Deliverance from the Coming Armageddon

Genesis 6:5-10
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, January 12, 2003
Copyright © 2003, P. G. Mathew

The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth–men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air–for I am grieved that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Genesis 6:5-10

I want to speak to you from Genesis 6-9 about deliverance from the coming Armageddon. The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, speaks about Armageddon, the great conflict coming between the true God and the forces of all evil. The great flood of Genesis points to this final confrontation and judgment of God. God is opposed to all wickedness, disorder, disobedience, and evil of every kind. Thus, in holy wrath he will judge and destroy the wicked. At the same time, in his great mercy, he will save those who trust and serve him.

The Bible tells us that long ago God destroyed all the wicked people of that time in a flood. The idea of God destroying people is strange to modern people, but we should rid ourselves of the idea that God is always nice. It is simply not true. God does save people, but he also judges and destroys them. I hope we will change our opinion about who God is based on his own revelation of himself in his word. Whether we are old or young, highly educated or not, I hope that we will become like little children so that we can hear and believe what God has to tell us about himself, creation, man, and the way of salvation. As an orthodox church, we believe in the authority of the Scriptures and all the doctrines the Scriptures teach us. We stand with all orthodox people everywhere who believe in the Scriptures and the creeds of the church. That is why we must study the Bible and pray that the Holy Spirit will open our minds to understand its truth. God gave us our minds that we may think his thoughts as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. That is the primary use of the mind.

We believe, then, that long ago God destroyed all the wicked people on the earth, including pregnant women, in a great flood, and that only the family of Noah was saved. This story of the Genesis flood is not a myth, as some people teach. Such a view disagrees with none other than Jesus Christ, the Sovereign Lord of the universe, who declared the flood as historical.

God had announced the flood and its destruction one hundred and twenty years before it happened. He did so so that people might repent and turn to God. But during this long period of God’s patience, no one repented, so judgment came.

The wickedness of mankind is an awful thing. In recent times we have heard a political statement about the “axis of evil,” referring to three nations particularly as evil. There is no question these nations are evil, but the idea that they alone are evil is simplistic. According to the Bible and the words of Jesus himself, every human being, every descendant of Adam, is evil because we all have evil within us. In other words, none of us can define evil while exempting ourselves. The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

God must act against evil, because it is a contradiction of his kingdom and moral order, and a contradiction of God himself. God is holy; therefore, he must punish sinners, and he does. He hates diversity of good and evil.

God Sees Our Sin

The first point we want to make is that God sees all evil. Sin is any lack of conformity unto and transgression of God’s law. In Genesis 6:5 we read, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” This is God’s own statement about the nature of man.

This was not the way God created man. In Genesis 1:31 we read, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” But now in Genesis 6 God was looking at the creation and seeing it as very bad. In fact, we read that “every inclination of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil all the time.” In other words, man is thoroughly depraved, because he is depraved internally in his heart, in the very center of human personality. He is evil in his thinking, in his willing, in his feeling, and in his actions.

Second, this evil is pervasive. In Genesis 6 we find the phrase, “evil inclination.” The word “inclination” has to do with design, purpose, plan-every plan, scheme, and idea of man.

Third, this evil is perpetual. So we read that every inclination of the thoughts of men’s hearts are “only evil all the time.”

Fourth, this evil is universal. Every son of man, every human being, is evil. Every descendant of Adam has been affected by Adam’s fall.

Genesis 6 tells us that God saw this evil in man’s heart. God observes our imaginations, inclinations, and thinking all the time. Everything is naked before him.

How Our Sin Affects God

In Genesis 6:6 we read what our sin does to God. God is not without feeling. He is the infinite, personal God. So we read, “The Lord was grieved. . . .” In other words, our sin grieves God.

This is not only an Old Testament idea; we also read in the New Testament that when we sin, we grieve God. In Ephesians 4:30 we read, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Every time we sin, we grieve God.

Consider, then, how great man’s wickedness is. Man went from being “very good,” in God’s judgment, to “very bad.” In Genesis 3 we saw Eve and Adam distrusting and disobeying God. In Genesis 4 we read that Cain murdered his own brother. In Genesis 4 we also see the son of Cain, Lamech, violating God’s law of monogamy by taking two wives.

In Genesis 6:1-4 we read,

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man for ever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days–and also afterwards–when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

About this passage we can say this much, that the wickedness of man before the flood included extreme sexual immorality, and God was grieved at it. We must realize that even our sexual life is to be regulated by Scripture.

In Genesis 6:11 we read, “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight.” It doesn’t matter how much we dress up and appear before other people; we still carry the corruption of sin in us. How many famous people are corrupt in their inner beings! Yet the whole world, even elementary school children, emulate them, including their corrupt ways, and thus give legitimacy for sexual disorder in society. But nothing escapes God’s eyes. In verse 12 we read, “God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.” God’s good, orderly universe had become disorderly, especially in the moral realm, and God saw it all. Never think that what we do somehow escapes his notice.

