with me to the book of Genesis
chapter 7. I'd like to just read the first
six verses and then we'll have a word of prayer and then we'll
consider those verses for a few minutes. Genesis chapter 7. And the Lord said unto Noah,
Come thou and all thy house into the ark. For thee have I seen
righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt
take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of beasts
that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls
also of the air by sevens, the male and the female, to keep
seed alive upon the face of all the earth, for yet seven days,
and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty
nights. And every living substance that I have made will I destroy
from off the face of the earth. And Noah did according unto all
that the Lord commanded him. And Noah was six hundred years
old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. Let's pray. Our Father, as we come before
you this evening, we're thankful that we can read, that we have
a heart to read, a heart to be here, a heart to hear, a heart
to assemble. I pray that you would bless our
time together. I pray you'd bless the gospel
to our understanding, to our hearts. Lord, I ask that you'd
forgive us, for Christ's sake, these things we ask in His name.
Amen. Now the Lord, as we've been studying,
has revealed to Noah that He was going to destroy all flesh
upon this earth by a flood. And in mercy, He instructed Noah
to build an ark that Noah and his family and every type animal
creeping thing might be left alive. God Almighty created everything
that is in existence. He created it in the beginning.
And it's all for the sustaining of this earth and God's people.
There's a reason. And now the Lord, according to
His long suffering, after telling Noah that, He gave man 120 years
before judgment was going to come. 120 years that man might
behold the construction of salvation from the flood. Now, in those
120 years, obviously, man grew harder and harder against God's
word, God's promise to destroy everything that was not found
in the ark. They heard what Noah was preaching. He was a preacher of righteousness.
But the scripture says that there shall come in the last days scoffers,
walking after their own lusts, saying, where is the promise
of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
Men then were like men right now. There's no change in the
carnal heart. The scoffing at the revelation
of God's judgment, 120 years of apparent lack of change as
far as they could tell. There wasn't any change as far
as their environment was concerned. The seasons were all the same.
24 hours in a day, all it did was make them grow more and more
falsely secure in their unbelief. Ecclesiastes 8.11 says, Because
sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore
the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. God told Noah, If you build an
ark, I'm going to give you 120 years to build it. And they watched,
and they watched, and they watched. And the scripture says like this
verse right here, 2 Peter 3, 5 it says, And for this they
are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens
were of old, and the earth standing out of the water, and in the
water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with
water perished. Listen, the Lord Jesus Christ
is coming back in judgment. He's coming back. I'm telling
all of us exactly what Noah told them. Judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. I know what
the carnal heart says. Not today. I hadn't really seen any real
change myself. Everything apparently to me is
as it was for all these many years I've been here. Now, we find ourselves at the
end of the 120 years now, starting in verse 7. 120 years has passed. And now we behold Noah, a vessel
of God's mercy and grace, but also a beautiful picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ being instructed. Noah's being instructed now,
but he's a picture of every vessel of God's mercy. But also he's
a picture of Christ Himself. Now listen to the blessed word
of Jehovah, who obviously was in the ark. Verse 1, and the
LORD, all caps, Jehovah, God was in Christ. That ark is a
picture of the Lord Jesus. God was in Christ. The Lord said unto Noah, Come
thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous
before me in this generation. Now I'm telling you, That verse
of scripture, when you consider those words speaking to Noah,
Jehovah speaking to Noah, and Noah being a picture of the Lord
Jesus, the ark's a picture of the Lord Jesus, Noah's a picture
of the Lord Jesus, and listen to this, come thou in all thy
house, who is that? All God's sheep, the bride, the
elect, the chosen, you come. Come thou and all thy house into
the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation."
God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. He doesn't say go into the ark.
He says come. How tender. How compassionate
our Lord speaks to His people in the hour of our need. The
Lord Jesus tells His own, He says, Come unto Me, all ye that
labor and are heavy laden, and listen to this, I will give you
rest. I will. Come to Me. And a believer, he reads that
and says, Lord, I come. I come. How does a believer come? He comes in his heart. I told
you, you can't explain this to somebody unless the Spirit of
God reveals it to them. You come to the Lord. Someone
will say, I don't understand that. Well, if He ever gives
you a heart to, you will. I don't see what you're seeing.
