosaurs yes uh okay uh so we're not doing that so we are i'm here with brandon hansen and shadbird and we are working our way through genesis uh and we are not at the dinosaur section but we are at the uh at the pre-flood and probably into the flood section so chad what are we what are we gonna be doing tonight yeah hello everybody we're uh we are in chapter six of genesis we uh delved into the uh first part almost kind of the segue if you will between chapter five and the story of the flood this Last time, we talked about the sons of God, seeing the daughters of men, and taking some

of them as wives. We talked a little bit about the Nephilim. Could those have been dinosaurs, the sons? That's where we left off. No, the Nephilim were not the dinosaurs. We can say that categorically. Okay. We're actually going to start out on a bit of a negative note, because that's where the

scriptures take us and we have to we have to deal with that sometimes so we're going to look here at three verses that talk in very stark language about the condition of man's heart so we're in genesis chapter 6 verses 5 through 7 and that's where we that's where we have to start before we actually get to Noah and how he found favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord. So let's start there. I want to throw this verse out at you and let you listen to it, and then we're going to talk a little bit about the implications of what we have here in Genesis 6-5. It says that the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every

Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Now, I think if you were to ask me to come up with a tweet, if you will, just a minimal number of characters in which I described the full extent of the sinfulness of man, I would be hard-pressed to find anything even remotely coming close to the way that this verse depicts it, especially the latter half of that verse. It says that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Now, I don't know how you could get much more expansive and universal concerning the wickedness of man than this. And I think we need to talk about this a minute and the implications that it has for us.

The first thing that I want to say is that this is not a description of humanity before the flood and that this ceased with the flood. Sometimes I think that's the impression that people get of this particular verse. They say, oh, well, yeah, people were really bad back then. I mean, they were so bad, in fact, that God decided to destroy the world. But, thankfully, we're not quite as bad now as they were back then. First of all, that's not only wrong just on a theological level, but there's biblical evidence that this hasn't changed whatsoever. In fact, after the flood, if you look a couple of chapters later in chapter 8, verse 21, God, so this is after the flood, Noah and his family are out of the ark,

and God says, I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done. So this idea of the intent of man's heart being evil is not something that the flood somehow did away with. But all of a sudden, we have now this new humanity that is sinless or not quite as sinful as it was before the flood. Nothing changes.

And the verse there in chapter 6 about the intent of man's thoughts and his heart being only evil continually applies just as much today as it did in the time of Noah. So that this is the description of who we are. This is not just a description of a long, long time ago, but this is who we are apart from Christ. Every intent of the thoughts of the heart are only evil continually. Now, when I hear this, my first reaction, I'll confess this, my first reaction is to say, no, they're not. No, this is not a description of who I am. In fact, I have a lot of good thoughts. There's a lot of things about me that are bad, but there's got to be at least a few things about me that are good, that are positive.

And the truth is that apart from Christ, there is nothing about me that is good in the eyes of God. That every intent of the thoughts of my heart are only evil continually. And this, I think, is the first point that I want to make. We all are cognizant of the fact that we're sinners. Everybody knows that they're not perfect. Everybody knows that they mess up. Everybody knows that they're tempted to evil thoughts and evil speech and evil actions. Some of us are more aware of that than others.

Some of us have a pretty deep awareness of our sinful condition. But this first point I want to make is that just as by faith we confess that we are righteous in the eyes of God because of Jesus Christ, So also, it is only by faith in the word of God that we also confess the full extent of our sinfulness and our depravity and our evil. In other words, when I look at myself, I don't see myself as righteous in the eyes of God through Jesus Christ. I confess that because God says it is true of me. And also when I look at myself, I don't see the full extent of my sin. Now, I have a pretty good idea of it. I mean, I've sinned enough.

I have a pretty good idea of how sinful I am. But it's impossible for me simply by thinking my way or reasoning my way or experiencing my way through this life to understand the full extent of how far cut off from God I am apart from Jesus Christ. So that I cannot, by my own thinking or feeling or experiencing, understand that every intent of the thoughts in my heart are only evil continually. I confess that to be true, but it's not something that I really can grasp completely. So you have both these extremes. You have, on the one hand, God saying that I am this sinner who's full of evil thoughts continually. And then you have also God in Christ saying that in him, in his son, that I am fully and completely justified. Both these things are true, and they're both a confession of faith based upon what God says to me.

