God Remembered Noah

I know you didn’t miss the news this week of another senseless mass shooting. A disgruntled public employee at the city of Virginia Beach killed 12 people and wounded another four before being killed in a shoot-out with police. These shootings never make sense, but this one is particularly strange because the man was apparently well educated and in a stable position: he was a certified professional engineer for the local road department.

            These random acts of violence are often motivated by uncontrolled rage. I think of the camera man for a local TV station just a year or so back who flew off the handle and killed a reporter and camera crew, or Dillan Routh, who, motivated by racial hatred, killed church goers at a mid-week prayer service in Charleston. None of it makes sense, and human anger is so often like that. In fact, most human anger is fickle and capricious. James says in James 1:20 that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” We are so easily unhinged, so quick to judge, so willing to assume the worst. And, as a result of our own fickle, angry nature, we tend to think of God in the same way. The ancient Mesopotamian cultures that surrounded the Israelites believed this about their gods. In fact, in their flood stories, they taught that the reason the gods chose to flood the earth was because humanity was making too much noise.

            Many have looked at the stories of the Old Testament, and particularly the story of the flood, and come to the same conclusion about the God of the Bible. Mark Twain passed this very judgment on God when he wrote, “To trust the God of the Bible is to trust an irascible, vindictive, fierce and ever fickle and changeful master”. But, the story of the flood, understood in its proper context, tells quite a different story. We’ve seen that God graciously creates a world that is beautiful and good. And, he creates mankind with a special privilege, to bear the image of God in this world. He gives them dominion over His creation, and he provides for their every need. But, in a terrible act of rebellion, mankind rejects the wisdom and goodness of God and chooses to live by their own terms, seeking knowledge apart from God. We’ve seen the result of that fateful act as brother has killed brother, the role of marriage was distorted, and the earth was full of violence.

            So, God passes judgment on humanity. In Chapter 6 v 5, he declares that every thought and intention of man’s heart is only evil continually. That passage also tells us that God was sorry that he had made man. Literally, God’s heart was broken over the total corruption of his good creation. Yet, even with a totally corrupt humanity that is worthy of judgment, God chooses to show grace to one man and his family. So, he tells Noah how to build an ark. And, he also chooses to save a remnant of his creation by bringing every kind of animal to Noah.

            The flood waters come, and everything that is not on that ark perishes in this terrible act of God’s judgment. Just feel the weight of this judgment from Gen. 7:19-24.

Oh, church, weep over the judgment of God. Do not become callous to it. Do not allow this story to just become some cute fairytale from an ancient, distant culture. This is what the consequences of our rebellion looks like. The judgment of God is mighty and complete. Yet, even in the weightiness of this judgment, there is good news. Notice chapter 8, verse 1. “But God remembered Noah.” Oh, the two most beautiful words in all of Scripture! “But, God!” “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” – Rom. 5:8. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved: -- Eph. 2:4-5.

            When you read that God remembered Noah, be careful not to think that God somehow had forgotten him. Rather, the idea of God’s remembrance is language that is common to the idea of God’s covenant with his people. In Gen. 19:29, God saves Lot from the judgment of Sodom because he “remembered” his covenant with Abraham. In Gen. 30:22, God enables Rachel to conceive because he “remembered” his promise to Jacob. In Exodus 2:24, God calls Moses to go back and save the Israelites because he “remembered” his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What we see in the Bible is that God never forgets his promises. God always remembers.

            So, God causes the waters to subside and he brings Noah to a safe place. Then, God calls Noah and all the animals to come out. And, God gives Noah and this remnant of creation the same command that he gave to Adam and Eve in the garden, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” God is renewing the land after his judgment of it.

            Then, we see in verse 20 that as soon as Noah comes off the ark, he builds and altar and offers sacrifices to God. It says in verse 21 that God smelled the aroma of the sacrifice, and it pleased him. The idea of this pleasing aroma is the idea of restful satisfaction. God has poured out his wrath on all of the earth, he has worked to bring total destruction, and then he worked to bring restoration and life by causing the waters to subside. But what is it that causes God to rest from all of his work? What is it that causes God to promise that in spite of the continued sinfulness of man, he will no more judge the earth with a flood? It is a sacrifice, offered up by a righteous man, that causes God to rest from his wrath.

            Yet, even in his promise, God reveals that there is something that is still broken with mankind. Man’s heart is still corrupt. Noah and his sons are still sinners. We’ve yet to come to the stories of the tower of Babel or the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah or Abraham’s sin with Hagar or the jealousy of Joseph’s brothers. And, we know that as the story progresses, we find that God’s people need sacrifices to abate the wrath of God. But the sacrifices were never enough. In fact, the people eventually assumed that the sacrifices were like a good luck charm that kept God happy. But God tells them in Isaiah 1:11 – “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.” The sacrifices of Israel, really of all of the Old Testament, were all reminders of something that was to come. They all pointed forward. After all, how could the blood of a bird or a goat pay for the sins of a man?

            Then, Jesus came to an Israel who was submerged in the judgment of God. They had lingered under the exile and continued judgment of God for 400 years. But with Jesus, God announces from Heaven at his baptism that “this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And, on the cross of Calvary, Jesus, as the one truly righteous man, offers himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin. So, Paul says in Eph. 5:2 “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” John agrees, saying in 1 John 4:10: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Jesus is the sacrifice that satisfies the wrath of God and brings us into His eternal rest.

            Friend, do not set yourself up as judge over God. So many look at the story of the flood and declare, “That’s not my God!” Yet, this is the God of the universe, whether you like it or not. This God judges righteously, and he will judge your sin in righteousness as well. The only way to escape this judgment is through the sacrifice that Jesus Christ has offered for you. Trust in him and be saved from the wrath of God that is to come.

            Brothers and sisters, because we are now in Christ, we are a part of that fragrant sacrifice that satisfies God. Paul says in 2 Cor. 2:14-15: “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing”. Our lives are a testimony of the goodness of God and give off the fragrance of righteousness to the surrounding world. Also, as we share this gospel with others, we bring delight to God in the spreading of his kingdom.