Let's go first.
Let's go.
Let's go first.
Okay.
Chasing ceases.
You know, the judgment came to an end.
The reigns of heaven stopped, the fountains were stopped, but it took a long time for that judgment, that water, to finally recede.
Okay.
Consequences may continue even after we've been chastened.
So this is, you know, and this is all warning to not, you know, we'll say how do I avoid that?
Don't sin in the first place.
You know, obey God's word.
You know, fear God, do good, and walk in the fear of God.
You know, obviously none of us is perfect.
We're gonna make mistakes when we do.
Confess it, forsake it, and have mercy,
but don't have this attitude of, well, God's forgiving
so I'll just go ahead and sin
and just deal with whatever the consequences are,
you know, because God's not gonna stay angry forever.
He won't be, but who knows
how long the consequences are gonna take.
You know, I won't take the time
to turn us to Galatians 6.
Galatians 6, we all know Galatians 6, I'm assuming,
or we've probably at least heard it so many times
if we've been coming to church for any length of time,
that God is not mocked, that whatsoever man soweth,
that shall he also reap.
That's an inescapable law, and it goes on and says,
you know, if we reap to the flesh,
we shall have the flesh reap corruption.
If we sow to the spirit, we shall of the spirit
reap life everlasting, meaning that reaping and sowing
in and of itself is not a negative thing.
It's benign, it's neutral, okay?
It can work for us or against us.
You know, we can sow to the spirit and reap.
You know, we can reap God's blessing in our life,
or we can sow to the flesh and reap corruption.
And note that, and by the way,
Galatians 6 makes it pretty clear
that those are your only two options, that's it.
You're either doing one or the other in your life.
You're either walking in the spirit,
sowing to the spirit, or you're walking in the flesh
and sowing to the flesh.
Either way, we will reap, okay?
We don't wanna go and just sow to the flesh
and just say, well, I'll have a little harvest here of sin
and the consequences, you know,
we don't know what that sin will bring forth over time.
It could be way worse than we ever anticipated.
But I wanna move on beyond that,
and maybe I'll try to make this tie in here
with the rest of this chapter.
But if you look at verse six, it says,
and it came to pass at the end of 40 days
that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made,
and he sent forth a raven which went out to and fro
until the waters were dried up from off of the earth.
So, you know, I've read this,
I don't know how many times I've read this story
and wondered about the meaning of this raven.
Like, why is it that,
because then he's, we know the story,
then sends out a dove twice, right?
That dove returns, he sends it out again.
But I always wondered about this.
Like, why is, what is the raven?
What's the purpose of even giving us this detail?
It just, it says it went out and it didn't come back.
Right, it gives us a little bit more detail.
It says that it went forth and went to and fro
until the waters were dried up from off of the earth.
Okay, so it sounds like the raven went out
and just flew around for that.
I don't know if it just kind of glided
and just doesn't say that it just never returned.
It just says that it went to and fro
until the waters were dried up.
You know, which is kind of an interesting detail.
So it makes it sound like the raven,
it didn't go out and drown or die.
It just had to kind of just go out there
and did not come back into the ark.
It was just out there waiting for a place
to find some rest, okay?
You know, and I've often thought about this.
Like, what does this mean, okay?
But I think, you know, and I'm gonna try
to give us some possible symbolism here, you know?
And I think, you know, it's hard to tell sometimes
how much I'm just projecting onto the scripture,
you know, from my own personal experience, you know?
But either way, if it makes good application,
you know, preach it, right?
As long as people can get something beneficial out of it,
we'll go for it.
You know, I'm sure there's probably somebody out there
who's much more learned, you know,
and has some great explanation that makes way more sense.
But this is my take on it as of today, okay?
First of all, let's point out the fact
that the raven here is an unclean beast, okay?
Beast meaning animal.
And that's clearly detailed in Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14,
where he's giving out the dietary restrictions
to the nation of Israel, right?
And he says that these certain fowls are abominations,
among which is the raven after his kind, okay?
So very explicitly, this is an unclean animal.
They were not permitted to eat it,
yet it's repeated in Deuteronomy.
Also, we see that this raven
is often associated with judgment, you know,
this being the first example, okay?
We had the example in Genesis chapter eight
of God's judgment,
and we see the raven making an appearance, right?