The biggest hindrance for people entering Christianity, coming into the faith, is not what you would think it is. the biggest hindrance is your own perceived goodness always it always is it's when you say things like nobody's perfect you're not saying that as a condemning statement of yourself but as a statement that says nobody's perfect but we're all pretty good or at least I am it's not hard to find people who outwardly are worse than you are it doesn't even matter how bad you are you can somehow find someone worse than you and you can probably even find someone to agree with you that that person is worse than you so that you can also self-justify that way and that's actually what gossip is gossip is the practice of finding someone to come and agree with

you that you're both better than the person you're talking about that's what it is that's what that's what's happening when you do that when you come you you well you just don't want to come to the realization you don't want to admit that yeah you don't just need some help you don't need just a booster seat you don't need just like a little push you need complete saving because because you're a mess it's over for you it was over before it started and uh and that's that's the biggest hindrance is that is that you can't you don't want you don't want to admit those things sure no one's perfect but you don't want to admit that it's all that bad um and you know being in ministry long enough um and talking to enough people like that's oh that's always the biggest

hurdle is is getting people to admit that they're not good um they want to believe that deep deep down it gets better not worse deep deep deep down everyone is inherently good and we do like you know, surfacely we do some bad things. We make mistakes and we have vices and you know, this, that, and the other. But if you dig deep enough, like down in there, there's something good. And the Bible says the opposite. He said, it says the deeper you go, the worse it gets. And that's, that's a hard, hard pill for people to swallow. It's one of the reasons why rich young rulers are hard to save and prostitutes aren't. That's the reason you don't have this It takes less convincing that you're a mess and that you're not a very good person.

And that's one of the reasons that the law must be preached. The law is there to show us the full extent of our sin and to declare the full extent of our sin so that we might understand our need for the full forgiveness and righteousness that we have in Christ. I've often thought, I was thinking about this when you were talking, Dan, that if you ask a person what they think of humanity, of themselves or just humanity in general, about the extent of evil that's within us, usually if you can get an answer from them, from that you can really construct their whole theology. So if you understand their anthropology, that is what they think about people, usually upon that you can really guess where they're going to go with the rest of their theology. So for instance, as you were saying, if a person thinks that they're – yeah, they do some bad things, but deep down they're pretty good, they're also going to believe that God looks upon that goodness that they think they have within themselves as righteousness. and that, sure, God is going to help them out. He is going to provide some of the assistance in their salvation,

but he's also going to reckon to their account the goodness that's already in them. So if I think that I'm good, I also am going to think that God sees that goodness within me, and he is going to simply supplement what I already have in order to save me. This is extremely important. But if we, in some way, lessen the sinfulness of man, if we in any way diminish the full extent of our lostness, of our sinfulness in the eyes of God, to that same extent, we diminish the work of Christ. so that if I think that I am 99% bad but 1% good, then I've just taken away from the work that Christ did for me. In fact, I've really denied to that extent that his work was necessary for me

because I had some goodness within me. So if we understand that every intent of the thoughts of our heart is only evil and that we are completely lost apart from the work of Jesus Christ, then actually we're in the perfect position to hear the good news. And the good news is that because we are as sinful as we are, God has completely done the work for us. Not only has he done the work of saving us, but he's done the work of calling us to faith. It's not as if, yeah, we're sinful, but we made the right decision to become a Christian.

We're sinful, yeah, but we were brought to the point to where we were able to take that step toward God, or even meet God halfway. No. Christ has completed the work of salvation for us, and he grants us the gift of faith. He does the work of calling. He does the work of conversion. He does the work of giving us the gift of repentance so that everything is his doing

and everything is our receiving of what he accomplishes for us. That's why it's so important to understand the full extent of our sinfulness. Yeah, every sinner needs the same amount of atonement. It's the same way that every dead man needs the same amount of resurrection. There's no mostly dead Or kind of dead Dead men all need The same amount of resurrection

And that's a full resurrection And sinners all need The same amount of atonement That's full atonement for everything You've never done anything That didn't need atoning for And so yeah When we think that there's some people