Well, if He ever gives you eyes to, you will. I don't hear what
you're hearing here. If He ever gives you ears, you'll
hear it. You'll hear. My sheep hear my voice. I know
them. They follow me. Now here the
Spirit of God also, in the scriptures, speaks to needy sinners. In Revelation
227 about coming. Come. Come. And when a believer
hears that, he does. He says, Lord, I want to come.
I just can't explain. I mean, you see, in my mind's
eye, and I'm just fickle. I'm just fickle. You know, I
just can't help but picture, you know, he's seated at the
right hand of the glory of God. Well, all I can do, Mitch, is
think in that thinking, you know, and I don't try to form a picture.
It's just there. When he says, I'm in the midst
of you, I don't know how to say it, but I believe he's here.
He's in our hearts. But the Spirit and the Bride
says, Come. And let everyone that heareth
say, Come. Let him that is of thirst come, and whosoever will. Let him take of the water of
life freely. We hear His voice. His Spirit calls and we follow.
We hear because we hear. We can hear. And we come and
we take the water of life freely because we thirst. I want to
hear, tell me right now, I want to hear what I'm saying. I want to hear it. I want to
say it and I want to hear it. Now, considering Noah as a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ, here the Lord God speaking to His
glorious servant, and all those found in him for the foundation
were come thou and all thy house, For thee have I seen righteous
before me, Christ. For thee have I seen righteous
before me in this generation. Every one of God's sheep being
found in Christ are righteous in him. Being found in him, robed
in his righteousness, but considering Noah as a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, Only Noah was found righteous in Him. But as a picture
of Christ, only Christ is found righteous. So here's the vessels
of God's mercy. They're going to find safety.
They're going to find deliverance in the ark that was absolutely
purposed and provided by Almighty God. That ark that He gave instruction
120 years ago in chapter 6 when we were looking at it. You build
it this big, this tall, this wide. And you put these compartments
in, you put these nests in it, you put these rooms in it. Everything
was going to be in there. There was no afterthought on
God's part. The Lord determined the design,
the size, the capacity just as He purposed the salvation of
every one of His elect according to His good pleasure. I go to
prepare a place for you. In my Father's house are many
mansions. I don't even know how to think
about that. I can't, I just don't, I can't, I don't get it. I get it and I don't get it.
In my father's house are many mansions, many dwelling places.
And he says, if it wasn't so, I would have told you. I would
tell you that. I'd go to prepare a place for
you that where I am there, you may be also. So here's the people
of God. Noah, a man that found grace
in the eyes of the Lord, he's built an ark, 120 years. And now it's ready. This ark,
a type of the Lord Jesus Christ set forth prophetically as the
only safety of God's people in Isaiah 26. Listen to this. Come,
my people. Enter thou into thy chambers,
and shut thy doors about thee. Hide thyself, as it were, for
a little moment, until the indignation be overpassed. Verse 2 and 3. Then he tells Noah of every clean
beast. Thou shalt take to thee by sevens,
every clean one by sevens, male and female, seven males and seven
females. Beasts that are not cleaned by
two, male and female. Fowls also of the air by sevens,
male and female, to keep seed alive on the face of the earth. Now here we see Noah instructed
as to taking of the different animals. He had some clean ones
and some unclean ones. And the wording that the Lord
used concerning the obtaining of all of these animals was,
take to thee. Take to thee. It means to accept,
to bring, to draw, to fetch, but a word that reveals how the
Lord providentially caused the animals to come was found, brought
this out last week in verse 20 of chapter 6. Look there. Of fowls after their kind, of
cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after
its kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee. to keep them
alive. So these animals are powerfully
drawn by the power of God. You think God Almighty that can
speak this world into existence? Call a dead vessel of His mercy
just a dead lump of clay? Can it impart life to Him and
cause Him to come to Him and keep Him by the power of God?
You think God can't cause an animal to walk into an ark? He said, they'll come to you.