But also in Isaiah chapter 34,
where God is pronouncing judgment on other nations,
I believe it's Basra and Idumea,
where he's pronouncing judgment on them,
and he's describing this judgment,
and he says in verse 11,
but the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it,
the owl and the raven shall dwell in it,
saying these are gonna be desolate places
where the owl and the raven and these other beasts dwell,
because there's not gonna be anybody else around, right?
So you see that the raven
is not necessarily a good thing, right?
Obviously, the animal in itself is harmless.
There's nothing inherently evil about a raven.
In fact, ravens are actually pretty cool birds, you know?
They get kind of a bad rap,
but they're actually incredibly intelligent,
and they're huge, you know?
I used to always think that crows and ravens
were the same thing,
and I'm pretty sure they're not, okay?
Crow is actually, I think it's the smaller of the two,
because we had a lot of these in Michigan.
I had a lot of crows, but when I moved out here,
that was when I first started seeing actual ravens,
and my word, those are giant birds.
Like, I would not wanna tangle with one, right?
When it talks about in Proverbs
about the raven plucking out the eye of one
that would mock at his father and mother,
that's like, that's a pretty intense scene.
That's a big bird that's doing that, right?
It's not gonna take a whole lot of pecking, okay?
Big, big bird, you know?
It's gonna get that eyeball in one snatch.
It's got a giant beak on it, right?
But these, you know, and they're incredibly intelligent.
I mean, ravens can open things, I believe.
They've learned how to, like, I think I've seen, like,
videos of them opening people's coolers
and getting stuff out.
So I'm just defending the raven a little bit, okay,
before I completely throw it under the bus tonight, but.
You know, it's not an inherently bad bird,
but it is unclean, according to the scripture, right?
Back then, it's not something
that they were permitted to eat,
and it's associated with judgment,
probably because that's the kind of bird
that would show up where man wasn't around.
Although I see them a lot now in, you know,
up in Phoenix and metro areas,
in heavily populated areas, they were always around.
But getting back to the scripture here,
what is the symbolism of this raven?
Well, we've seen already what it is.
It's unclean, it's associated with judgment,
but in contrast to the dove,
you know, a dove is a clean beast,
because that's the other bird that's set loose, right?
Verse eight, he sent forth also a dove
to see if the waters were baited
from out the face of the earth.
The dove found no rest for the sole of her foot,
and she returned unto him into the ark,
for the waters were on the face of the whole earth,
and he put forth his hand, and took her,
and pulled her in unto him of the ark,
and he stayed yet other seven days,
and sent again the fourth, the dove, out of the ark,
and the dove came into him the evening,
and low in her mouth was an olive,
excuse me, olive leaf plucked off,
so no one knew that the waters
were baited from off of the earth.
So the dove is this other bird that's being let go.
Contrasting that with the raven, the dove is a clean animal.
It was an animal that was used heavily in the sacrifices.
It was present at, or it was just,
the Holy Spirit is described, rather,
as descending upon Christ at his baptism as a dove, okay?
And people can debate whether it means
it literally looked like a dove,
or it was just like the Holy Spirit
fluttered down or something, I don't know.
Okay, but either way, the dove is mentioned there,
so these are good mentions, right, that's the point,
and this is something that they use in the sacrifices.
And also, in this story, this is where we get
a lot of our symbolism of a dove being that of peace,
right, let me say that again, that from this story,
you know, is where we get the symbolic nature
of the dove representing peace, right?
In fact, even with the olive leaf being plucked off,
that's where a lot of people speculate,
we get the saying, extending an olive branch to somebody.
You know, if you've ever had beef with somebody,
I know nowadays we'd say that we squash it, right,
as I always say, you squash the beef, okay?
Well, another way of saying squash the beef is,
I extended an olive branch to them, right,
meaning I made peace with them,
I gave them an offer of peace,
and said, hey, let's squash this beef that we got,
right, and that's from this story.
You know, at least that's what some people believe,
because it's, you know, the dove is coming back
at a time of judgment, is coming back with that olive leaf
showing that God did not forsake Noah,
that he did not utterly destroy man,
that God, in a sense, is squashing the beef,
that God, in a sense, is extending an olive branch
towards man and saying, you know,
you've gone through judgment, now it's peace, okay?
So the dove in the story obviously represents these things.
It represents peace, rest, God's forgiveness,
and a new beginning, right?
It's a symbol of peace and rest,
whereas if you notice, again, the detail of the raven,
the raven went forth to and fro
until the waters were dried up, okay?
