Last week here in Genesis 6,
we saw that spiritual adultery of the sons of God with the daughters
of Cain, there in verse 1 and 2. How that was fair, it was
beautiful, it was appealing. They took themselves wives and
they forsook the Lord. But we also saw the Lord's long-suffering
there in verse 3. He said, I will not always strive
with man. 120 years I'll give. 120 years. I gave them time for repentance,
room for repentance. Gave Noah to preach to them for
120 years. Tell them the truth about themselves,
the truth about Christ. 120 years He gave them. But it says, I want to look here
this morning, I didn't touch on it last week, the repentance
of the Lord. It's something we ought to cover. It says in Genesis
6 verse 5, 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. And the Lord said, I will destroy
man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man
and beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for
it repenteth me that I have made them. Man fell, and it repented
the Lord and it grieved him in his heart that man fell. But there was consequences outside
of ourselves when we sinned. Birds had it coming. Cows had
it coming. Because of what man did. There's
always a secondary consequence. We don't just do things to ourselves.
What we do affects other people, doesn't it? Other things. But
sin had been on this earth for 1600 years at this time. From the fall of Adam until Noah. And you know why God sent that
flood? You know why God killed every living thing? Because it
repented him and it grieved him in his heart. That's a hard thing to deal with. You want to preach on that? I
had a friend of mine. Boy, he'd argue with me all the
time. He said, Kevin, does God change his mind? I said, absolutely
he doesn't change his mind. He said, oh, it repented him.
He said it repented him. That's why he sent the flood.
Before we make an assumption about the character of God, before
we go teaching others what we think and what we feel and what
our assumptions are, we might ought to sit down and study it
real good and know what words mean. Before we go shooting that gun,
we might all decide what the ammunition is and what our target
is and what's beyond our target. We ought to think about those
things. The Lord said in His Word, there in Numbers 23, God
is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man, that's
a lowercase s. He's not human, that he should
repent. Hath he said, and he shall not
do it? Nor hath he spoken, and shall he not make good on it?
He hasn't changed his mind. He says in Malachi 3.6, for I
am the Lord, I change not. Therefore, because of that, that's
important isn't it? Because He does not change, you
sons of Jacob aren't consumed. That's important. We need to
understand what that means. We need to look at that. We need
to spend some time on that. And if you get your concordance or
you get your Hebrew lexicon, there's five meanings of the
word repent and those conjugations of it. Repentance, repenteth,
all those things. 112 times it's mentioned in the
scriptures. But there's five meanings to
it. The first one is a change of mind. We know that. A turning. Repentance is a pilgrimage from
the mind of the flesh to the mind of Christ. We turn from
what we are to Him. What we think to what He says.
We turn, a change of mind. The second meaning is irrevocable.
That don't make sense, does it? Repentance means irrevocable. It can't be changed. But doesn't
that mean change? Yeah, it does. It means change
of mind, but it also means irrevocable. That's what Paul used in Romans
11. He said, for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. They're irrevocable. It means
retreat. Those armies of old, we read
there in the Old Testament, they'd be fighting and they would retreat
on the battlefield. And the Lord worded it, they
repenteth. They repented. They turned and ran. They retreated
from what they were doing. It means to regret, to care afterwards. That means you've experienced
something and you look back on it, hindsight's 20-20, and you
go, ugh, I regret doing that. Our God is a proactive God, not
a reactive God. He knows all things, controls
all things, and wills all things after His good countenance, His
pleasure. is wisdom. That's not what it's talking
about, is it? The last one is to breathe strongly, to comfort
oneself, to sigh. That's me repenting. This is
the best illustration I've ever seen of this. I'm going to tell
it to you. If one of my children ends up
with a horrible life, if they're in prison, they committed heinous
crimes, they made horrible decisions, or serial killer or something
just terrible. Will I change my mind about loving
them? By God's grace, I'll say no.
I still love them. Will I revoke them for being
able to come into my home or for me to be in their presence?
Will I go visit them in jail? By God's grace, I hope I will.
I won't revoke my presence from them. Will I regret having them? By God's grace, I'll say no.
If they're still breathing, Lord may save them. I wouldn't regret
having them. Will I retreat from being their
father? Will I stop being what I am because of something they
did? By God's grace, I'll say no.