The wickedness of man not only grieved God, but it made him angry. Whether we are young or old, when God sees sin, he becomes angry. We don’t like to think about God being angry. We have adjusted our theology to say that he must always be nice toward us.

God Judges Sin and Sinners

Not only does God see our sin and grieve, but he also judges all sin and sinners. In Genesis 6:7 we find God’s plan to deal with man’s sin: “So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth. . . .'” Notice the phrase, “I will wipe. . . .” It can also mean, “I will destroy” or “I will annihilate.” Not only is he Savior, but God is also Judge.

I hope we will adjust our thinking to recognize who God truly is. Yes, God is love and forgives, but he is also the Judge who wipes out both sin and sinners. Thus, in Genesis 7:4 God told Noah, “Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.” God did what he said he would do, and in Genesis 7:23 we read, “Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out. . . .”

Remember, this is not mythology. It is a real event that happened in time and space long ago. So we read, “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 left with him in the ark.”

This word “wipe” is also used in Psalm 51:1 where David prays, “Blot out my transgressions.” I want to tell you something very important. If you trust and believe in God and call upon him, he is able to wipe away your sins and save you. But if you don’t, he will wipe you away. The foolish idea that God hates sin but not sinner is just that: foolish. If we call upon God, he will wipe away our sin on the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but if we don’t, he will wipe us out, as he did with the people at the time of the flood.

God Saved Noah

The third lesson that we learn from this passage is that God saves all who trust in him and believe in his way of salvation. Never try to tell God how he should save you! Don’t dare tell him how he should behave toward you! But God graciously tells us how we can escape this coming Armageddon; thus, we should pay close heed to what he says.

In Genesis 6:8 we read, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Favor, or grace, is divine bounty. It is what we need as sinners, but it is not something we can earn or merit. Grace in the Bible is defined as unmerited favor coming to those who merited God’s wrath, to those who deserved God’s wiping them out.

Noah was also a sinner, but in Genesis 8 we notice that the first thing he did after coming onto the dry land near Mount Ararat was to sacrifice some clean animals. Noah understood that all grace comes from a sacrifice, which, from the history of revelation we learn is not the sacrifice of bulls and goats, finally, but the sacrifice of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ’s death on the cross is the cause of all grace that comes to us from God.

So we read that Noah found grace, or we could read it the other way: grace found Noah. That is the truth. Noah was a sinner; yet he was shown mercy by God. The apostle Paul tells us, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Then we read in Genesis 6:9, “Noah was a righteous man.” This means that Noah did what was right in the eyes of God and right in his dealings toward men. Additionally, we are also told in verse 9 that he was blameless. That does not mean Noah was perfect and without sin; but he was habitually righteous and blameless. Remember, Noah believed in sacrifice. He knew that forgiveness was based on sacrifice and made use of that. So in his dealings with God, he was blameless. Noah worshiped the true God when all those around him were demon-worshipers. All people worship something: either the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, or demons, who are behind all other forms of worship.

Then in Genesis 7:9 we read that Noah “walked with God.” This speaks about Noah’s choice of association. Noah did not walk with the wicked of the time; he walked with God. He did so because he loved God and enjoyed fellowship with him. In other words, worship and fellowship with God were not a burden for Noah; rather, spending time with God was the most exciting thing for him. In Genesis 5 we read that Enoch also walked with God. Thus, this phrase, “he walked with God” tells us about Noah’s heart condition. Noah loved God, longed for God, and thrived in the presence of God.

We see such hunger for God exhibited by people as they come here to worship. Some of them just come alive as they sing, worship and praise God. They are so excited to be with God’s people, meet with God, and worship in God’s house. This is the idea of walking with God.

Noah, of course, still lived in this world, but his only connection with the wicked of the world was to declare to them that they should repent and turn to God. During the entire one hundred and twenty years he was building the ark, he was telling people, “Soon there will be a great flood.” He preached to them the message of God, which he had believed, and by which he was ultimately saved.

Noah Obeyed God

In Genesis 6:13 we notice that not only did God speak to himself about the coming judgment, but he also gave that information to Noah. There we read, “So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood,” and so on.

What was Noah’s reaction to this disclosure of God’s plan? He believed it and obeyed it. It was the gospel to him. In the same way, when we hear the gospel today, we are to believe the truth and trust in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation. So when Noah was told, “I am going to wipe them all out, but you must build an ark for your salvation,” Noah believed God’s word and started building an ark on dry land. According to God’s directions, Noah made the ark four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. Made of gopher wood or cypress wood, the ark had three decks, a displacement capacity of 43,300 tons, a total deck area of about one hundred thousand square feet, and one door.