That have Have need of a of a greater amount of christ's blood than than we do we have we've missed it big time yeah uh if uh if we think of the example for instance of of lazarus uh dead in the tomb uh he was he was in the state in which there was nothing that he could do in order to bring himself back to life and that's exactly where all of us are we are dead under trespasses and sins and the only way in which we come to life is by Christ, through his word, calling us back to life. The scriptures, in the various ways in which they describe us apart from Christ,

unequivocally state that there's nothing that we can do. So we are born as those who are at enmity with God. We are born as those who are dead in trespasses and sins, enemies of God. So the only way in which we are brought out of that lost condition, brought out of that dead condition, is by God doing all the work, which is fantastic news, which is part of the good news of the gospel. I can remember in my own past, I didn't always believe this. I thought that it was up to me to take that first step. It was up to me to make the right decision. It was up to me to be sincere when I made the decision to be a Christian. And because of that, I lived in constant doubt. Well, what if I wasn't really sincere when I decided to become a Christian? I mean, what if my heart wasn't fully in that?

And so I was plagued by this doubt because I thought that there was still something that was necessary for me to do, to be sincere in this decision. And because of that, I couldn't rest in the assurance that I was a Christian, that I was saved, because I, again, put something back on myself instead of realizing and rejoicing in the fact that God had done all the work on my behalf in Christ. He saved me. He called me to faith, granted me the gift of faith, and has kept me in that faith and will continue to do so to life everlasting. So it's part of the good news. It's part of the gospel that we don't take that first step. We don't make ourselves undead like Lazarus who were called forth from the tomb by the life-giving word of Christ. I think when you realize that if you were the only person on earth and Christ was only dying for you, that your salvation would still require every lash, every thorn, every nail, that this will end your comparison. and it'll end the figuring out who's the bigger sinner, this kind of thing.

If Christ was going to die for any one of us and only one of us, it wouldn't have looked any different. It would have been the exact same thing. The totality of the sufferings of Christ were necessary just for me and just for you and just for anyone else and for everyone else. And so when I try to look at it that way and know that Christ wouldn't suffer any less if it was just for me and that all of that is mine, it makes you realize how helpless you are. And that is good news because it puts salvation exactly where it needs to be. It puts salvation in a very safe place, and that's in the hands of God and in the sufferings of Christ.

the good news is that um that i can't i can't save myself that is good news in the sense that if it were up to me i would screw it up i would mess that up it's not salvation is not safe with me it's not a safe place for it to be but it's very safe in the sufferings of christ and that's why it's such good news uh that we see uh that we see also here in genesis chapter six that when you get to the part about about noah that he finds grace in the eyes of the Lord. It's the same grace that we find. It's not a grace that is within us,

but it's a grace that's in the eye of the beholder. That's one of the reasons I love that particular verse, that when God looks upon us, he looks upon us graciously, not because he sees something worthy of grace within us, not because he sees something good in us and says, oh, look, there's something beautiful deep down to that person. I love him. I love her because of that. The grace is always there beforehand.

God sees that grace because that's the grace that's in his eyes to begin with. And so when he looks upon Noah, he looks upon him graciously, lovingly, and Noah finds that favor or that grace in his eyes, In the same way that we find favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord. And when you put these two together, that every intent of the thoughts of our heart are only evil continually, and then Noah finding favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord, you have both of these truths side by side, and you understand the beauty of the gospel even more, that despite the fact that we are who we are, yet God is gracious and merciful toward us in Jesus Christ.

Let's talk a little bit about, since we've kind of jumped into that next section, let's talk a little bit about Noah and the description that we have of him. And then also, I want to put out there just some kind of general thoughts concerning the flood before we get into some particulars. And I think before I talk about Noah, I will briefly discuss just, I guess, what you might call three different ways of understanding the story of the flood within the broader story of the Scriptures. One of these is, we got into this a little bit last time, one of these is by understanding that the flood is intimately connected to creation itself. Because the flood is the uncreation of the world, if you will. What happens at the flood is that creation goes into reverse.

And we go all the way back to the opening verses of Genesis chapter 1, where you had nothing but water. So we had the Spirit of God was fluttering over the surface of the deep, and there was nothing there but water. And that's what you end up with in the flood. So we have this rewinding of creation in which it goes back to the beginning. And then it also starts over. When dry land appears, the ark rests on the mountaintop, and you have a second Genesis 1, if you will. So creation is starting over again. So the flood, first of all, has to be understood in connection with creation itself.