I'm still their father. I'll still be me. I still have
the same vice I've always had. My word wouldn't have changed
if he keeps me. But will I sigh and be grieved in my heart because
of it? You better believe it. You better
believe it. Because I know what's necessary. That's right. How can I understand
that when it concerns me? If that was me and my children,
how can I understand that? It's because I'm a man. I have
emotions. I have love. I have compassion. How can we understand that concerning
our God? How can He breathe strongly? How can He sigh? He's a man. He's the God-man. Our Lord's
not a stoic, indifferent, emotionless God. He's not Mount Rushmore. He's not some stone figure. He
has emotion. He feels. But unlike you and
I, they're from a holy nature. Everything He feels, everything
He does, it's from a holy nature. We have a hard time entering
into that. Because all we know is sin. Our
vision is clouded by sin. We have these cataracts of sin
all over us. We can't see things as they are, as He is. We don't
take away, we don't look away from His holiness. We honor Him,
we fear Him, we worship Him in trembling, but we don't neglect
the fact that He was manifest in the flesh. That's His glory. Emmanuel, God with us. The cross
became a man. part of His glory. Moses said,
show me your glory. And he said, I will. And he put
him in the cleft of the rock so he could see. If I'm jealous,
that's a bad thing. It don't work out good if I'm
jealous. Not God. I'm a man. He ain't a man. He's
not like me. He says, for the Lord thy God
is a consuming fire, a jealous God. He's jealous concerning
His holiness. His justice. And He's perfectly
jealous in a way that we can't truly comprehend on this earth
concerning His people. Throughout the Scriptures, He
said, that's my people, don't you touch them, they're mine.
Oh, and He's right in doing so. He's a jealous God. Whenever
I get angry, I regret to say it happens way more often than
not. When I get angry, that is sin inside of me, that's frustration
inside of me coming out. That's me being angry. Not God.
Not this God-man. Not this perfect one who became
flesh. He said in Psalm 11, God judges the righteous. God is
angry with the wicked every day. When Christ went into that temple,
He purged the temple with that whip of small cords. That scourge
of small cords. And He flipped over tables. And
He was just and holy in doing so. I think I'm right when I
get mad. If I thought I was wrong, I wouldn't
be mad, would I? I think it dropped right into him, so boy, I don't
know. He laughs. We will see him laugh
one day. Won't that be something? He says
he will laugh and mock those that refuse him. If I did that,
if I mock somebody, if I laugh at somebody, because they're
doing something wrong, it's always in pride and self-righteousness,
not our Lord. It's in complete holiness. He
said in Proverbs 126, I also will laugh at your calamity,
I will mock when your fear cometh. A couple of weeks ago I read
there in Psalm 2, he that sitteth in heaven shall laugh, and the
Lord shall have them in derision. Those things are true. And boy,
if we stop there, we're in a sad state of affairs, ain't we? He's
a jealous God. Jealous for His glory. Jealous
for His people. And He's angry with the wicked.
He's angry with sin every day. And He will judge sin. And when
He judges it, He will mock and He will laugh at those that refuse
Him. But He delights to show mercy. And that mercy, that salvation,
he delights in is his son. That's who he gives. That's who
he tells his people of. He sends his preachers and his
prophets of old and everything to tell his people, look to Christ.
He says there in Ezekiel 18, for I have no pleasure in the
death of him that dieth. Boy, I do, don't you? You see
somebody get what they deserve in the courts. Ooh, they got
life and pretty good. That's what they had coming.
I delight in that because I'm a sinful man. The Lord said,
I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the
Lord God. Wherefore, turn and live ye. Look and live. Whosoever, turn to his son. Look
to him. Live by looking to Him. He has
compassion and He feels pity. It says in Matthew 9, when He
saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them because
they fainted. They were scattered abroad as
sheep having no shepherd. Are we fainted? Are we scattered? Are we needy? Are we poor? That's
who He has compassion on. That's who He has pity on. He
gives thanks. Matthew 11, I thank Thee, O Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent and hath revealed them unto babes. Thanks
His Father. He cried. He went up by Jerusalem. He got on top of that hill and
He looked at the city. He beheld the city and He wept over it. He told His disciples, He said,
if you only knew If you only knew, at least in this day, physically
on this earth, the things which belong unto thy peace, the trials
are coming. That's a sign. My children are
going to have to go through some trials. I know, we know that. Young people have to, you have
to stick your finger in a light socket, you have to fall down,
you have to not look whenever you're turning in a car, and
to learn, don't you? I can tell you, but you have
to experience. Our Lord wept, because He knew
what was necessary. He sighed, cried for His disciples,
because He said, you're going to have to go through this. You're
going to have peace. You're going to see Christ at the end of it.
