I love how the Lord selects the
hymns for us and puts words in the hymns which are in the text
of scripture we're going to read today. We're in Acts chapter
27 and we're looking at Paul crossing the sea and we looked
a couple of weeks ago at the Lord Jesus Christ crossing the
Sea of Galilee and all of the sea crossings in the scriptures
are pictures of the salvation of our God. Noah's journey across
the sea finishes with the ark at rest in a new creation, at
rest on Mount Ararat, to a land that is flourishing already.
And it says in chapter 9, to think of that hymn that we just
sang, in chapter 8 verse 20 it says, Noah builded an altar. The first thing that happens
after salvation comes, the first thing that happens when you've
been delivered from the wrath of God by the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The first thing that happens
is if you build an altar under the Lord and took of every clean
beast and every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings on the
altar. And listen to what happened.
And the Lord smelled a sweet savour. And the Lord said in
his heart, and we get to hear what the Lord's thinking. The
Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground anymore
for man's sake. For the imagination of man's
heart is evil from his youth, neither will I again smite any
more every living thing as I have done. While the earth remaineth,
and seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and
winter, and day and night, shall not cease. The Lord smelled a
sweet savour. The preaching of the gospel is
a sweet savour unto God. We are here because of our great
God, and all true preaching is ultimately preaching to an audience
of one. We're preaching to God, and ultimately
in all true preaching there is one preacher, and that is God. The bliss of Holy Spirit comes
and he takes the things of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you turn
back in a couple of chapters to Genesis 6, I want you to read
portions of this passage of scripture and I'm aware at the beginning
that I'm going to fail because when we're looking at something
as big as the picture of Noah's Ark we can paint the picture
and we just leave out so many glorious details and I trust
the Lord might cause you to spend some time studying and meditating
on it this week. I just wanted to look at some
highlights and I wanted us to have the picture of Noah's ark
and the salvation that is pictured here of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and a picture of
his salvation. He is both pictured in the ark
itself and he's pictured in Noah, the preacher of righteousness.
He preached the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
let's begin in Genesis chapter 6 verse 3. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive
with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be
a hundred and twenty. There was going to be just a
hundred and twenty years left of preaching the gospel. Noah
was a preacher of righteousness. Noah was preaching the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel that Noah declared
and the gospel that Noah and the gospel that saved Noah is
exactly the same gospel as it preached in every gospel church
throughout this world. Let's go down to 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 God that he'd
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 creeping thing
in the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made
them. And there here is one of the
most glorious words in scripture, but. You are dead in transgressions
and sins, but God, but God, but no. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. These are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations. That didn't mean that Noah wasn't
with the ones in Genesis 6 verse 5. He found grace because of
what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. And Noah begat three sons,
Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And the earth was also corrupted
before God. And the earth was filled with
violence. And God looked upon the earth,
and behold, it was corrupt. And all flesh had corrupted his
way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, the end
of all flesh is come before me. For the earth is filled with
violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with
the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood.
