GOD’S HEART FIRST
Genesis 8:15-22 (KJV)
And God spake unto Noah, saying,
Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee.
Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him:
Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.
And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis 6:5-6 (KJV)
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
Surely there are many similarities between that passage and the one before us today.
· Both of them involve Noah
· Both of the involve the Flood
· Both of them speak about the heart of man (that it is evil)
· Both of them speak also about the heart of God
· Both of them consider the judgment of mankind
But there are some significant differences between the passages, and it is in those differences I hope to find our message today.
Allow me to remind you of
I. SOME OF THE MORE IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM GENESIS CHAPTER SIX
I said that the word heart is one that derives from an ancient Hebrew concept of our “inside authority.”
The heart is your moral compass.
It’s the instrument by which you chart your course through life.
You determine for yourself:
· What is acceptable and unacceptable
· What is right and what is wrong
· What you will do and what you cannot do
The problem is that your compass is broken.
· Because of wickedness, which is rebellion and disobedience to God and
· Because of evil, which is unhappiness, discontent and anger
The imaginations of your thoughts, your world view, is skewed.
Your moral compass, called the heart, no longer points to true north.
· Disobedience towards God’s Word and
· Discontentment with God’s will
messes up our compass.
Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Do we not now live in a day like this?
II. THE HEART, THE MORAL COMPASS IS SO SKEWED TODAY WE HARDLY KNOW LEFT FROM RIGHT
Three gang members had a shootout in a Seattle McDonalds this week.
· Each of these men had criminal records
· Each of them had been jailed and fined at various times before but
· Each of them, had received reduced sentences and reduced fines
I heard that one fine was reduced from $5000 to $100
I heard that one jail sentence was reduced from 5 years to one month
None of these men could legally possess a gun yet they had them.
When they started spraying bullets around, injuring innocent people, the immediate response was an outcry for more gun control.
· I have read arguments why it would not help to make them serve their full sentence.
· I have heard arguments why it would be wrong to call gang violence domestic terrorism.
And the same people who think we ought to forgive the gang members also consider:
· Spanking children abuse
· Teaching children about God nonsense and
· Banning good people from possessing guns legally is the only solution
One, the other day pled, what else can we do? You don’t want us to put them all in jail do you?
Here’s the problem
Remove God + Remove discipline = Remove good from the moral compass.
So now:
· Killing babies in the womb seems good
· Abominable lifestyles seem good
· Religious extremes like Islam seem good
· Socialist government seems good
But the world thinks:
· A President who speaks at the March for life is evil
· Capital punishment for the most violent crimes is evil
· Reward for personal discipline and hard work is evil
Notice
III. NOAH’S HEART WASN’T ANY BETTER THAN THOSE WHO WERE JUDGED
Genesis 6:5 (KJV)
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Genesis 8:21 (KJV)
And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
I would just like to point out to you that, while we Christians like to blame things on the unsaved:
· It’s the gang member’s fault
· It’s the liberal’s fault
· It’s the unsaved’s fault
But we don’t have to look very far in the Genesis record to learn that Noah and his sons had no better heart than any of those who perished in the Flood.
The only difference was:
· Obedience to God and
· Grace
So then
IV. WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CHAPTER SIX AND EIGHT?
A. In chapter six man’s heart is mentioned before God’s but in chapter eight God’s heart is mentioned before man’s
It’s symbolic, I know.
But it does represent one of the major problems of the human race today.
We put ourselves before the Lord.
· We want our own way
· We want to do our own will
· We want to choose our own course
Even among the most ardent of believers – our prayer lives reflect a desire to get God to do what we want.
· We pick and choose the doctrines we want to believe
· We pick and choose the churches we want to attend
· We pick and choose the people in them we want to befriend
And when things don’t go just how we want them to, we pick and choose all over again.
· We are fickle
· We are self-righteous
· We are proud and
We are stiff necked about getting right.
I said that the word for heart comes from the idea of two pictographs:
· A tent, representing a dwelling
· A staff representing authority or leading
It represents our “inside authority.”
The fleshly nature believes all true authority comes from inside of us.
But in chapter eight the heart of God is put first.
Man’s moral compass is set aside for the righteous standard of God.
· His ways are recognized as higher than our ways
· His thoughts are recognized as higher than our thoughts[2]
And that leads me to the second significant difference
B. In chapter six God pronounces a judgment but in chapter eight God promises to never do that again
I remind you; nothing has changed in the heart of the man.
But the priorities were changed and from this perspective, God chose gave grace.
I therefore want to suggest to you that the way to find grace is through confession.
No man will ever see God’s “moral compass” as better than his own until he acknowledges that his is broken.
· It doesn’t need fixed
· It doesn’t need repaired
· It doesn’t need refurbished
It needs to be replaced.
Confession
It may be the most neglected form of genuine prayer.
1 John 1:5-10 (KJV)
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
I think 1 John 1:9 is one of the most familiar of verses
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
But most of us think that means something like saying, “O Lord, if I have sinned today, please forgive me.” before we go to sleep.
No, no.
Confession is so much more than that.
Confession is an acknowledgment that we are morally corrupt.
Confession is beseeching God for light for our dark path.
Daniel 9:4-19 (KJV)
And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments;
We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:
Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee.
O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.
To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him;
Neither have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.
Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him.
And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem.
As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth.
Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice.
And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us.
Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake.
O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.
O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.
And then notice carefully,
Daniel 9:20-22 (KJV)
And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God;
Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.
And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding.
I am telling you,
· If you want God to answer your prayers
· If you need God to answer your prayers
· If you long for His blessings
If you to have the heart of God….
Learn to confess your sins in prayer.
