Punishment and Preservation

I. The punishment of the flood

A. Genesis 6:-7, 11-13 – Pride of man seen through corrupt living

1. Lustful
2. Thoughts and intentions are on evil continually
3. Earth filled with violence
4. “all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth” – the idea of corruption is to go into ruin, to decay, to become rotten, and to be perverted.

B. Genesis 6:8 – “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

1. Noah lived humbly and his life was pleasant before God.
2. Therefore, God delivered Noah to save himself and his family
3. Hebrews 11:7 – “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”
4. 2 Peter 2:5, 9-10 – “if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly…then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.”

C. The pride of humanity led to a rejection of God’s rule, a corrupt and violent lifestyle, and brought on God’s judgment. The humility of the righteous led to salvation from destruction and the preservation of righteous living.”

II. Pharaoh of the Exodus

A. Israel had been in captivity for about 400 years when God sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh to demand the release of the Israelites.

B. Exodus 5:2 – “But Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go’.”

1. Pharaoh consider himself a god and was worshipped as one, and did not recognize the authority of Yaweh and, with pride, rejected the demand.
2. What was to follow was a series of 10 plagues that not only afflicted Pharaoh and the Egyptian people but was a demonstration of the mighty power of Yaweh over the so-called gods of Egypt.

C. Each of the plagues not only brought a natural disaster but also demonstrated the inability of the imaginary gods of Egypt, including Pharaoh himself, to protect them.

1. Hapi, the god of the Nile, could not stop the Nile from becoming blood and killing the fish and preventing the stench of destruction.
2. Heket, the goddess with the head of the frog, had no control of the frogs unleashed by Yaweh.
3. Geb, god of the earth and dust, could not prevent the dust from turning to lice and attacking the people, including the magicians, leading them to conclude that this power was “the finger of God.”
4. Khepri, god of creation and rebirth who had the head of a fly, could not prevent the flies from taking over the land but sparing the Israelites.
5. Hathor, goddess of love and protection depicted with the head of a cow, could not protect the precious cattle and livestock that was at the heart of the economy.
6. Isis, goddess of medicine and peace, was powerless to prevent the boils and sores from afflicting the people and making them unclean.
7. Nut, goddess of the sky, failed to protect Egypt from fiery hail from raining over Egypt. Some have observed the flax and barley, which were for clothing and drink, would have made their life uncomfortable.
8. Seth, god of storms and disorder, was useless against the locusts.
9. Ra, the sun god and greatest of the gods, could not prevent complete darkness from enveloping the land for three days.
10. And finally, Pharaoh, considered to be a god, son of Ra himself, could not protect Egypt or even his own household from the death of the firstborn.
11. God humbled Pharaoh and the idolatrous Egyptians with His mighty judgment in the plagues and destroyed everything in which they could take pride and enjoyment.
12. Through all of this God preserved His people, especially those who obeyed his word of preservation from the last plague, the death of the firstborn.
    • Exodus 12:7, 12-13 – “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it… For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”
    • They left Egypt to begin a new life as a people of God’s own possession.

God would take care of their physical needs.

God would give them a law to guide them into holiness.

God would provide for forgiveness of their sins.

D. God destroyed the Egyptian pride and way of life in a relatively short period of time but took care of His people and gave them a new opportunity to grow closer to Him and honor Him with their lives.

III. The Bible is full of examples of God humbling, sometimes destroying the proud, but preserving and caring for the faithful who humbled themselves before Him.

A. Nation of Judah

1. The nation of Judah became wicked and God humbled them by destroying Jerusalem and the Temple, which had become an idolatrous source of their pride, and taking them into Babylonian Captivity.
2. Even then, God preserved the faithful and brought them back to the Promised Land to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple to His glory, not theirs, and honor Him with their lives.

B. God destroyed the pride of the Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, and Greek empires who afflicted the people of God but preserved His own people even though they had to suffer for a time.