So I believe that what it's saying here
is that that raven eventually did find rest
for the sole of its foot, just as the dove did,
but in that, during the, it had to,
it did not return into the ark until that
earth was able to take place, does that make sense?
That it was out there, flying, soaring, having to work,
it had no rest while God's judgment
was upon the face of the earth, okay?
So there's some symbolism there,
there's some application that can be made.
Both of these birds are being let go
in the midst of judgment.
I mean, that's what the flood is.
That's, it's God's judgment, you know,
manifest in our world in a very real way.
But only one of these birds found rest in it, right?
Only the dove, during that judgment,
was able to come back into the ark
and was received by the hand of Noah
to be let out again and then to find
what it was seeking, that evidence that, you know,
the dry land had appeared, okay,
and was brought into the ark again.
Those are interesting details, okay?
The raven does not return,
it just stays out there until the waters are dried up,
whereas the dove comes and goes from the ark, okay?
And what I want us to understand,
what I believe the application is that, you know,
evil is going to befall the righteous
and the wicked in this world, okay?
Just as Jesus said in Matthew five,
he caused this rain and sun
to come upon the evil and the good, right?
So here also we see that these,
both of these birds are gonna go out
into the midst of God's judgment, right?
One has rest, one does not.
One is an unclean animal that is associated
with judgment and destruction, and there is no rest, okay?
And the Bible's very clear that there is no rest
to the wicked, right?
Whereas you have another bird, the dove,
which is a symbol of peace,
which is using God's sacrifices,
which is something that is sanctified,
that is finding rest.
Both are in the midst of judgment, okay?
And what I believe the application we can make
is that evil is going to befall the wicked
and the good in this life, okay?
And if you would, go to 2 Corinthians chapter number one.
What I'm trying to say is basically this,
is that the Christian life is not a guarantee
or a safeguard against suffering in this world, okay?
We're going to be a part of this world,
whether we like it or not, you know?
And some people under the umbrella of Christendom,
you know, they seek to escape the world
and the evils of it, right?
You think of the Amish and others,
other obscure cults perhaps that you don't know about,
people that just wanna leave the world behind
and try to just shelter themselves
and escape the evil of this world.
But that's not what we're called to do.
Jesus prayed that the Father would not take his disciples
out of the world, but that he would keep them in it
and by not keeping, like make them stay there,
but keep them to himself in the midst of that world.
You know, we have to be in the world, but not of it.
Okay, we can't escape being a part of a wicked world.
And because of that, you know,
we're gonna see God's judgment too.
We're gonna see suffering, right?
I mean, that's what the flood represents.
The flood represents destruction.
Obviously, as a result of that, a lot of people suffered.
I mean, they died, they drowned.
I mean, it's, you know, it's a horrible death, right?
We're gonna see, you know,
I'm not saying we're gonna see people,
but we're gonna see suffering in this world.
Just like these two birds, the raven and the dove,
right, they're both in the midst of it.
However, one of them had rest.
One of them was able to return to the ark and have rest.
And what is the ark representative again?
We already went over that.
It's a picture of Christ, right?
You're safe inside the ark.
You're safe in Christ Jesus.
The door in the side, you know,
could be symbolic of the wound in his side.
It had the one window that was looking upward,
you know, meaning that's the only direction you're going.
When you're in Christ, you can only look up, right?
But it's also in the midst of that judgment,
and that dove is able to return to that ark.
We're both gonna be in this world.
You know, the unsaved and the saved
are gonna be in this world.
We have the benefit of being in Christ,
of finding rest in the midst of judgment,
of finding rest in the midst of a wicked world.
The wicked, the people who are without Christ,
they have to just keep laboring,
and laboring, and laboring, right?
They don't get to come back,
they don't come back to the ark.
They bring no symbol of peace.
They don't bring any good news, right?
They're just out there coasting with no rest.
I believe that's, you know,
some application that can be made here tonight.
If you, where'd I have you go?
2 Corinthians 13, or verse one, chapter one, excuse me.
2 Corinthians one, okay, is where you need to be.
Let me stop asking you where you are
and just tell you where you need to be.
The Bible says in Romans 12, while you're turning there,
that we are to rejoice in hope
and be patient in tribulation, right?
And obviously, Paul is referring
to a very specific kind of tribulation
that he experienced in his day,
actual persecution, real tribulation.