Room shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and
without. This is the fashion which thou
shalt make of it. The length of the ark shall be
300 cubits. It's about 150 meters almost. It's huge. barge, as it were, that Noah
built. The breadth of it, 50 cubits,
and the height of it, 30 cubits. It's a massive, massive wooden
structure. A window shalt thou make in the
ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above, and the door
of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof, with lower,
second, and third stories shalt thou make it. And behold, I,
even I, to bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all
flesh wherein there is breath of life from under heaven and
everything that is in the earth shall die. But, another glorious
but, but you find grace. When you find grace, you'll find
grace because there's a but of covenant. 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, and of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort
shalt thou bring into the ark to keep them alive with thee,
and they shall be male and female, of the fowls after their kind,
and of the cattle after their kind, and of every creeping thing
of the earth after its kind, two of every sort shall come
to thee. to keep them alive, and take
thou unto thee all the food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather
it to thee, and it shall be food for thee and for them. Thus did
Noah according to all that God commanded him, so did he. And the Lord said unto Noah,
Come thou in the house into the ark, for thee I have seen righteous
before men in this generation. of every clean beast thou shalt
take thee by sevens, male and his female, of beasts that are
not clean by two, male and his female, and the fowls of the
air by sevens, and male and female, that keeps thee alive upon the
face of the earth. For as yet seven days, and I
will cause it to rain upon the earth, 40 days and 40 nights,
and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from
off the face of the earth. And Noah did according to all
that God commanded him, and Noah was 600 years old when the flood
of waters was upon the earth, and Noah went in, and his sons,
and his wife, and his sons' wives with him into the ark, because
of the waters of the flood, of clean beasts, and of beasts that
are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that creepeth
upon the earth. They went in, two and two, unto Noah into the
ark, male and female, as God commanded Noah. And it came to
pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon
the earth, in the 600th year of Noah's life. In the second
month, on the 17th day of the month, the same day were all
the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of
heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth forty days
and forty nights, The selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and
Ham, and Japheth, the son to Noah, and Noah's wife, and the
three wives of his sons with them into the ark. They and every
beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind,
and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after
his kind, and every fowl after his kind, and every bird of every
sort. And they went in unto Noah in the ark, two and two of all
flesh wherein there is breath of life. And they went in. male
and female, as God commanded him and the Lord shut him. And the flood was forty days
upon the earth, and the waters increased and bear up the ark,
and it was lifted up above the earth. And the waters prevailed
and were increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark went upon
the face of the waters, and the waters prevailed exceedingly
upon the earth, and on all the high hills that were under the
whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upwards did the
waters prevail, and the mountains were covered, and all flesh died
that moved upon the earth, both the fowl, and of cattle, and
of beasts, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth, and every man, all in whose nostrils was the breath
of life, and all that was in the dry land died. and every
living substance that was destroyed which was upon the face of the
ground both man and cattle and creeping things and the fowl
of heaven and they were destroyed from the earth and Noah only
remained alive and they that were with him in the ark and
the waters prevailed upon the earth 150 days. It's a remarkable
account of why this creation is as it
is today, physically. But most of all, it's a remarkable
account of the Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation that's in him.
As Paul said in Acts 27, unless you abide in the ship, you cannot
be saved. You must be in the ship. Noah remained alive only, and
they that were with him in the ark. The Ark is the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the call of the Gospel is to comfort the people of God.
And that's what the name Noah means. It means comfort. If you
turn back a couple of pages, you'll see that Noah was named
by his father Lamech. And he called, verse 29 of Genesis
5, and he called his name Noah. saying this saying, this Noah,
shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands because
of the ground which the Lord had cursed. the command of the
gospel is that I comfort the children of God. And I trust
that as we spend our time looking at Noah, and mostly, most importantly,
we look at the Lord Jesus Christ, we'll find ourselves comforted
because of the state of this world. We'll be comforted because
there is a God who reigns sovereign. We're going to sing again. Thanks,
Normie. Have I got this in the right
order? We're singing Christ Receive
Us Sinful Men. Christ receiveth, it's on your
sheets. Sinners, Jesus will receive. Sound this word of grace to all,
who the heavenly pathway lead, all who linger, all who fall. Sing it over and over again.
Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain.