He'll pray that your faith doesn't fail, that your Christ doesn't
fail, and He won't. But it's coming to you. He wept at Lazarus'
tomb, didn't He? He cried. It says, He wept, and
the Jews said, behold how He loved him. Oh, that's the truth,
isn't it? That's the truth. Because the
Lord loves. Because He's jealous over His
people. Because it's pleased Him. He was pleased to call us
His people. Because His heart was grieved.
Because He sighed because of it. Because of all that, verse
8 says, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. How? How can Noah find grace? We looked
at that last week, didn't we? What that grace was, where it
can be found. But it says in verse 9, These are the generations
of Noah. What does all the generations
of Noah begin with? Noah was just man and perfect
in his generations. Noah walked with God. Noah is
a picture of Christ. We know that Ark is a picture
of Christ. We're going to see that next time, Lord willing. But Noah
is a picture of Christ. Was Noah just and perfect in
his generations? Did he walk with God because
he was just so good, because he's so upright, because he's
religious? Of course not. But he's a picture of Christ.
He was in him. Look here in chapter 5, verse 28. It says, And Lamech lived a hundred
and eighty and two years, and begat a son, and he called his
name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our
work and toil of our hands, because the ground which the Lord hath
cursed." Noah's name means resting place, comfort. That's what Noah's name means.
Paul wrote to the Church of Colossians and said, Blessed be God our
Father, even Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercy, the God
of all comfort, who comforteth us in our tribulation, that we
may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble. by the comfort
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. He's the great Comforter.
That shall be His name. Comforter. That's Noah's name. And He's our rest. He says in
Matthew 11, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find
rest for your souls. Noah was a picture of Christ.
It says, Noah was just and perfect. That's our Lord. He's just and
perfect. The works of His hands are verity
and judgment, and all His commandments are sure. They stand fast forever
and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness. He sent redemption
unto His people. It declares the holiness of God
in Psalm 111, and immediately says, He sent redemption unto
His people. Lord repented, he grieved in his heart and because
of that he sent his son to his people, didn't he? Christ our
Noah, we see him in Noah. He commanded his covenant forever,
holy and reverend is his name. Noah walked with God. Our Lord
Jesus Christ walked with his father. He was the father's daily
delight, the scriptures say. He was the glory of heaven itself
and in himself. He came to this earth and He
said, I and my Father are one. Wherever I go, He goes. Every
step I take, He takes. Every word I say, He says. They are one in will, in purpose,
in salvation, in grace, in mercy, and they walk as one. He walked
with Him. If Enoch walked with God, if
Noah walked with God, if every elect of every generation of
his people walked with God, how much more did Christ walk with
our Father? We only walked with Him because
He did. He was just. He was perfect. He walked with
God. And Noah knew the will of God. It says down in verse 13, And God saith unto Noah, the
end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with
violence through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the
earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood.
Rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within,
and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which
thou shalt make of it." What was the will of our great God? who has compassion, who loves,
who is just, who is right in all things, who will in no wise
clear the guilty, who will set in judgment, who delights to
show mercy. People say they want to know
the will of God. I want to know what God wants. I want to know
what God's going to do. Everybody's just turning themselves
inside out overlooking the fleshly things as to what's coming. And
the Lord said, don't you ask those things. You'll be deceived. If you want to know what God's
going to do, you look to what He's already done. He doesn't
change. Look to what's already been completed.