That's why he said we must, through much tribulation,
enter into the kingdom of God.
Paul is speaking probably more particularly
about the persecutions that he suffered
and that other Christians would be suffering at that time.
We don't suffer like that today,
at least not United States of America.
You know, we might have to put up with, you know,
a dirty look at work or something,
or someone's making a rude comment on YouTube,
or what is that?
You know, that's not even worth mentioning.
It's not in the Fox's Book of Martyrs, right?
It's just not there.
However, you know, we are gonna go through tribulation
in this world just by being alive,
just by being part of a wicked world.
You're gonna go through things.
You're gonna go through tribulations.
You're gonna go through suffering, okay?
And you know, this might not fall, you know,
quite so close to home for the younger among us,
but those of us that have lived a little bit,
I'm not saying that young people can't experience this,
they can go through things early on in life as well,
hopefully not, but you know,
this might speak a little more closely to those
that have actually seen this firsthand in their lives.
And it will come to all of us in some shape or form.
Everyone's gonna have a loved one
that gets sick and dies.
Everyone's gonna have some tragedy befall them,
or someone that they care about in this life.
It's inescapable.
It's going to happen.
Christianity, Christ is not just, you know,
some way to negate suffering in this world.
If anything, you know, it just opens you up
to another kind of suffering, right?
And on top of the suffering
that we're all gonna go through.
The ravens out there in the flood,
just as much as the dove is,
they're both being turned out into this judgment.
The only difference between the one and the other
is that the one had somewhere to come back
and get some reprieve, and have some rest,
and have somewhere to return to,
to be saved and to be kept warm, right?
They had solace, okay?
That's what we have.
Even though we might open ourselves up to
even potentially more tribulation than we otherwise would
by being saved, by standing for Christ,
we still have the consolation
that Christ will comfort us in all our tribulations.
That's what he says in 2 Corinthians chapter one,
verse three, blessed be God,
even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.
Our God is a God of comfort,
who comforted us in all our tribulation.
Does not say that he comforts us
by keeping us from tribulation.
It's that when we're in the midst of these tribulations
that we go through, God is there to comfort us,
if we'll return to that arc, so to speak.
Now, I know the arc is very symbolic of salvation,
but for the application's sake tonight,
we could also say that that arc represents that comfort,
that's available to us, if we choose to return,
if we choose to be more like that dove in life,
and go back, and be in Christ,
and to walk with him, right?
Or, you know, we could just go out and be like a raven,
and just labor under our own power, and finding no rest.
But God is there to comfort us in our tribulations,
that we may be able to comfort them
which are in any trouble.
By the comfort wherewith we ourselves
are comforted of God.
That can be a little bit of a tongue twister,
but what he's saying here is that
God comforts us in our tribulations.
He allows us to go through these things,
and comforts us in the midst of them,
so that we also can comfort other people, okay?
With that same consolation wherewith we are comforted.
God encourages us when we go through things,
and then we can be that same encouragement
to somebody else, okay?
You can be that sympathetic ear, right?
You can be that person who knows what you're going through.
You know, and not just, oh, sorry, I feel sorry for you,
but actually know what another person is going through.
Say, why does God permit us to go through
through some of these things?
Because one, it's inevitable, we're gonna go through it.
And two, you know, somebody else is gonna have
to go through those things,
and maybe we can comfort them, okay?
Now, the other thing I want to point out in this story
to kind of back up this point that I'm making,
and if you would, go over to 2 Corinthians chapter four,
is to think about this from Noah's perspective, right?
When he's letting out these birds.
It's not like he's following them around.
They are just kind of disappearing into the sky, right?
They're flying off, and eventually they're just gone.
They get out of, you know, his line of sight,
or beyond, which, you know,
his vision is able to see them.
They get far enough away that they just kind of disappear.
Anyone who's ever flown a drone knows what it's like, right?
When they get far, that drone gets far enough away,
you're like, where's the home button, right?
I know I've flown a drone, I'm like, where is it?
It's like, oh, there it is, right?
And so from Noah's perspective,
this is kind of what's taking place.
These birds are just kind of disappearing into the sky,
into the heavens.
But, you know, from the dove's perspective,
from the dove's perspective, it's finding rest, right?
It's going, and then it's coming back, okay?
So that's another way to kind of look at the story
is that the raven, it kind of represents the unsaved,
right?
We can.