Christ receiveth sinful men. Sinners Jesus will receive, Sound
this word of grace to all, Who the heavenly pathway lead. All who linger, all who fall,
Sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ, receive it, sinful man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ, receive it, sinful man. Come, and He will give you rest. Trust Him, for His word is plain. He will take the sinful last. Christ received the sinful man. Sing it o'er and o'er again,
Christ, receive this sinful man. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ, receive this sinful man. Now my heart condemns me not,
pure before the law I stand. He who cleansed me from all spot,
satisfied its last demand, sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ, receive this sinful man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ, receive this sinful man. Christ receiveth sinful man,
even me with all my sin. Hurts from every spot hath stained. Heaven with Him I enter in, sing
it o'er. and or again. Christ, receive a sinful man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ, receive a sinful man. I wanted to look briefly at what
times at this remarkable passage of scripture. I was flying out
to Ayers Rock the other day last week and I couldn't help but
think of Nara and I ended up spending a couple of hours on
my computer and by the time I finished I had more than enough notes
for this week and next week and for a long time to come. So in
many ways this will be abbreviated but I wanted to look I wanted
to look at some of the significant elements of this story, but obviously
I want us to see the Lord Jesus Christ in this. This ark is a
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a picture of salvation in
Him. The ark was pitched inside and out with pitch, and that
word pitch means atonement. What turns away by absorbing
the wrath of God altogether, and so all of the children of
God in the Lord Jesus Christ received the judgment of God,
the ultimate and infinite judgment of God upon all of their sins
that they put away completely and forever because in the Lord
Jesus Christ God exercised His judgment. And He no doubt judges
this world and judges that world for the wickedness and the sin
of the evil it was and the rejection of Him in His Gospel and all
of the false professions of Him. But this is a picture and this
is a story which is thousands of years old and if we don't
see it as relevant to us today and if we don't see this as a
picture of the gospel that we proclaim today and the picture
of the world that we live in today then we've missed the point
altogether. The Lord Jesus Christ said in
Matthew 24 towards the end of his earthly ministry He says
no one knows the day when he's coming back. But he says, but as the days,
this is Matthew 24 verse 37, but as the days of Noah were,
so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the
days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking
and marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered
into the ark. And they knew not, until the
flood came and took them all away, so shall also the coming
of the Son of Man be. Then shall two be in the field,
and one shall be taken, and the other left. And two women shall
be grinding at the mill, and one shall be taken, and the other
left. The command of the Lord Jesus Christ when we read the
story of Noah and when we read and see this world. is in a state
exactly the same as the world of Noah's day, is watch. Watch therefore, for you know
not the hour that your Lord doth come, but know this, that if
the good man of that house had known in what watch the thief
would come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his
house to be broken up. Therefore be you also ready,
for in such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man cometh. Anyone who thinks they know when
he's coming is lying to you. Anyone who thinks they know when
he's coming, anyone who could put some dates to it is lying. But as in the days of Noah, so
shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. The days of Noah. Let's look briefly at the days
of Noah. It says in Genesis 6 verse 5, And God saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth. And listen to these phrases from
our God. This is what he sees, that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only I'll tell you how my natural
flesh responds to that all the time. Well, that might be some
of them over there, but I'm a little bit better. Is that how you respond
when you read those words from God? God says, not some of the
imaginations of the thoughts, every imagination of the thoughts
of your heart is only evil and that continually. Does that describe you? God says
it does. God's opinion matters. Our opinions
of ourselves are wrong, aren't they? I think it was Henry Maynard
said, we're all three people. We are men as we see ourselves,
and we're men as other people see us, and we're men as God
sees us. I don't need to remind you, but we ought to be reminded,
when God sees, God sees clearly, and God sees perfectly. You see,
if you're not a Genesis 6-5 sinner, if you're not a Romans 7 sinner,
you remember what Paul said. What he does is, everything he
does is mixed with evil all the time. Paul was declaring himself
a Genesis 6 sinner. No wonder the theologians of
today have to go to so much trouble to rip Romans 7 out of their
scriptures because you can't preach progressive sanctification
and growing in holiness and growing in the things that they want
you to grow in so they can keep you under control. If you are
a Genesis 6 sinner, every imagination of the thoughts of your heart
is evil continually. So if you're not a Genesis 6
sinner, then you'll approach God on the
basis of deserving a reward or deserving a commendation for
something that you have done. You will think, as the Pharisee
did at the temple in Luke 8, that I'm not like these other
men. That's the flesh of us, isn't it? The flesh of men is
Genesis 6. It's so, so refreshing for us
to know what we really are in God's sight. Because only people
who see themselves as Genesis 6, 5 and Romans 7 sinners will
actually be those who are the recipients of grace. See, Noah,
verse 8, Noah found grace. in the eyes of the Lord. He was
the same as all other men. It wasn't as if God looked down
and found some particularly nice guy who was obedient and everything
else. He found another sinner. Noah
found grace. If you find grace, the only recipients
of grace are those who see themselves as sinners. You can't be a recipient
of grace and bring something to the table of salvation. You
have nothing to bring. You're empty. Only God makes a difference. Only grace makes a difference. The only difference that we have
is the difference that the Lord put between us, and he gets all
of the glory for it. And if we can boast about it,
then he doesn't get any glory at all. And all you're doing
is boasting in your fleshly activities. So the question remains, what
about all these other people? If you take the most conservative
estimate of the population expansion from Adam and Eve to the flood,
just count the generations and allow for their six members of
each family. And these people lived for hundreds
of years, 969 years. Noah's great-grandfather lived
for that long. If you take the most conservative estimate, there
were one billion people on the earth at that time. And there
are plenty of other calculations based on the genealogies of scripture
and the timelines and things that allow for a population in
Noah's day which is equivalent to the population on the earth
today. As in the days of Noah. As in the days of Noah. So the
question is, were there decent, honourable people? These people,
according to the Lord Jesus Christ, were honouring marriage. They
were doing better than most of this Western civilization that
we live in today. They were honouring marriage.