He changes not. If we're going to know anything
about God's will, We are only going to see it in His precious
Son. That's the only place it'll be
found. He said in John 6, For I came down from heaven, not
to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this
is the Father's will that has sent me, that of all which He
hath given me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up again
at the last day. And it goes on and says, And
this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone that seeth
the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and
I will raise Him up at the last day. How's he going to do that? Just like that serpent of brass,
he had to be high and lifted up. Just like Christ the ark
we're going to see next week, it's got to be lifted up above
the whole world in God's wrath, in His waters, His justice. He's got to be exalted. And it's
going to be Him that does it. Look here in verse 14. Make thee
an ark of gopher wood. Make thee an ark. God provided
Himself the lamb. He didn't make a lamb and put
that lamb there. He provided Himself as a lamb. The Lord told
Christ to make you the ark. Make yourself the ark. I'm going
to save my people and you're going to do it. He prepared you
a body to come down to this earth and live for Him. No hands recorded
to help Noah make the ark. coloring books and things as
we grow up. Shem, Ham, and Japheth's there. They're sawing logs. One
of them's lifting a log up. Noah's hammering. Doesn't say
it anywhere in the Word of the Lord, does it? Why doesn't it
say that? Surely that ark was huge. Noah
was just a man. Could he have built that thing?
I don't know, but it doesn't tell us. Why doesn't it tell
us? It says in Isaiah 63, I have
trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none
with me. Christ came to this world, born of a virgin, holy,
upright, unblameable, and by Himself, without any man's input,
help, aid, anything, He saved His people. He fulfilled that
law. He fulfilled the will of God
in saving His people. And He will raise them at the
last day. No one knew the will of God. God told Him. Christ
knew the will of God. He is God. He made Himself that
ark, and He came to this earth, and He fulfilled all the will
of God in Himself. And it says, rooms shalt thou
make in the ark. You're going to be the ark, and
you're going to make rooms in the ark. First thing I thought
of, it said in John 14, in my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I've not told
you, I go to prepare a place for you. Prepare some rooms in
that ark. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also."
He's the ark. He made himself the ark, and
in him is room. Just the right amount. Inside
that ark, there wasn't an empty room, and there wasn't somebody
standing outside the room that didn't have one. It was just
right. Perfect. In the kingdom of God,
in eternity, there's no empty rooms, and there's none without
a room in Christ. There won't be any empty seats
in heaven, and there won't be anybody standing waiting to sit
down. It's perfect. Just right. It says in verse
14, Make thee an ark of gopher wood. Room shalt thou make in
the ark, and thou shalt pitch it within and without. How sure
are we? He's our ark. He's our safety,
our salvation. How sure that those rooms are
secure that's in Him. They're pitched within and they're
pitched without. Why don't you just say pitch
it? That pitch, that's waterproofing. It's like a tarry substance.
Kept the water out. Every drop of the Father's justice,
those waters of His wrath are kept out for those that's in
Him. But not on the outside only. We won't be protected from God's
wrath only. That way we can stay inside and
be all moldy. It's pitched within and it's
pitched without. We weren't just saved from sin.
We didn't just hit the eject button from going to hell. He
gave us a holy nature that cannot sin. You have to be holy to be
in His presence and the possibility of sinning in eternity can't
be there. He said, that's crazy. If you
was at Elon Musk, would you buy a car that might break down?
I want a car that ain't going to break down. I guess he makes
cars, that's probably a bad illustration. But, Almighty the Holy God won't
have the possibility of sin. We are pitched without and within.
Pitched completely. And what's that pitch? It's the
blood of Christ that seals us. We're sealed in Him, fully, eternally,
in His blood. That's our proof. That's our
pitch, that's our proof, that's our assurance, and it's freely
given to His children. His blood. It says in John 6,
26, Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek me not
because you saw the miracles, but because you did eat the loaves
and were filled. Labor not for that which perisheth,
but for that which endureth unto everlasting life. The Son of
Man shall give unto you Him, for Him hath God the Father sealed. Then said they unto him, What
shall we do that we might work the works of God? His sealing
is His blood. He is the sealant. He is the
pitch. And what are we going to do to
get that pitch? Do I have to mix it? Do I have to cook it?
So what can we do to work the works of God? And Jesus answered
and said, This is the work of God that you believe on Him whom
He hath sent. I believe Christ fulfilled the
will of God. I believe that's the one that was sent. He's my
ark that came here. There's room that He made in
Himself for me. He said so. I believe it. We're sealed with that promise
in our hearts, don't we? We know these things to be true.
Paul didn't say, I think I believe in somebody. He said, I know
whom I have believed. He told us in Ephesians 1, in
whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth. You
trusted after you heard. You didn't trust before you heard,
you trust after you heard. In whom you trusted after you
heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In
whom also, after you believed, you were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise. You were pitched. You always
were in Him, you just find out about it, don't you? It's tacky. I touch it and I
stick to it. Cling to it. It clings to me.