They're disappearing into the heavens, they're going away,
but they don't find any rest, do they?
When the dove disappears, it finds rest.
It goes and finds that olive branch
and brings it back to the ark, okay?
So we're both going to go through this life
to save the unsaved.
We're both going to have to suffer things.
The difference is, is that the saved
are going to find rest at the end of it,
the unsaved are not, okay?
Look at 2 Corinthians 4, verse 16.
For this cause we faint not,
but though our outward man perish,
yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
The outward man is going to perish.
Life is going to be suffering.
Let's close in order for, I'm just kidding.
You know, like that's not what you want to hear,
but I mean, it's just reality.
It's just true.
I'd be lying to you if I told you anything different.
That life is just going to be a bed of roses.
It's just going to be a cakewalk all the way to heaven.
It's not, you know, and that nothing,
and look here, you say, well,
well, I thought, you know, I'm saying,
I thought it should be different.
Well, you know, you're still alive on this earth.
You still have the old man.
The body is still going to perish.
It's still going to get sick.
You know, I can attest to that.
You know, it's still going to have issues.
It's still going to eventually, you know,
lead you to death.
I'm sorry.
There's just no nice way to say it,
but you know, it's,
we don't like to think about these things,
but you're in church.
You know, if no one else is going to tell you,
I mean, I'll let me,
at least someone in church would tell you that the reality
is that all that's waiting for us at the end of a long
life is probably just a painful death.
It's true.
It's coming to every single one of us.
You know, it's very rare that you get to just,
to be that person that just passes away peacefully
in your sleep.
You just go to sleep and you just don't wake up.
You know, you don't even suffer.
You know, that's reality though.
And that's what's coming to most people.
Okay.
I know this is a very uplifting sermon.
But this is something that we have to kind of
think about from time to time.
Right.
And I am going somewhere with this, okay.
Because, you know, it begs that question,
why does God allow this to happen in the world?
Right.
That's one of the great questions
that philosophers sit around and think about.
If God is inherently good and can only do good,
then why is there evil in the world?
Or more specifically, why does God permit it?
Okay.
Well, you know, I don't know that I have
the perfect answer to that,
but I believe it's a very basic answer.
Okay.
And for sake of time,
let's not get any more depressing with the story.
Let's just move ahead through our story.
You know, you can just,
you can keep something in the second Corinthians four,
maybe we'll come back in a minute.
But let me just wrap up by going to the end
of the story here,
to kind of try and answer that question.
Right.
Why does God allow suffering in the world?
You know, we're both like that raven and that dove,
just because we're saved,
we're not exempt from the same thing
that a lot of the unsaved in this world
are gonna have to go through.
Life is gonna have its suffering,
and it's not gonna be pretty at the end.
It's just not.
We're all gonna have to go through that.
So then we go, well, why?
Why does God allow things to happen?
Why does God let evil in the world?
Why does that take place?
Why do we see these things taking place?
Now look, since I've already kind of just,
you know, been a downer tonight,
let me just double down on that.
That, you know, the world really is a cruel place.
I mean, you know, if you're paying attention,
you see what's going on around it,
you know, it's always been like that,
but it's just, the world's cruel.
It's hard.
Life is tough.
It's not easy.
And so we, you know, but the wrong response
is to blame God for that, to turn back on God
and say, well, why doesn't God, why does God allow that?
Now I will say that's a legitimate question though.
I'm not trying to, you know, scrutinize anybody
that might have that question, you know,
because that's a sincere question
when you think about it.
Why does God allow people to suffer?
Why doesn't God just intervene in every instance?
Why does God allow evil to exist in the world?
Right?
That's a sincere question if it's asked the right way.
Okay?
Why does God allow it?
Some people go too far and they say, you know,
they blame God for being the source of it.
And let's be very clear that God is not the source of it.
We're just gonna jump down to the end here.
In verse 20, and Noah built an altar,
this is after he comes out of the ark.
It took of every clean beast,
and if you remember there was the clean beast,
there were seven, so it wasn't like he was destroying
one animal's mate here, right?
And Noah built an ark and took of every killing beast
and every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings
on the altar.
It makes you wonder if that same dove got sacrificed.
It's like, I knew I shouldn't have come back.
I should have just stayed on that olive branch
and just not come back, right?
Every clean fowl.
And it says, the Lord smelled the sweet savior
and the Lord said in his heart,
I will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake.