I think the point that needs to be made over and over again
is that when God sees, God sees clearly. God sees wickedness
where other men see virtue. God sees evil where other men
see faithfulness. God sees rebellion against him
when other men see obedience and devotion to him. You just
have to read the gospel accounts of the most righteous, morally
upright, legalistically religious generation that ever lived on
the face of the earth. Paul was one of them. Paul could
say to his contemporaries, before the law of God, I am blameless.
He was blameless until one thing happened. He was blameless until
he met the Lord Jesus Christ. See, in the presence of God,
and only in the presence of God, are men seen for what they really
are. People can live outwardly moral
lives, and I am thankful, and we all ought to be very thankful
for the restraining hand of God and the morality that we live
in in our society. and when it is taken away from
us we ought to be justifiably horrified by it and we should
be thankful for the laws and the constraints that are placed
on men. But nevertheless God sees the
hearts of men. And it's only in the declaration
of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, when the Lord Jesus is
revealed before men, as he really is in his sovereignty and in
his holiness, in the glory of his very being, and when he's
magnified before men, only then, when he is revealed, are men
exposed. Which is why there's such enmity
raised up in the hearts of people against the Gospel. that are
not there ever before you get the most decent and moral and
kind people and generous people in all sorts of ways and then
the gospel comes and these people turn into enemies of the children
of God. God will in the proclamation
of his gospel expose the hearts of men and God's children love
to have themselves exposed before him to see that they are nothing
and to see that the Lord Jesus Christ everything. And so we need to remind ourselves
when people talk about the judgment of God upon society, and the
judgment of God has only ever fallen in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and so we see the wickedness and the evil of men in the Lord
Jesus Christ. But we will find that God had warned and preached
this to this generation for years and years. Enoch was a preacher
of righteousness. Noah preached for 120 years.
Enoch was Noah's great-great-great-grandfather. So the people of this world are
not ignorant and they are not innocent. When Job His speaking is accused. His accusers remind him of what
happened at the flood. In Job 22 verse 15 it says, Hath
thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden, which
were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overthrown with
a flood? which said unto God, this billion
people, or maybe more, which said unto God, depart from us. And what else did they say about
the children of God? And what can the Almighty do
for them? Yet he filled their houses with
good things, but the counsel of the wicked is far from me. We can't preach the gospel faithfully
without exposing what is in the hearts of men. And that's exposed
by the declaration of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. In Noah's day, people were knowledgeable
of God. They married, they would have
known where marriage began. Cain lived, and so did Enoch. Cain rebelled, but God sent a
preacher who warned of the judgment to come. And when Jude reminds
us of Enoch's preaching, he's reminding, if you turn there
quickly with me to Jude so we have something of the context
of this, because if we don't see these as religious activities
that are in rebellion against God, then we don't see what the
wickedness of the men in this world is. Jude is talking in
warning the church about the the times that are coming and
encouraging the children of God to contend for the faith, to
stand as one for the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says
of these people in verse 13, they're raging waves of the sea.
