God Is Good, Even in Calamity!

17th Sunday after Pentecost, 10/2/22 Genesis 8:15-22 God Is Good, Even in Calamity! I. He is faithful. II. He is generous. III. He fills us with gratitude. Last week’s news focused our attention on the destruction that hurricane Ian brought to the state of Florida. A storm surge that rose to the ceilings of homes. Powerful winds that snapped stately trees as if they were twigs. Costly boats, once docked safely, now piled up like trash in marinas. Streets and highways turned into rivers of water. Other roadways and bridges completely washed away. Millions of people without electricity to power their homes or clean water to drink. And, unless you’re standing in the midst of it, I don’t think you can fully comprehend it. Photos and videos aren’t able to completely capture the calamity. But now try to expand your view. Instead of one of the states of the US, imagine all 50 of them experiencing calamity. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Now expand that view even further. Imagine worldwide calamity, destruction, devastation, death. You can’t, can you? We simply can’t wrap our minds around such a worldwide calamity. But that was the reality of the worldwide flood which the book of Genesis records. Recall the biblical details. God had told Noah, one of his believers, that the wickedness of the people of this world had sunk to a level that he could no longer tolerate. As the holy God, he simply had to do something. And yet, he would be patient. He would give people all over his creation 120 years to repent. But, at the end of those 120 years, he would destroy all things with a flood. During those years, God used Noah to call people to repent. As that extended time period drew to an end, he instructed Noah in the construction of an ark, which was much like a barge simply meant to float, three stories high. And then, right before the flood began, the Lord led pairs of animals into the ark. However, he had Noah take seven of each of the clean animals. And then the Lord himself closed and sealed the door of the ark. And what followed was a calamity the world had never seen before and hasn’t seen since. The Bible states that the floodgates of the heavens opened as well as the reservoirs of water in the earth. The rain fell for 40 days and 40 nights, but the entire calamity lasted 1 year and 10 days for Noah and his family. In the end, of all the people who had been living on the earth, only eight survived: Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their three wives. That’s it! Try imagining that. Of all the people you know, only you and seven others survive. Outside the ark all human life and all animal life ended. What’s more, as the waters recede, the topography of the earth has changed drastically. It’s not the earth you remembered. And the natural response is to accuse God of being a monster, far worse than any of the murderous villains of world history. How could he do such a thing? How evil! But that’s not how Noah viewed things, and that’s not the way this Genesis account portrays the Lord. Just the opposite. In sending this flood, God was actually good and loving. But how can that be? In far smaller calamities occurring in our lives, we ask the same question. But the truth before us this morning is that God is good, even in calamity. He’s so good, in fact, that he moves us to express our thanks to him, just as Noah did. Do you have a hard time believing or understanding that truth? Then let’s spend the next few minutes digging into these verses before us. I. As with all events recorded in the Old Testament, this one must be viewed through the lens of God’s promise to send a Savior into the world. An earlier chapter of Genesis informs us, “The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings in the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled” (Gen. 6:5-6). But if he was so disturbed by all the evil in the world, why didn’t he blow the whole thing up and start over with a clean slate? Because he had promised to send a Savior. And he was intent on keeping that promise in spite of the fact that the Flood didn’t wash the evil away completely. Did you notice his comment in one of the verses of our text? “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood” (8:21). The Flood hadn’t solved the problem of evil in our world. Only the Savior could do that. The Flood enabled God to preserve a remnant of people who loved and trusted him. God would use the family line of Noah to bring the Savior into the world. In doing so, he was faithful to his greatest promise to sinful humankind. God is good, even in calamity! He is faithful. II. And he showed his goodness to Noah and his family in a number of ways. Noah and his family didn’t have to wonder if there were any other survivors of this worldwide flood. The Lord had told him he was going to destroy all human life outside the ark and, as Noah and his family endured the catastrophic rainfall for 40 days and nights, they were certain no one else survived. But I have to wonder, was their reaction similar to ours when we survive a calamity and others don’t? Did they wonder, “Why me, Lord?” It’s true that these eight people were God’s people by faith in his promise of a Savior, but that meant that they also knew they were just as sinful as the rest of the people in the world. As such, they deserved no good thing from the Lord, only condemnation. But he miraculously preserved their lives. He made sure they had what they needed to live in that ark for more than a year. He made certain that ark stayed afloat. He made sure that its construction didn’t fail. And when he gave Noah the command to disembark from this massive houseboat, he afforded Noah and his family a new beginning in a vast world for them to claim as their own. The Bible tells us that Noah had been just as troubled as God was over the wickedness of the world. That was now in the past. Noah now had a fresh start. Noah then realized how generous God was to him. The whole world was in front of Noah and his family to enjoy. God is good, even in calamity. He is generous. III. And Noah responded to the Lord’s generosity in way that pleased the Lord. “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma.” Think about it. There were only seven of these clean animals—animals suitable as an offering to the Lord—and Noah took some of them and sacrificed them. And it doesn’t appear that there was any hesitation on his part. For instance, he didn’t wonder to himself, “Maybe I should wait to make an offering of thanks to the Lord until I see how things go. Wouldn’t it be wise to allow these seven to produce others and then make an offering to the Lord?” But we hear nothing like that. The animals come out of the ark and Noah built an altar. How could he do such a thing? His offering was based entirely on his trust in the Lord. The Lord had promised to preserve Noah’s life and that’s just what the Lord had done for more than a year through the greatest calamity the world has ever seen. Noah also trusted that, if he offered some of these animals to the Lord, the Lord would provide others to replace them. And from that trusting heart flowed gratitude. Noah and his family members were astounded at how good the Lord had been to them every day of this calamity. He had brought them through without a scratch. He had remained faithful to every promise he had made to them. And their God-pleasing response was, “Thank-you, Lord!” God is good, even in calamity. He fills us with gratitude. What’s your response to a calamity? A storm that destroys your property. An accident that brings injury or even death to a loved one. Incurable sickness or disease. A sudden and substantial loss of money. Do you immediately recall that God is good, even in calamity? Or, do you tend to doubt his love for you? Does bitterness fill your heart? Are you prone to blaming God and even accusing him of treating you unjustly? Those are our natural reactions, aren’t they? But the truth is that our God is always good toward us. Just as the events of the Old Testament must be viewed through the lens of God’s promise to send a Savior, so also every moment of our lives—no matter how great the calamity we’re facing—must be viewed through the lens of the Savior that we have, one we don’t deserve, one which is the astounding proof that our God loves us eternally and he is always good to us. And when we ponder his saving love for us, he fills us with gratitude for his grace and mercy, even though calamities surround us daily. The calamities of sin and wickedness abound in our world, but our God has placed us safely in the ark of his Church, where we find our forgiveness and eternal life. You have that comfort and that confidence every day of your life. Indeed, God is good! Thank him for his goodness with your life! Amen.