And notice this verse, because this is a profound verse.
For the imagination of man's heart
is evil from his youth.
Now that's the exact same thing that God said
before he flooded the earth.
He saw that every imagination of the heart of man
was only evil continually, right?
And he's essentially saying,
I know it's not an exact quote, it's not word for word,
but he's essentially saying the same thing after the flood.
He's saying, imagination of man's heart
is evil from his youth.
He's saying, this is just the way man is.
So who's really responsible for evil being in the world?
Man, right?
So to sit there and say,
why does God permit evil in the world?
Why doesn't God do something about it?
You might not want to ask that.
If God did, you might get more than you asked for,
is what I'm trying to say.
Because what's the source of all evil in this world?
The heart of man.
So if God's gonna step in and do something about it,
how is he gonna do something about it?
He's gonna do something about it with man,
which is exactly what we just read.
That's God, the flood is God eliminating evil
from the world.
The flood represents God stopping evil in the world.
We want, we say, why is there evil?
Why is there suffering?
Why doesn't God do something about it?
Why does he permit it?
Oh, well, you want God to get involved?
You know, well, maybe he'll turn the tap on again
and just kill everybody.
Now I know he made the promise that he wouldn't, right?
But when God gets involved to do something about evil,
it doesn't end well for man.
Man is destroyed because man is the source of evil,
okay, in his heart.
And this also goes against the grain of,
you know, what we hear a lot out there
in the culture today, you know,
different philosophies that are out there
that man is inherently good, wrong.
The Bible teaches the opposite,
that man is not inherently good,
but that man is inherently evil, okay?
The Bible says the heart is desperately wicked,
who can know it?
And that's every single one of us.
You know, even in our own hearts.
Obviously, some people don't control themselves,
they don't temper their lusts,
they give in to all these things
and they become incredibly wicked people.
But look, we all have the potential
to be wicked people.
There's not a person in this room
that doesn't have it in them
to go out there and do wicked, sinful things.
We could all go out there and be just drunkards
and fornicators and everything else, murderers.
We could go right along with the restless world,
we could just be another raven
floating through this judged world, this wicked world,
just doing whatever we please
and not really caring about, you know,
the ark and getting back to it.
You know, we could be like that.
Man is the source of all suffering in this world,
not God.
He said, well, why doesn't God do something about it?
Well, you might not want that,
but the other reason why I believe God
permits evil in this world is because to get rid of it,
he'd have to destroy man, first of all.
But also, God, you know,
he has to allow both good and evil to exist
so that the difference is obvious between good and evil.
So God has to allow evil to come in the world
so that we'll know what righteousness is, right?
Just like you can't appreciate something that's bad
unless you know the good version of it.
If you don't know there's an opposite of that,
how would you know what that is?
You see what I'm saying?
God has to allow evil in the world
so that we can know what the good is, okay?
It reminds me of that verse, you know,
God sets man before destruction and says,
return unto me, you children of men.
God shows man destruction and says return to me, right?
Hell and destruction are before the eyes of the Lord,
how much more so the hearts of the children of men.
God wants man to see the evil.
God wants man to see destruction.
God wants man to know that there's wickedness in the world
so that his goodness will be evident to him, okay?
And you say, well, is that really good of God?
Well, again, consider the fact that the Bible's very clear
that it is the hearts of men
that bring evil to the world,
that's where it all comes from.
Jesus said out of the heart of man
proceed all these things, the thefts, the adulteries,
the cursings, the blasphemies, all these things
come out of the heart of man and defile him.
That's where all evil comes from in this world
is from out of man.
God permits that, okay?
And then in spite of that, says I love you,
I'll forgive you, and shows compassion.
Even in the story, Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord.
And God makes a covenant with man
and that's kind of how the chapter ends there, right?
He sees that the imagination of man's heart
is evil from his youth.
That's the real source of evil.
God permits it so that we'll see how good he really is.
That God loves us in spite of ourselves.
He says, neither again will I again smite anymore
every living thing as I have done,
meaning in the same way.
Verse 22, while the earth remaineth,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,
and day and night shall not cease.
So he makes this promise that although man is evil,
the world will continue to run its course.
There will still be seasons,
there will still be seedtime and harvest,
there'll still be, the world will continue to exist
as it was before the flood.
So that's, you know, that's God showing his goodness.