Secondly, it needs to be understood within the context of God's saving work. So it needs to be understood redemptively. And what I mean by that is that what we see in the flood is that God is not some kind of capricious deity who just does things on a whim, does things for no reason whatsoever. Instead, he, first of all, provides a means of rescue. And he warns about the flood before it comes. So he warns about it, and then he provides a means of rescue. He provides, first of all, the promise of the seed in which Noah believes,

and then he gives him instructions on how to build this ark of salvation in which Noah and his family will be saved. And this deliverance or this redemption is the work exclusively of God. God is the one who initiates it. God is the one who carries it out and brings it to completion. What you see in the flood is not merely the destruction of a sinful world. What you see in the flood is the proclamation of a good and gracious God who saves, who provides the means of salvation for those who are his.

And then, besides creation and redemption, also, this flood has this end times aspect to it, this eschatological aspect to it, because the flood is a symbol or a preview of the end of the world. Jesus himself talks about how in the days of Noah they were marrying and giving in marriage up until the day that Noah and his family entered into the ark, and he said, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. So just like the world was destroyed in the flood and yet salvation came forth from this, so also at the end of time there's going to be this destruction, not by water, but by fire, as Peter says. And yet those who are of Christ, those who belong to him, those who are part of the ark of salvation, will be saved. So the flood is like Genesis and Revelation all brought together.

You have creation here, you have redemption, and you have the end times all represented beautifully in this one story. All right, well, let's talk about Noah for a minute. We've already got into how he found favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord. I also want to talk for a minute about this description that we have of him. So we have in verse 9 of chapter 6, these are the record of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time. Noah walked with God. I read a commentary that just happened to be by a Jewish scholar.

concerning Noah and this description of Noah. And interestingly, he said of Noah the same thing that you will often hear among Christian scholars as well, that it was on account of the uprightness, the morality, the good life, and the good character of Noah that God looked favorably upon him and chose him, out of all the people in the world, to be the one whose family would be saved in the course of the flood. So that in the midst of this immoral and corrupt generation, that what set Noah apart was the way in which he lived. He lived righteously. He lived uprightly.

He kept the moral code that was in sync with God. The only problem with that is that it is simply untrue. I've said this before. The only problem with that is that it's simply untrue, and that's a big problem. The big problem is that it is in contradiction to the Scriptures themselves. It's in contradiction to the way in which God works with humanity. It's in contradiction to humanity's status as sinners in the eyes of God. It's not as if God looked over the vastness of humanity,

and he found this one person who was living a moral, upright life, and because of that, God chose him. Rather, when God looked down upon humanity, he found within Noah the faith in the promised seed that God himself had sworn to Adam and Eve. He found within Noah the faith that God himself had worked in Noah to believe in that promised seed. In other words, when God looked upon Noah, he saw one who lived by faith. A faith that God himself always works in and through his word of promise. And on account of this faith, Noah was reckoned to be righteous. In fact, that's the description that we have of Noah.

If you look at Hebrews chapter 11, it says, By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. The only way in which Noah was the way he was As he's described here Being a righteous man And blameless in his time And walking with God

The only way that Noah was that way Is because God had given him the gift of faith By which he was reckoned to be righteous It's not as if Noah somehow made himself to be this way that Noah was able to separate himself from the rest of immoral humanity and live this upright life by which he somehow got God's attention and earned God's favor. Noah's righteous, in other words, the same way in which we are righteous, by faith. Noah's blameless in the same way in which we are blameless in the eyes of God,

because by faith God reckons to us the merits of the promised seed. When it says, Noah walked with God, that means the same thing that it means with us. We walk with God, too. We walk with God because we are part of those who are in the body of His Son. By faith, we are connected to the promised seed, and so we walk with God. That is to say, we live with God, and God with us. We are connected to Him. Our lives are bound up in His life.