These are people within the church challenging the gospel of God
into a gospel of works. Farming out their own shame,
wandering stars, for whom is reserved the blackest of darkness
forever. And Enoch also, the seventh from
Adam, prophesied of these, saying, behold, the Lord cometh. with
10,000 of his sons to execute judgment upon all and to convince
all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds. That
word ungodly means to have no worship. It means to have no
reverence for God. ungodly among them, for all their
ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and all their
hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are people inside the church.
Jude is talking about there. What they know, they know naturally,
verse 10. And in those things, as brute
beasts, they corrupt themselves. Enoch was a preacher. Noah was
a preacher. The men in Noah's day were religious. The men in Noah's day would have
had some form of righteousness. And they were wicked, and they
had corrupted the world because of their rebellion against God
and because of their false religion. And the world today is corrupted.
When we see the corruptions of the world, we need to look to
the churches of the world. And the God that's proclaimed
is a God to be mocked, and he's a God. In the mockery of him,
the world can take as little care of him as Job described
the times of Noah. But Noah, in amongst this generation
that was not ignorant and was not innocent, Noah found grace. Noah was a sinner who found grace. Only sinners find grace, and
he found grace in the eyes of God. Noah found grace in the
eyes of God. What a glorious thing to be a
recipient of the grace of God. What a remarkable privilege,
brothers and sisters in Christ. that we are saved by grace and
we are preserved by grace and we are protected by grace. And
grace comes to those to whom the Lord reveals himself to. Grace comes. So Noah, when grace comes, Noah
is made to know the character of God and the purposes of God. Verse 13, it says, God said to
Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me. Noah knows of
God in his holiness. Noah knows of God in his purposes. Verse 18 is glorious, isn't it?
Not only was Noah one who found grace in the eyes of God, but
Noah was one who was kept by a covenant. Noah was saved by
a covenant. He says in verse 18, but with
thee will I establish my covenant and thou shalt come into the
ark. The glorious new covenant, the
eternal covenant, the covenant of the Lord Jesus Christ, a covenant
in his blood, is a covenant of a sovereign God, isn't it? And
he says, I will and they shall. I will. I will be the first cause
of everything. And they shall, as Psalm 110
verse 3 says, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy
power. And he exercises his power and
he reveals himself. he comes. The Covenant, of course,
is Christ. The Covenant is a person. The Covenant is a man. All the
promises of God are yea and amen in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
if you turn to Isaiah 42 and 49, you'll see that Christ is
the Covenant. The Covenant is a person. Noah
found grace in a covenant, and the Covenant is a person. Everything
to do with the salvation of God's people is personal, in a person. Isaiah 42 verse 6 and he says,
I the Lord have called thee in righteousness. I will hold thine
hands and I will keep thee and I will give thee for a covenant
of the people and for a light of the Gentiles. It's a covenant in the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the covenant. Noah was
a preacher. He preached the only righteousness
there is. He preached the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here in Genesis chapter 6
we have the first description in all of the scriptures of this
word righteous. Noah was a just man. He was a
just man and he's perfect. In verse 7 of chapter 1, The
Lord says to him, Noah, come thou and all thy house into the
ark. Will you come into the Lord Jesus
Christ? For thee have I seen righteous
before me in this generation. It is the most important question,
isn't it, of all? For sinners. Job asked it in
Job 9, how can a man be just with God? How can a Genesis 6-5
sinner with those thoughts and those imaginations of his heart,
how can he be just with God? He went on to say in Job 9-20,
he said, If I justify myself, if I declare myself righteous,
mine own mouth shall condemn me. If I say I am perfect, it
shall prove me perverse. We've described something of
what a sinner is. Noah was a child of Adam. He
was a sinner by generation, he was a sinner by birth, he was
a sinner by practice, he was a sinner like us by desire, he
was a sinner in thought, he was a sinner in word and he was a
sinner in deed. He wasn't an occasional sinner
and he wasn't an accidental sinner. He was not a sinner because of
the circumstances of his life and he wasn't a sinner because
of other people's activities. He was just a sinner, just a
sinner. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
the world to save sinners. Paul said, he shall save his
people from their sins. What is it to be righteous? What
is it to be righteous? It's a glorious word throughout
the scriptures. It means to be straight. It means
to be right. It means to be true. It means
to be sincere. It means to be right according
to the law of God. It means to be one who in the
eyes of God has absolutely no sin whatsoever, has never committed
a sin. sees them. God sees both the
hearts of the sinners and he sees what it is to be righteous
and he alone sees what it is to be righteous. I love that
story in Luke 18 of the public and it went to the temple and
he couldn't even go up to the temple close could he? But the
Pharisee was right up there and he was thanking God. He says,
I thank God. He was religious wasn't he? I
was thanking God. I'm not like these other people.