That in fact, and in spite of the fact
that the reason why evil exists is because of man,
that God will still be good to man
and will not utterly destroy him
from off the face of the earth, okay?
And it's interesting too,
that you see this contrasting taking place
here in this verse, seedtime and harvest.
Harvest, you know, I know we're not living
in an agrarian society.
We might not even know the difference between the two,
but you know, seedtime is when you go out
and sow the seed.
And harvest is work too,
but at least you have something to show for it, right?
You bring in the harvest, then you eat, right?
Seedtime, you go out and do all that hard work
and then you wait, okay?
Cold and heat.
Well, we could debate about which one's worse,
but we all know which one's worse.
It's the cold, okay?
If the cold is worse, believe me,
I know what I'm talking about, all right?
It's summer and winter, you know?
That's the perfect example.
Like we love this time, it's great,
this time of year, isn't it?
Why do you think it's so great?
Because we all know how bad the summer is.
I know, I'm not supposed to bring it up.
I'm not supposed to talk about it this time of year,
but it's an illustration.
Everyone says it, you hear it almost every day
from people that live here.
Oh, it's such a nice day today.
Because I'm not being turned into a puddle, right?
I'm not being melted into the ground, you know?
I'm not like dying of heat exhaustion, right?
It's such a nice day, right?
Do we appreciate the good times because of the bad, right?
God allows evil to exist in the world
so that we'll appreciate his goodness.
Well, but we can only do that when we understand
that God is not the source of evil, that we are.
See, that's where those people go wrong
to ask that question.
Well, why does God permit evil in the world?
They don't, they should be asking themselves,
where does evil come from?
Because then they might be a little bit more careful
to ask that question.
Well, why does God let evil in the world?
God could turn around and say, why are you evil?
If God wanted to stop evil in the world,
he'd have to stop us.
But God permits it, and we say, well, thanks God
for not, thank you, Lord, a holy and righteous God
for not destroying somebody as sinful and as wicked as us
and allowing to us exist in this beautiful world
that you've created and to show us love
and mercy and grace.
You know, the Bible says that God is light
and there is, and in him, there is no darkness at all.
God is light.
We're the ones that bring darkness in the world, okay?
And you know, that's, you know, hopefully you get
something out of that tonight.
You know, I know it's kind of a,
it's kind of a deeper philosophical question
that people ask.
You know, it's not maybe the best answer,
but I believe it's a biblical one, okay?
And maybe it wasn't the most eloquent of answers,
but you know, I think that's pretty logical
when you kind of break that down
because people do wonder about that,
and I think it's an honest question to ask.
Why does God permit evil in the world?
Well, the answer might shock you
because we're the source of evil.
What it should cause us to do is actually thank God
that we have a source even in this life of comfort,
even as we go through the tribulation
that results of living in a wicked world,
the results of our own sins, whatever they may be,
that God is still there to comfort us,
to forgive us, and to see us through
and to have peace with us.
Let's go ahead and close the word of prayer.
Dear Lord, again, thank you for the love
that you have toward us.
Thank you for your patience with us.
And Lord, thank you that you permit us
and allow us to suffer and to be able
to go to you for comfort.
Lord, thank you for being the God of all comfort.
And Lord, when we find ourselves in times of need,
of need that comfort, that we would go to you,
that we would be, Lord, like that dove,
that we would return again to that ark
and that we would be taken in,
and Lord, that we would not just be left
to wander in this world.
And Lord, we just thank you for your love toward us
again in Christ's name, amen.
All right, we'll go ahead and sing one more song
before we go.
If you could turn your song books to song number 169.
We'll end our third week in service
by singing the song number 169.
Come to our sound, begin with the song number 169.
Here we go.
Sing it out.
Praise the fount of God, praise the one who crowns a bloody deed.
Here I raise my hand in his name, even I, I love my God.
Yet I know my light and pleasure, safely I love my God.
Jesus saw me when I shrank, wandering from the fold of God.
He who has seen me from danger, interposes precious to all us.
Oh to grace, how great a bed, nearly I've gone straight to thee.
Let thy good gifts like the giver, guide my wandering hearts to thee.
Wrote to wander, Lord, I feel it. Wrote to lean the water of love.
Here's my heart, oh take it still, seal it for thy heart, Lord.
God bless you brother, God bless you brother, I hope you're keeping up with your Bible reading, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, I hope you're keeping up with your Bible reading, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God bless you brother, God