Now, that which the Lord purposed and instructed, the Lord accomplished. The Lord did this. The Lord caused
them. So, we see the wisdom of Almighty
God in the preservation of man and beast, a remnant. According
to the lection of grace, was found in the preservation of
Noah, and his family in a preservation of clean and unclean animals,
all according to God's wise decree, was seen. I did it again today. I told you about the mosquitoes.
Like I said, being from Louisiana, they're pesky. I found out again
today, I remember what I read, without the mosquitoes, pollination. I thought only bees did that.
Mosquitoes. Mosquitoes, number one, they're
for food. Birds and things like that. Pollination. I looked up slugs and turtles
and things like that. Sea turtles. It keeps the population
of sponge and jellyfish down. Who would know that? God Almighty,
He all feasts things. They work together for good,
perfect balance. clean and unclean. You know the
unclean animals, the eagles, the snakes and things like that.
There was purpose. So there was to be seven pair
of the clean, two a pair of the unclean. Now here's that the
clean, the Lord would provide of the clean animals surely for
food, and for sacrifice, and of the unclean he would preserve
all according to his wise and good purpose that would be for
the maintenance and perfect balance of nature. So we don't see, we
don't understand, we may not grasp the need of certain creatures. We see them, they're often pest
to us, but they're absolutely necessary in the maintenance
of mankind. And when the Lord had created
the earth and all the things that were therein, He saw that
everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. So whatever we think, this world
is in perfect order. I mean, we may look around and
complain about the government and everything, but I tell you
what, Almighty God's got everything under control. It's all working
together. So here, verse 4. For yet seven
days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days
and forty nights. And every living substance that
I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. Now,
here we observe the final warning of God. The Lord has set forth
that in seven days, seven I looked, Many people do a lot of looking
into the numbers. I don't do a lot, but I do know
that the number seven, I found it, is the number of completeness.
But seven days, and he's going to cause it, the rain was going
to start falling. So everything comes about as
a direct result of the hand of God. who worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will. Seven days, it's appointed unto
man once to die. There's a time to be born, there's
a time to die, there's a time for every season, every season
under the sun. God has a time, it's purposed. I can tell you exactly when you're
gonna die and I'm gonna die. When God determines that end,
which is already determined, when he gets here, there is not
one thing that I'm gonna be able to do. I'm going to try to eat
as healthy as I can. I'll try. I'll try to walk. I'll do everything I can do.
I'm going to try everything I know to do. But I can tell you when
I'm going to die. When God determines I'm going
to die, I'm going to die. That's it, right there. So here we are. He says in seven days, it's going
to rain for 40 days and 40 nights. And everything outside of the
ark is going to perish. Again, you know the picture of
the ark. So here we find another number, 40, written in the scriptures. That number appears to have been
regarded as a symbolic period of trial. I'll look this up.
It's an ending, a trial that is ending in victory to the good
or the ruin. The good of God's sheep or the
ruin of the evil. Forty days. 40. 48, 49. Israel wandered in the wilderness
40 years. That number was 40 years. The
men sent to scout out the land of Canaan were there 40 days. That's according to Numbers 13,
26. Moses was in the mount 40 days. Ezekiel, Exodus, I'm sorry, 24,
18. And the Lord Jesus Christ fasted
for 40 days, Matthew 4, 2, before being tempted of the devil. So
40 is that time of testing, of proving. And so the Lord said,
in seven days, it's going to rain. I'm going to cause it to
rain. It never had rained before. But it's going to rain for 40
days and 40 nights and everything, everything found on the face
of the earth, I'm going to destroy. And so now the Lord has promised
it's going to rain. And there's going to be complete
destruction according to His exact timing. And the scripture
says, and Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded
him. Now here was a man that believed
God. Noah was a righteous man. He
believed God. He believed that God was going
to do exactly what He said He would do. And God's people do
now. We believe Him. I believe Him. I believe that
Almighty God chose a people. I believe He did. I believe He
chose me. I believe. Why do you believe
that? Because I believe Him. He that believeth on the Son.