And I don't do the things that this wicked publican does. And
the publican stood a long way off and he beat on his chest
because his problem was in his heart. He had sins in his life,
but he knew that the problem was deep, and he says, God, be
merciful. God, be propitious. God, you
look upon your son and his sacrifice, and you be kind to me, because
I've got nothing to offer you. I can't even look up to heaven. And the Lord Jesus Christ said
that that man went home to his house that day, righteous, justified. That man went down to his house.
without a sin. Noah means comfort. It means
rest. I want for the children of God
to know that because of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the simple faith that he gives us to simply believe what
he said that you might be like that man. You might go down to
your house today. You might go out into this world
today knowing that you are before God. Righteous. Like that publican, there's a
great division in humanity in this story, isn't there? And
one of the great divisions in humanity is regarding righteousness. Quite simply, all The unrighteous
people in this world see themselves as righteous. That's what those
men in Job 22 are accusing God of. What can he do to help them?
What can our God do? All the unrighteous see themselves
as righteous to some degree. They might not have a perfect
righteousness, but they might be more righteous than they were
before, and they might think that they can do some righteousness
in the future. There might be some way I can
just work my way into a place where I'm righteous. See, what kept those people out
of the ark? They had no need. Why did they
have no need? Because they had some righteousness
of their own. All the righteous, all the unrighteous
in this world see themselves as righteous. And all the righteous
in this world see themselves as unrighteous, totally. All the righteous see themselves
as Roman 7 and Genesis 6-5 sinners. But the great question, the thing
I'd like to finish this part of our time together with is,
When God declares Noah to be righteous, is he declaring a fiction? Is
he saying, Noah, I'm declaring you righteous, but I really know
you're not righteous. Or was he declaring the truth? Is this a pasted on righteousness? Or is this the reality of what
Noah is? The religious world will tell
us it's a pasted on righteousness and it's achieved by our activities
and it's maintained by our activities. And this is God's declaration. This is the comfort that Noah
brought to his people. This is the comfort that God
wants us to see for all those who are in the ark, Christ Jesus,
for all those who have been the recipients of the grace of God.
God declares you righteous. God declares you righteous because
you really are righteous. He declares you righteous because
of your union with the Lord Jesus Christ. We are righteous because
of his activities, but we are righteous because of our union
with him. We do love that verse in 2 Corinthians
5.21 where it says, For God, for he hath made him to be sin
for us. We read it in Psalm 40. The Lord
Jesus Christ declares in Psalm 40, he says, mine iniquities.
He says, mine iniquities. Why did he say mine iniquities?
And he said it over and over again in the Psalms. Why does
he say they're mine iniquities? Because they really are his.
Because of the covenant union, they are his. We were one with
him. from before the foundation of
the world. We are righteous by our union with him. God made
him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God. If you're made the righteousness
of God, you really are righteous. But where is that righteousness?