IV. Lessons for us

A. I want to make this absolutely clear: I am not saying that the virus that is sweeping the earth is the active divine judgment of God.

1. We have no message from God declaring this so anything is just opinion and supposition.
2. But there is no doubt that God has allowed it to bring pain and death to every nation and cause disruption in the economies of the world and the lives of everyone.
3. Whether God brought this as a special act or just allowed it to happen, it is an experience we should learn from as God’s children.

B. Recent post: One would not consider the wrestler Hulk Hogan as a modern day prophet, but he did make a wise observation on the recent coronavirus pandemic: God said, ‘you want to worship athletes, I will shut down the stadiums. You want to worship musicians, I will shut down Civic Centers. You want to worship actors, I will shut down theaters. “You want to worship money, I will shut down the economy and collapse the stock market. You don’t want to go to church and worship Me, I will make it where you can’t go to church.

1. Hulk Hogan attributed it as God’s punishment like the plagues, again, it is supposition to go that far. He also used some passages out of context. But the core of what he said is interesting.
2. It is true that our world has venerated celebrities of sport, entertainment, and business to the point that they are central to our lives, as evidenced by how we spend our money and time.
3. Before the coronavirus, you would find sports on TV year-round and the death of Kobe Bryant captured the attention of the sports world right before this hit.
4. The economy with its high stock market and low unemployment was worshiped as a savior for us all, allowing most of us to live like kings of an ancient era but now we are restricted from eating in restaurants, many have lost their jobs, the stock market dove off a cliff, and experts say it will be one and a half to two years until it recovers. Most expect our post-virus world will be much changed from what we knew on January 1st of this year.
5. Entertainers and musicians have been shown to be as vulnerable as anyone, suffering in fear and some dying from the impartial nature of the virus.
6. And as a final blow, churches have adapted to the danger of the virus and restrictions of the government as we have had to do. Those who took worship and the blessing of assembling together for granted now recognize what a blessing it is and those who are dedicated to the assembling together strongly desire to come together again.
7. Whether directly or indirectly, God has humbled the pride of this world.
   • The scientists of this world who are worshipped as the priests of a new age couldn’t save us from this virus any more than Pharaoh could save Egypt. Even if they come up with treatments, new viruses and diseases will emerge to humble mankind.
   • The politicians, economists, nor the military might of the nations could not slow the speed of the virus or the devastating effect on the economy pouring on the land like the plagues of Egypt.
   • The world’s stability and comfort has been taken away leaving uncertainty and fear.

V. What are Christians to do as we suffer with the world? Remember to take comfort in God’s steadfast love.

A. The promise of Jesus in Matthew 6:25-34 still stands

B. We can have Paul’s confidence in Philippians 4:11-13 – we will find we can do this through Christ

C. Paul was afflicted by a thorn in the flesh but was told in 2 Corinthians 12:9: ” My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness”

D. I want to share something from Gary Henry: My grace is sufficient for you! Do we really believe that? Have we come to terms with the fact that God’s grace can sustain us through the loss of anything else? Indeed, do we accept the truth that if we lost everything else, God’s goodness would be enough for us?

E. It may be, as has often been said, that we don’t learn God is all we need until God is all we have. The abundance of so many other blessings often deludes us into thinking that we have to have those things. But we do not. There is not one thing, other than God, that we cannot do without! When a Christian says, ” I could not bear the loss of ________ ,” he is making a foolish and faithless statement. God’s grace is sufficient. Anything else we can’t part with is an idol. In fact, anyone else we can’t part with is an idol (Mt. 10:37; Lk. 14:26). And if being stripped of lesser blessings is what it takes to teach us that God is all we need, then we ought to be thankful for such deprivations. ” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9,10). As recipients of God’s grace, we can surely be thankful for the sufficiency of God’s help. But it’s important to remember that it is in Christ that that help is available. (Grace to Help in Focus Magazine, December 1998)

VI. Scott will now lead “God Will Take Care of You”, 379