Pastor Tim Patoka
God’s Zoo: All Kinds of Animals
June 20, 2021
Why did God Save All Kinds of Animals? Genesis 7:6-24 1) Because of God’s Judgment for Sin in the Flood 2) Because of God’s Love for his Believing Children We who live in the Sonoran Desert know how valuable water is, especially as we wait for the monsoon rains to come. I wonder how many thousands, if not millions, of people have been praying that this year’s monsoons rains now only be especially wet to make up for last year’s no-show, but that they shower upon as soon as possible. But sometimes, too much of something can also be a bad thing! Whenever heavy monsoon rains come upon us, we see how those in low-lying places get flooded, driving routes across town get quite creative, and roads suddenly show their age. Every hurricane season we hear how those who live on the coast get bombarded by intense wind and rainfall costing billions of dollars in damage and costing thousands of lives. Even in the babbles of a brook or the rushing of a rapid, we see how water works its destructive force by slowly eroding away its banks to redirect a river’s course or deepen a canyon’s depth. For something that is so essential to life, water sure can be destructive. Yet nothing we’ve seen can compare to the destruction that the waters of the Flood wrecked upon our world. In this God-worked natural disaster, as described for us in Genesis chapter 7, we see how God used it to flush out almost every taint of sin in this world along with countless animal bystanders. Yet God didn’t destroy everything. Rather, he kept alive Noah, his immediate family, and at least 1 pair of all kinds of land-based animals in the ark. As we consider the why and what of God’s Flood upon the world, we’ll ask ourselves, “why did God save all kinds of animals?” It’s first of all because they needed saving from the judgment that God was going to bring upon the world because of mankind’s abundant and persistent sin. But it’s secondly because these animals would be one way that God would show his love for his believing children. 1) Because of God’s Judgment of Sin in the Flood A lot has happened in salvation history since we last met for worship. It’s been around 2,000 years since Adam and Eve fell into sin and the human race has not done all that well. They have fallen into abundant and persistent sin to such an extent that God’s heart is saddened and filled with regret. God decides to end these sinners’ time of grace with a worldwide Flood so that Noah and his believing family could effectively do a restart on the human race. So God tells Noah that he has 120 years to build the ark as sketched by God to house every human and land-based animal that will survive the Flood. And Noah gets to work building this barge that is 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. To put that in perspective, the ark would have been about 1 and a half football fields long, 1
Pastor Tim Patoka
God’s Zoo: All Kinds of Animals
June 20, 2021
half a field wide, and 4 stories tall. While not as big as the average cruise ship, oil tanker, or aircraft carrier, Noah’s Ark remains one of the largest ships ever built out of wood. And as people today ridicule Noah’s Ark, so they surely did as Noah built it over the course of 120 years. Our verses pick it up once Noah has completed the ark. With the ark ready to go, God sends the animals to enter it. As our verses tell us, “They went in with every animal according to its kind, all the livestock according to their kinds, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and everything that flies according to its kind, flying birds of every sort. 15Pairs of all the animals that have the breath of life in them went to Noah in the ark. 16A male and female of each animal that breathes went in, just as God had commanded Noah.” (Genesis 7:14-16b EHV) If you remember from worship 2 weeks ago, the biblical word “kind” is a somewhat technical term that doesn’t have a direct correlation in the scientific world today. The word “kind” refers to a group of animals that are able to breed together that in an animal’s scientific name could be located at the family, species, and genus level. And as God’s Word tells us, the Lord made sure that if there was a land-based animal living before the Flood, at least 1 male and female of its kind was safely stored on the ark. When Noah was 600 years, 2 months, and 17 days old, the preparations were complete. God shut Noah, his immediate family, and all kinds of land-based animals in the ark. And he let loose the long-forecasted Flood. For 40 days and 40 days night the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the sky were opened filling the entire world with water until the highest mountain peaks were submerged by at least 20 feet. And the devastating result of the Flood? As the Bible says, “All living creatures that moved on the earth perished, including birds, livestock, wild animals, every creeping thing that crawls on the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything that breathed the breath of life through its nostrils, that is, everything that was on the dry land, died. 23Every living thing that was on the face of the earth was wiped out, including mankind, livestock, creeping things, and birds of the sky. They all were wiped off the earth. Only Noah was left, as well as those who were with him in the ark.” (Genesis 7:21-23 EHV) Could you imagine being 1 of 8 people left in existence? Could you imagine that the land-based animals you see are the only thing keeping that kind from extinction? Could you imagine how the world as you knew it would never be the same? The waters of the Flood wrecked devastation upon this world greater than any natural disaster we have ever seen. And it happened solely because of God. Why did God let loose the Flood? Why did he need to save all kinds of animals in the first place? It’s because of his harsh judgment of sin. God and sin get along together as well as a lightning strike in Arizona’s bone-dry countryside. They don’t and there is damage left behind. God does not like sin one bit and he won’t stand for it. In fact, he won’t even tolerate anyone 2