The righteousness of God is in him, in the Lord Jesus Christ. All the righteous were in the
Ark. All the unrighteous were outside of the Ark. There is
in the coming of the Gospel, there is in the preaching of
righteousness, there is this division among humanity. There
always is a division among humanity. Cain slew Abel because Abel was
righteous. Abel brought a righteous sacrifice. He brought the Lord Jesus Christ,
a sweet-smelling savour to God. Throughout the scriptures we
have this division in humanity. Isaac and Ishmael, Mount Sinai
and the Jerusalem of the Bab, Esau and Jacob. When the Lord
Jesus Christ died on Calvary's tree, there was a righteous man
on his right-hand side, and there was a sinner who had no need
of a saviour on his left-hand side. The publican and the Pharisee
at the Great White Throne Judgment, there are only two groups, there
are only two sorts of people in this world, the righteous
and the unrighteous. We're righteous before God by
our union with the Lord Jesus Christ, We're not just close
to him. The scriptures over and over
and over declare that we are one with him. He indwells his
people in a love relationship and in eternal union with them.
He says to them on the day, the evening before the cross, he
says, and that day you shall know that I am in my father and
you in me and I in you. How can he be in us? How can
a holy one be in us? He can be in us because we're
holy. We're perfectly holy. We're holy, made righteous without
sin before God by our union. We're made righteous by imputation. In Romans 4, just turn to Romans
4 and we'll just close with some of these glorious scriptures.
Romans 4. David describes the blessedness
of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
saying, Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, whose
sins are covered. We're righteous by imputation. There was a transfer of sins.
And before a holy and just and righteous God, sins can only
ever be in one place at one time. We're righteous by imputation. We're righteous by a gift. It's not earned, is it? No, I
didn't earn it. verse 17 of the next chapter
in Romans 5. For if by one man's offence death
reigned by one, how much more they which receive abundance
of grace. Grace is never dished out by
God or handed out by God in any mean form whatsoever. It's always
an abundance of grace. Abundance of grace and of the
gift of righteousness. The gift of righteousness. by
one Jesus Christ. We are righteous because God
declares us righteous. We are righteous because of the
union with the Lord Jesus Christ. We are righteous by imputation. We are righteous by the gift
of God. We are righteous as we receive
this gift by faith. We receive it by faith. We are
We are righteous by nature. In 1 John 3 is a passage that
cannot be understood by anyone who has no knowledge of the two
natures of man. Norm loves to quote that verse
in John 4.17. It says, Herein is our love made
perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. We have
confidence in the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in
this world. In John 3 verse 7 it says, Let
no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is
righteous, even as he is righteous. He that commiteth sin is of the
devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works
of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. That's God's declaration. For his seed remaineth in him
and he cannot sin. Does that describe you, brothers
and sisters? That's how God describes his children. That's how God
describes his children. Why? Because his seed remaineth
in him. What is it in us that doesn't
sin? It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. It's Christ in you, the comfort.
It's that new man that's created in you, according to Ephesians
4.24, in righteousness and in true holiness. A child of God. is one who is indwelt by God
himself. We have a new nature, a holy
nature, a righteous nature. We've been born from above. Peter
says we're partakers of the divine nature. We're righteous by faith. I love this verse in Romans 4,
I still remember where I was in India when the Lord made it
real to me. Romans 4 verse 5 it says, But
to him that worketh not, but to him that worketh not, worketh
for his righteousness, worketh for anything he does in terms
of his acceptance before God, but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly, his faith, is counted for righteousness. That doesn't
mean that faith is a substitute for righteousness. But faith
lays hold of the very righteousness of God that's declared in the
Gospel. We can't see. Faith is the evidence, says Hebrews,
of things that are not seen. I can't see my eternal union
with the Lord Jesus Christ, but I can believe it. I can't see
my saviour sitting on the throne of this universe and me sitting
together with him as he says, but I believe it. I can't see his righteousness imputed
to me as a legal righteousness in a transaction that can't be
undone even by God himself, but I believe it. I believe it. believe, which is why all the
righteous joined the psalmist in 7116 by saying, I will speak
of thy righteousness and thine only. Why? Because there is only one righteousness,
and if it's yours by union, And if you can enter into the
joy and peace of believing, you'll find that it's yours by nature,
and it's yours as you delight in who the righteous one is. It's not a pasted-on righteousness.
God declares the truth. Let's pray the Lord blesses his
words.