So don't, in other words, don't read verse 9 of Genesis 6. Don't read this description of Noah as somehow calling you to live the kind of life that will get God's attention so that he too will claim you to be a hero of the faith. If Noah is an example of anything, he's an example to us of those who have been given the gift of faith and by that faith are reckoned right in the eyes of God because of Jesus Christ, because of the promised seed. And because of that, they have righteousness. They have this completeness or this blamelessness in the eyes of God,

and they walk with him. So it's not a matter of Noah being the best person in the world that God chose him. It's that God in Christ, in the promised seed, chose Noah to be the one who would construct the ark for the salvation of his household. So Noah was no different than everyone else, except in this one way. Anyway, Noah was a believer in the promised seed, and because of that, God chose him to be the one who would construct the ark, and through that ark bring salvation for him and for his family. That's enough about Noah.

I want to talk for a minute also about the implications of God actually warning Noah about this impending flood. We got into this a little bit last time when we talked about the 120 years. At the beginning of chapter 6, it says that God says that the days of man are going to be restricted to 120. 120. So this 120-year span is not a lifespan. Instead, this 120 years is going to be the time that God allows for humanity to repent. Basically, three generations. Three 40-year generations. He's going to call Noah to stand forth before the world and proclaim what God is about to bring upon the world and to call people to repentance and to call them to faith in the promised seed before this destruction falls upon humanity. Now think about the implications of that.

If God had wanted to, he simply could have sent the flood immediately. He could have wiped out humanity, but that's not the way that God works. When there is a destruction that is to come, He gives a warning about this. He gives people the time to recognize their sin, to repent, to call upon God in faith, and to be forgiven. He doesn't simply wipe out humanity as soon as he is sorry that he made man of the earth, as it says in verse 6. Now, interestingly, there's a lot of other flood stories in the ancient world. In fact, one of the famous ones is from Babylon. It's called the Gilgamesh Epic.

And in that particular flood account, the gods don't tell their plans to humanity that they're going to destroy it. The only way in which one person finds out is because one of the gods in this polytheistic worldview breaks ranks and he tells this particular person that a flood is coming, and so he builds a ship and saves himself and his family and some others. But the gods didn't even take the time to warn in this other flood account humanity about what was going to befall them. because they didn't care, because humanity meant nothing to them. The biblical account couldn't be in more contrast to that, because God is actually willing, wanting humanity to come to repentance.

And so he sets this boundary, this 120 years. He appoints Noah to be a preacher of righteousness, and Noah does what God calls him to do. He does the same thing that preachers do today. He speaks forth God's word in order that through that word, Hearts might be brought to repentance and faith before the destruction comes. This 120 years is sort of like the period between the ascension of Christ and his second coming. It's a time in which God is at work in this world to call people to himself out of wickedness and into his church.

So the 120 years is evidence of the mercy of God. and it's a foreshadowing of what God does in the world still today. It kind of sheds new light on the, you know, when you think about it that way. I've always heard that 120 years, well, that was the limit of man's lifespan. Kind of awkward when you have people living beyond 120 years then. You have a very few rare accounts, so then you must figure, well, they're just really righteous people, right? That's our automatic default mindset is, oh, they must have.

Anyway, anyway, getting back on track here, it kind of sheds new light on the words of God in Ezekiel 18, 23. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? Well, giving them three generations, giving three generations the chance to repent there before the destruction of the world as they knew it, was an awfully patient God who obviously would rather that they should turn from their way and live, and ultimately that means place their faith and trust

and fear in him alone. Yeah, it's amazing to me, not only in this story, but in various stories throughout the Scriptures, the long-suffering of God, His patience with rebellious and sinful humanity. You see this, of course, in the case of Israel over and over again. God cannot do more for them. There's just no way that He could give them greater gifts than He gives them, and yet their reaction most of the time is to complain and murmur and rebel against Him. And yet, God sends them prophet after prophet.

He gives them chance after chance. He continues to take care of them. He continues to feed them, to provide them with rescue against their enemies, despite their ongoing, continual rebellion against Him. And it's so different with us. I can look at my own life. I'm sure that everybody listening to this can look at their own lives as well. It's amazing the patience that God has with us.

When I think about what I've done, years of rebellion, and yet God was that father, like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, who was waiting for me to come home. He wasn't cutting me off. He wasn't saying, oh, you've messed up. I'm done with you. He's no three strikes and you're out kind of God. Instead, He's the kind of God that gives humanity not one, not 20, but 120 years, over a century's worth of warning before He sends the flood. and he's provided century after century to us of chance to call people to repentance to proclaim to them the good news

and to bring them into the faith so if God is anything he is patient and long-suffering with us not willing that any should perish but that all should be brought to faith every day that Christ does not return again is one more day of evidence of God's love and his patience with us. People think about his delay as somehow indicative of his lack of fidelity to us.