Noah believed God’s proclamation, obeyed it and was saved. In the same way, we must believe and obey when we hear the gospel message, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.” “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”

There is no selective obedience for a true Christian. God makes no exception for anyone. He was Sovereign, not Noah. Noah was merely a man, yet by divine grace he was able to do all things God commanded him. We should do the same as well. In 2 Corinthians 9:8 we read that God is mighty to abound all grace toward us “that in all things at all times, having all that [we] need, [we] will abound in every good work.” In other words, God will give us all necessary grace to do whatever he asks us to do.

Noah Enters the Ark

In Genesis 7:1 we read, “The Lord then said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.'” The phrase, “I have found you righteous,” means God found only Noah, out of all the people on the earth, righteous. So on the tenth day of the second month of six hundredth year of Noah’s life, God told him to enter the ark with his family.

Noah completed the ark and now, acting on God’s command, he and his family entered the ark. There is no rain at this point; nothing was happening. The rain would not come for seven days, but Noah and his family were already in the ark. That is what faith is. Noah and his family believed that God’s word would come to pass and so they acted on it, even when there was no sign of rain.

Anyone will enter an ark when it looks like rain is coming, but how many people would do so seven days ahead of time because God said rain was coming? In the same way, the rain of the Armageddon is coming for us; the question is, will we enter the ark now?

In Genesis 7:7 we read, “And Noah and his sons and his wife and his son’s wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood.” PGM Here we must note that Noah did not enter alone, but with his entire family. My question to you, then, is not just, “Have you entered?” or “Have you entered with your family,” but “Have you entered with all the members of your family?” This is the divine order of salvation. The Philippian jailer called out, “What must I do to be saved?” And the answer came, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved-you and your household” (Acts 16:31).

In Genesis 7:16 we read, “Then the Lord shut him in.” That means security. If the door was not shut, there would be no safety from the waters of the flood. Notice, God did not ask Noah to do that job; he shut the door himself. God himself is our security and he gives us security. In John 10:28 Jesus tells us, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”

In verse 18 of Genesis 7 we read, “The ark floated on the surface of the water.” What a way to live! In the midst of all the troubles and turmoils of the world, Noah and his family were floating. Outside there was destruction and danger; inside, there was security and peace. The Lord drowned all the wicked and saved those who believed and entered the ark.

The door of the ark, then, represents the entrance to God’s kingdom. As long as the door to the ark is open, there is opportunity to be saved. The open door means the patience of God, as Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3. The open door means the availability of God’s grace for all who seek him. For one hundred and twenty years the door remained open while Noah preached the gospel. But it was shut on the seventeenth day of the second month in the six hundredth year of the life of Noah.

The Bible tells us only eight people were saved. As I was studying various commentaries, I did not find any discussion of how many people were living on the earth right before the flood. So I came up with my own conservative mathematics. Assume that the total pre-diluvian population was eight thousand people. Obviously, that is an extremely conservative figure, and I am sure it could easily be eighty thousand, or a million. But it makes no difference. If we assume that eight thousand people were living on the earth, then calculate that only eight people were saved, how many people perished? The answer is 99.9 percent! That gives us some idea of what Jesus meant when he said, “Few will find the narrow road.” Few will walk on the narrow way. Few will enter through the narrow gate.

In 1 Peter 3:20, in reference to this flood, Peter said that only a few were saved, and then he further specified how few there were: “eight in all.” I don’t think that calculus changed. It is the still the same: few are saved.

The End of Grace

As we said before, after Noah and his family entered the ark, God himself shut the door. There is an end to grace. In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God tells us, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” But perhaps you have been telling God, “Not yet, not yet. Lord, I don’t want to forsake all my sin yet.” There is coming a day when the door will be shut for you, when grace will come to an end. God himself will shut the door, and the Bible tells us no one can open it.

We find this idea clearly illustrated in Matthew 25. There were ten virgins, five wise and five foolish. The foolish virgins did not have oil for their lamps, so they went to get some. But at midnight the bridegroom came and those who were ready entered in. The door was shut, and when they came back, the foolish virgins tried also to enter, but they could not.

If you die without trusting in the only Savior, it means the Lord has shut the door to his eternal salvation for you. If you haven’t trusted in Christ for your salvation, you must realize that any day God may shut the door and you will be found excluded. Don’t tell me you are young and therefore have many days to decide to trust Jesus Christ. No one will live one day longer than our Sovereign God decrees. Our times are in his hands.

In Luke 13:23-24 the Lord Jesus Christ himself spoke about the limited period of grace. Beginning with verse 23 we read, “Someone asked him, ‘Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?'” You see, these people understood the gospel but they did not want to believe it. They were like modern people who hate the gospel and mock Jesus Christ and anyone who believes in the Bible. Such people love diversity of every kind except when we tell them the gospel.