Which is the earnest of our inheritance. That's the down payment. until
the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of
His glory." Until we're brought home to glory, until we're put
in that ark, we show up in that room prepared for us, that mansion
He went to prepare. Until we're in Him, this is our
earnest money, His blood, His fulfilling of the will. And that
covenant was made with Noah. It says down in verse 18, But
with thee will I establish my covenant, and thou shalt come
into the ark thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons' wives
with thee." We always talk about that covenant before time, that
covenant of grace. Who's that made with? Noah here
is a picture of Christ, isn't he? A covenant was made. All
this promise, all this work, all this surety, this substitution,
this was declared between the Father and the Son before sin
entered into this world. He chose a people. I don't understand
man's, well I do, why they just talk circles around God chose
the people. That's because they don't believe it. That's why
they talk circles around it. God sent manna to his people. It's
for you. Who's that? I don't know. It's
those that are pitched. Those that stick to him. Those
that he puts in the ark and seals in there. Those that Christ's
blood was shed for. I know that. And when He seals
them, when He pitches them, when He gives them that earnest money,
they cling to Him. They follow Him. They wouldn't have it any
other way. They don't look to themselves,
they look to Him. That covenant before time was made with Christ.
And it was His whole house would come in after Him. Like we read
in Joshua, He's going to cross out Jordan and all the children
with Him. They're going to follow Him. We're called the sons of
God, the bride of Christ, the family of God. We're His house. We're the ones that enter into
Him, that He brings in. And Noah performed that will.
He knew the will of the Lord, that covenant was made with Him,
and he performed it. God told him to do something
and he did it. Why? He believed Him, didn't he? It
says in verse 22, Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded
him, so he did. Hebrew writer tells us, then
he said, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. That's exactly what
he did. He fulfilled the will of the
father. He purchased and paid for the
sins of his people. He died for them. He gave them
his righteousness because he was made our sin is made us and
we was made him. We were made one with him. He
knew the will. He willfully came and did it.
With joy in his heart, he come here. That race set before him. And that will was performed. If Noah built that ark, and I
said, if I built a boat, and I said, we're going to sail to
Hawaii, and I'll say, it's turnkey. You just get in it and go. But,
I mean, there's some other things you're going to have to do. Well, what have I got to do?
I don't want to go to Hawaii. Let's get this thing floating
first, don't we? When Noah built that ark, it was performed. The
will of the Lord was performed in completion. In completion. There wasn't another nail left.
There wasn't another area of pitch that had to be covered.
It was complete. When Christ fulfilled the will
of His Father. When He bought His people. He became one with
them. He hung on that cross. High and
lifted up. Exalted. We beheld Him and He
declared, it is finished. That covenant I entered with
the Father before time, His will, that He's one with, that He's
one with His people, I've come to this earth, I've fulfilled
it. I'm their ark, I'm their room, I'm their pitch, and it's
finished. There's nothing you can add to
it. It's done. In Christ, in His finished work,
there is nothing left to do. Enter in. You and your whole
house. Noah, get them in there. Just
go in. And all of them entered into
the ark. It says in chapter 7, verse 1, And the Lord said unto Noah,
Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for I have seen righteous
before me in this generation. For thee have I seen righteous
before me in this generation. For the house of God, for His
bride, for His people to enter into Him is going to be through
Christ. There's no other way. He said,
you ain't gonna see the Father except by me. He's the only way. He's the only one. And everything
that entered into him, into that ark, had to go by him. There
wasn't a bird that snuck in. There wasn't a bird that was
left out. He had full accountability. It all came through him. And
unto thee, come thou and all thy house into the ark. Peter
told us, he said, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up into
a spiritual house. That's us, isn't it? And holy
priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
by Jesus Christ. What are we going to do to get
in that ark? We're going to come through Christ. What are we going
to offer? Are we going to bring anything? Christ. What's the
ark we're going into? Christ. What's going to keep
us in there? The Lord sealed us in Christ's
blood. Is any water going to get in? No. Am I going to get all moldy
and stinky on the inside? My condensation from the breath
going to tarnish things? No. It's all in Him. You're complete in Him. And that's
a whosoever. Come to Him. All you that labor
and heavy laden. You're trying to put you on boats.
Come to Him. Have rest. Have surety. Have
assurance in Him. time.