He's really not coming back, but it's the exact opposite of that. Every day that we wake up and live our life and go to bed that night and Christ doesn't return, that day is a sermon on the patience of God with us. That day is a sermon about the willingness of God that all should be brought to repentance, that none should perish, but that all should be brought to faith in Christ. And every day of these 120 years was basically a sermon on the same message, that God did not desire that the world should perish, but instead that the people of Noah's day should be brought to repentance and faith as well.

Yeah, when people ask me the question that you get asked, with all the suffering and terrible things in the world, why doesn't Jesus just come back and end all this? And the answer is because salvation is a wonderful thing. and he wants more more people saved uh that's that's why yeah it's because hell is a terrible thing it's where it's worse than all this and so he's when he comes to to deal with uh with suffering and and wickedness and evil uh he comes to deal with it in in total uh not just not just the things that we look at and say well that's terrible but all the terrible things the right

down to the the heart and mind level things and he'll deal with all of that and uh the thing that that stops him from doing that is that uh that he wants more people to be saved you know i mean the flood is a good example of that too that god doesn't deal with things sort of incrementally when you're talking about evil well when god deals with evil he comes to deal with it uh and so uh when he comes to deal with it again, it will be dealt with. And because of that, he tarries. So if you look at the flood, really, we're used to seeing the flood as evidence of God's anger. But the whole flood story is a story about the mercy of God,

about the willingness of our Father, the eager willingness of our Father, to save humanity, his patience with humanity, his love for us, his willingness to extend as much time as he could in order that we might actually live and not perish. So the flood is really a message of grace and mercy that God preaches to us, the same grace and mercy that he preaches to us in in jesus christ we're not used to thinking of the flood as gospel but understood in this way it is it's a good news of a god that doesn't want any to perish but that all to be brought to repentance and to find their place on the ark that is christ himself yeah yeah it never actually says that that uh noah was preaching a flood is coming a flood is coming doesn't doesn't ever say

that it says that he was a herald of righteousness but never it never says that he was out there saying the wrath of god is coming the flood is coming all of you are going to be dealt with that that's that's not what's coming you know when the message that we've been giving and there is a there is a flood coming there's a flood of fire coming but but the message we've been given is not one of there's a flood of fire and judgment coming that's not what we've been given to preach What we've been given to preach is repentance and the forgiveness of sins. And I think that that's what Noah was preaching. I think Noah was preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins, not doom and destruction,

because I don't think doom and destruction works. But I do think that repentance and the forgiveness of sins does work. And so I think that sometimes when we put ourselves in the shoes of Noah, a lot of preachers and stuff, that they think that that's our message. The judgment's coming. The judgment's coming. Hell is a real thing and it's coming for you. It's not what we've been given to do. We've not been given a message of the flood is coming, but that forgiveness is here now. And I think that Noah was doing the same thing. I don't think he was preaching a flood is coming. I think he was saying there's forgiveness available right now.

Yeah, no one is scared into heaven. Right. We've been given a message of reconciliation. That is our message. And I think that the flood is a good example and a reminder for us, whether in a, well, just in any sense. I mean, as messengers of reconciliation in our personal lives with family or friends, or if we are a pastor or an academic, however this works out, ultimately the message is forgiveness and that's that's where we can look at this and we can say

this is how patient God is with them that is a reflection of how patient God is with me that is a reflection of how forgiving God is the the bad news side of that is I really need that forgiveness and if God has shown me that forgiveness that really motivates me in a way that no law can motivate me to forgive others. The obvious wrath that is to come if there isn't forgiveness is going to be evident. You don't need to preach this hellfire and brimstone message because that's the obvious implication of this scandalous, radical forgiveness. It comes naturally to us To want to be wrathful, to want to find and make sure people are punished doesn't come naturally to us. And it just shows how unlike God we are to want to bestow and deliver and proclaim forgiveness to people.

And it's also the reason why I have never met a street preacher. I didn't want a street fight. uh we are out of time and then some so we're gonna have to close it on whatever that was i just said and uh and uh thanks chad and uh thanks brandon and we will see you guys next week © transcript Emily Beynon