Pastor Tim Patoka
God’s Zoo: All Kinds of Animals
June 20, 2021
who has sin credited against them in his sight. When we look upon the abundant and persistent sin that marked the large majority of the human race, we shouldn’t be surprised that he destroyed them all with the waters of the Flood. If anything, we should be surprised that he patiently 120 additional years before ending their time of grace prematurely and flushing out almost every taint of sin in this world. God still has a zero-tolerance policy for sin today as he did in Noah’s day. Yet do we, as children of God, share in that? Or are we more like Noah’s unbelieving neighbors than we care to admit? So often we act as if God’s prohibition of sin was nothing than a mere preference, a slap on the wrist at worst. So often we excuse ours and others’ sinful behavior as understandable weaknesses of the flesh, accidentally done in ignorance, or not as bad as it could have been. We hear of God’s coming judgment when we pass away or when the Last Day comes and abuse his patience to indulge sinful habits instead of repenting of our sins. 2) Because of God’s Love for his Believing Children God needing to save all kinds of animals from the Flood’s destructive waters shows us his harsh judgment of sin. But God’s act of saving those animals likewise shows us his love for his believing children. In love, he kept Noah and his family kept busy for the year and 10 days they were on the ark with caring for the animals. In love, he provided their food supply both during and after the ark. In love, he preserved the immense biodiversity of the land-based kinds of animals that intrigue us to this very day. But why did God do all this only for Noah and his family of 8? It wasn’t because Noah and family came from a different family tree. Everybody who lived before the Flood came from the same two ancestors – Adam and Eve. It wasn’t because Noah and his family made themselves worthy of God’s sight by their actions. Look at what Noah and Ham did in the account following the Flood to see how they struggled with the same sinful nature that every descendant of Adam has, us included. Rather, the thing alone that separated Noah’s family from the rest of the pre-Flood human race was their faith in God and his promises. We don’t know how much of God’s plan for salvation Noah knew besides the promise of a Savior God gave in the Garden of Eden. But regardless of how informed Noah and his family’s faith was, it was the same in quality as our faith today – being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see. And when it comes to God’s harsh judgment of sin that we surely deserve for all the wrongs we have done, there’s one clear promise from God we go to soothe our guilty consciences – Jesus and his salvation. Because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we know that our sins have been paid for and in full measure. And the sinner who believes in this wonderful yet illogical promise has that which God alone can give – forgiveness of all their wrongs, a perfect record before God, and a clean conscience free from guilt. 3
Pastor Tim Patoka
God’s Zoo: All Kinds of Animals
June 20, 2021
With a faith that is the same in quality as Noah and his family’s, we can look forward to God’s coming judgment of sin with peace in our hearts and confidence in our heads. Because we know what God’s verdict will be of us – not guilty of wrongs, freed of all blame, just-as-ifI’d never sinned in the first place. And it’s all because of our faith in Jesus as our Savior. We know the day is coming when God will forever pronounce that verdict upon us whether it be when we pass away from this world or Christ the Lord comes with all his glory on the Last Day itself. Concluding Encouragements And so let us prepare for it accordingly. Why did God need to save all kinds of landbased animals in the first place? Because of his harsh judgment of sin as seen in the Flood’s destructive waters. God will not stand for sin or tolerate its presence. That’s why he flushed most of it out in a natural disaster that we will never see again. While Noah and his family had the same sinful nature as all those who drowned, they uniquely had faith in God and his promises. Out of love for his believing children, God not only saved all his believing children from the Flood’s waters but also all kinds of land-based animals to keep them busy while on the ark and to provide for their food and ours today. With the certainty of God’s lasting judgment being pronounced over us, let us rest our faith in Jesus all the more. He alone is the one who can keep us safe from God’s judgment of sin by taking our sins away and presenting us clean in God’s sight. With a faith that surely trusts in him, let us then reach out to others so they may have the same assurance we do. People we know and love who need us to strongly reminder to make good use of God’s patience in bringing about the Last Day, who need us to give them direction to place their hopes in Jesus alone instead of in something or someone else, who need us to encourage them to build good habits leading to and stemming from God’s Word so we may be as ready to face God’s judgment as Noah and his family was when the Flood came down. Amen.
4