So the people asked Jesus, “‘Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?'” What was Jesus’ answer? “He said to them, ‘Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.'” We find a similar statement in Matthew 7:13-14, where Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

In Luke 17 Jesus also spoke about this time between his first and second comings, the period of grace and patience, in which the gospel is preached. In verses 26-27 we read, “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.” Here we find Jesus Christ himself certifying the historicity of the great flood and then saying, “That is nothing compared with what is going to happen when I come again!”

Are You in the Ark?

As Noah did, we also are living at a time of great wickedness, especially in the area of sexuality. Not only Eastern man, but especially Western man hates the true God who revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Most modern people find extreme delight in living lives that are opposed to God’s moral order. Great indeed is man’s wickedness!

God sees our wickedness and the imaginations of our hearts. Nowadays we have machines that can measure the waves of our physical hearts from the outside, but there is no machine that will measure our sinful imaginations. But God knows our hearts and measures them. He reads all our thoughts. Nothing can hide from his all-seeing eye.

This all-seeing, all-powerful God has a plan to deal with our sin. The Bible tells us that the wrath of God is being revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. But in his mercy God has also revealed a way of escape from the coming great Armageddon of divine judgment. As we said at the beginning of this study, Noah’s ark was pointing to God’s Son, Jesus Christ. God gave him up so that whosoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of all who trust in him; there is no other Savior. He is the atoning sacrifice that Noah’s sacrifice pointed to. He is the ark of safety. He is the door. He is the way. He is the truth. He is life. He is salvation.

The question is, have you entered the ark of safety? In other words, are you in Christ? Have you entered the ark with your family? Have you entered it with all your family? Have you believed in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation?

The Bible promises that whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son shall not see life and the wrath of God will abide on him forever. That is the great Armageddon.

As Noah preached for one hundred and twenty years, we now are also preaching the way of righteousness and salvation. The Bible tells us, “Now is the acceptable time and now is the day of God’s great favor.” It is speaking about the inter-adventual period, the period between the two advents of Jesus Christ. It is the period of God’s patience.

Soon the door will be shut and everyone who refused to believe in Jesus Christ will be shut out. But we must not think this will only happen at his second coming. Our own door can be shut at any time by death. We have no control over these things. God alone is sovereign, and our time is running out.

So I must ask you again: Have you found grace in the sight of God? Are you righteous and blameless before him as Noah was? Many people say they are Christians, but they do not worry about living holy lives before God. But Jesus said, “You shall know them by their fruit.” He said, “I am the vine; you are the branches,” and as branches we must produce fruit, more fruit, and much fruit. We oppose any salvation that is based on “Just believe.” Proof of grace is faith in Jesus Christ and proof of faith in Jesus Christ is obedience to Jesus Christ.

What about you? Do you walk with God? Do you try to please God by doing his holy will? Do you seek first his kingdom? Or are you like the wicked people of Noah’s day who had no time for God because they were engrossed in their own pleasures, whether it be eating or drinking or marrying and being given in marriage.

How many of us are busy doing everything we think we must do, saying to ourselves, “Heaven can wait. God can wait. It doesn’t make any difference. It is all mythological, anyway-well, I hope it is mythological.” Throughout the world we see the increase of wickedness and engrossment in the affairs of this world. But, as it was in the days of Noah, so now God’s wrath is also against sinners. As in the days of Noah, there is coming a great Armageddon in which the vast majority of people will be destroyed.

Therefore, let me ask you again: Are you in or are you out? The Bible speaks of the salvation of only a few-of those who take refuge in Christ, the ark of safety. How can someone be in Christ? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”

I pray that we will listen to what God is speaking to us to us today. Just as God told Noah, “Come in! Come into the ark,” today he is telling us, “Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” It is interesting to note that in Genesis 6 God told Noah to make rooms in the ark. The word for “rooms” there means “nests.” In Jesus Christ we find our rest and a resting place. He is the ark and we come into him by faith in his person and work. When we come to him, confessing that we are sinners in need of salvation, he will show mercy to us.

In Revelation 22:17 God tells us, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!'” This is speaking about the Holy Spirit and the church of Jesus Christ. Then we read, “And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.'”

What are you trusting in? Uncertain riches? Uncertain health? Uncertain beauty? Uncertain human relationships? I want to give you a choice: Our Lord Jesus Christ is able to wipe away your sins and save you, or, as Judge, he will wipe you out. Because you are hearing this message today, that means the door is still open. You can still can come, enter, and be safe.

Therefore, I urge you to use your mind to think God’s thoughts, that you may find your rest and resting place in Jesus Christ. May you enter into him today and be safe. Amen.