Safe in a world gone mad. 1. The Promise Declared Genesis 3:15(NIV) And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
Hope: God's promises are stronger than Satan's schemes.
2. A Problem Revealed Genesis 6:1–6 (NIV) 6 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—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. 5 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. 6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
A. The sons of God B. The Nephilim Genesis 6:11–13 (NIV) 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. C. The Agenda The agenda was to corrupt humanity and stop the Messiah—the promised seed—from ever being born.
God's Solution: Wrath and Mercy. Genesis 6:7–8 (NIV) 7 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." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
"Noah shows us that even when the world goes mad, God still preserves a favorable remnant."
Genesis 6:18 (NIV) I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.
The Ark was big enough to carry the world's future, sturdy enough to endure the storm, and secure enough to preserve God's promise.
Genesis 8:1(NIV) But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
3. The Promise Renewed This is what the entire narrative is about: A renewed covenant from God. Genesis 9:1 (NIV) Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.
Genesis 9:1–13 (NIV) 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." 12 And God said this is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every God's creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
Rainbow: The Archer's Bow "Instead of pointing down towards humanity, the archer's bow is pointed up toward Christ."
We are safe in a mad world Ephesians 2:4-7 (NIV) 4 Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were" dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
1. God keeps his promises.
2. We have favor in Christ.
3. His Church will prevail Matthew 16:18(NIV) And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
Close: John 10:9(NIV)I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.