He that believeth Him. I believe He did. I believe when
the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross, I believe that He
was made sin. I believe that. I believe that
Almighty God put away the debt of His people in Christ upon
the cross. I believe it was finished. I
believe it. I believe He's coming back. The
times and the seasons, I don't know. But I believe that there's
coming a time when the trump of God is going to sound. I believe
that the dead in Christ are actually going to come out of the ground.
I believe that they are going to be changed in a moment, twinkling
of an eye. And that we that remain on this
earth are going to meet them in the air. I believe that. And
I believe that so will we ever be with the Lord. I believe that.
I believe every man, woman, child that has ever died, they are
going to come out of the ground. And immediately there is going to
be a judgment. We are going to all stand before
God. I believe Him. I believe Him. I believe it is
going to happen. I pray that the Lord increase
my faith, but I believe Him. I believe Him. The Scripture
says, Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. He believed that God was going
to send a flood. He believed that there was safety
only in the ark. Built that ark 120 years, and
so he acted. He did it. He said, the Lord said, you come
into the ark, and Noah did it. He got in there. He said, OK,
it's time. Let's go. By faith, this is Hebrews
11, 7. By faith, Noah, being warned
of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared
an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the
world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. But in Noah, again, do we not
behold the glorious Lord Jesus Christ in His obedience? Noah
did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. And the Lord God said, Lord Jesus,
John 4, 34, my meat, my food, my sustenance, my nutrition is
to do the will of Him that sent me. and concerning His obedience
to the Father, John 8, 29, for I do always those things that
please Him. He declared in John 6, 38, for
I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will
of Him that sent me. And at the cross, He cried in
the completion of His ministry, it's finished, John 19, 30. So
Noah, by faith, He left all that would be found
in this earth. He left it. Everything that was
there. The only thing that came in was
Noah and his wife, those animals, the sons of Noah and his wife,
their wives, and the food that was in there was it. And God
was there. And God delivered them. And He
left all and He relied upon the Lord. for all of his need. And he knew that all of his need
was security in that ark. That's what I need. I need to
be protected from the flood. I need protection from the rain. All those years. 120 years. 120
years. And verse 6 said, and Noah was
600 years old. when the flood of waters was
upon the earth. I read that last verse of scripture,
I thought about, here was a man 600 years old, and all the things
that could be said about Noah, the one thing that stands true
is the faithfulness of God to keep him. to keep him. He was 600 years old. And while his years increased,
he was a man that was kept by the power of God through faith,
ready to be revealed in the last time. There's going to come a
time when Noah's going to come out of the grave just like we
will. And every other believer that
died in the faith, and Noah is going to be standing before God
just like all of us. Noah will be there. And Abraham
and Isaac, Jacob, all of them, Moses, will all be standing there. 600 years and from the time that
the Lord was pleased to call him out of darkness, he believed
God concerning His Word. He believed God showed mercy
to him. He believed God was going to send judgment and he relied
upon the Lord for deliverance. But that faith in Christ, that
gift from God, that God-given dignity of God's grace to the
aged. I thought about this verse of
Scripture right here. I look around right now. Many of you have been here a
lot longer than I have. And I've been here a little over
18 years, or a little less than 18 years, almost 18 years. And
I look at some were here when I got here. Some have come since
I've gotten here. But the thing about it is, so
many here that were here when I got here, you're still here.
You're still here. You've gotten older. But to behold
you. And I behold the preciousness
of God's Word. He said, I'm not going to leave
you. I'm not going to forsake you. We've gotten, again, we've
gotten older. Gray-headed. I thought about
this scripture. The hoary head, gray head, is
a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness. All of us, unless the Lord takes
us, all of us are going to get older, older, older. And our
hair will turn gray. But the gray hair is an emblem
of the faithfulness of Almighty God. Those of you that are here,
that have been here all these years, I thank God for you. I
thank the Lord that He's kept you. I'm thankful He's kept me.
But for his grace, I wouldn't have been kept, believe me. I
left, but we're here by the grace of God. 600 years old, and God
was pleased to keep him all that. I pray God bless this to our
hearts, to his glory. Amen.