May I please Almighty God to
bless us together this morning as we meditate in his word. Let
us turn to the book of Genesis, chapter 6, and we'll read verse
8. The book of Genesis, chapter
6, and reading verse 8. But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. I'm sure most of you know, because
I often tell you, that grace is the unmerited favour of God. And we're told that that's what
Noah received. And of course, the reality is
that all of us needs to receive this wonderful blessing, the
unmerited favour of Almighty God. Well, Noah lived in a difficult
time. To some extent, we live in a
difficult time. And the Word of God is very instructive
and very directive. And it tells us the condition,
really, which existed in those days. And we're told in the fifth
verse of this sixth chapter, 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. That's really a tremendous statement
if you think that God then looked at the heart of everybody who
lived on the earth at that time and what he saw was in their
hearts, their thoughts were not good thoughts, they were evil
thoughts. And that wasn't just now and
again, it was continually. Well, that gives us just a little
clue, doesn't it, about the tremendous wickedness which existed in the
world at that time. And again, just pondering this,
How many people were living on the world at that time? Well,
of course, we don't know. That's the simple answer. But
the reality is there were obviously many, many, probably billions
of people living on the earth at that time, especially as we
may consider that the lifespan of people prior to the flood
was pretty long. And as we know, Methuselah lived
969 years. And Lamech, Noah's father, only
died five years before the flood and he lived well over 700 years. So many lived many, many years.
So there were no doubt millions, perhaps billions of people living
on the earth all in this evil condition. And of course, as
we've also read, There was much wickedness, there was fighting,
there were wars. It was a very sad scene. And we should of course not just
pass this by and think, well of course that's history and
it won't repeat itself. Well, it won't repeat itself
in the same way because God's promised there won't be a flood
upon the earth again. But as we look around the world
today, there must be obvious similarities, as we see that
men and women's thoughts and directions, their actions, are
very evil in many, many ways. And especially we should recognise
in the day and age in which we live, especially recently, in
the current age, there is this great prohibition against what
is termed conversion therapy. We may perhaps on the surface
think, well that of course only refers to those who are living
immorally in that kind of situation. Well, we should not think that
is the case, because it would appear to be the thin edge of
the wedge. We only have to look at the consensus
form we've had to fill in. You'll find there, there are
questions there, which of course never existed 10 years ago. And
so we should realize that this conversion therapy, which is
widely spoken about today, and the governments of the nations
of the world are trying to bring in legislation to stop it. But it won't just, I'm sure,
stop where they mentioned the moment. If we just sit back and
think of these things, as it rapidly increases, the objective
surely must be to stop the preaching of the Gospel. Because the last
thing that Satan wants is for the Gospel to be preached, for
the Gospel to be declared. That's the last thing that he
wants. And he will make every effort to stop it being declared. And we may think, well, we're
okay in our country. My friends, we should never make
assumptions like that. We should realize, thankfully,
we have a God who rules and reigns. But we've been really taking
it very easy, haven't we? If you look back, if I look back
in my life and look back to when I was A youngster, a teenager,
of course, the things were never like they were today. And they've
changed dramatically. And they've changed dramatically
in recent years. And we should therefore never
just sit down and think, well, I'm all right and things will
be all right. They may not be. And we fear perhaps for the younger
ones in our congregation, the younger ones in the world. what
they may have to face in years to come. We know there have been
difficult days in the past. Difficult days in the 16th and
17th century, the Reformation, when there was so much animosity
against the preaching of the Gospel. We may think that's past,
but it may come again, and there may be much animosity and much
evil. So let us be on our guard, let
us be on our watch and let us pray mightily to God that yet
these things may not come and that still the gospel may be
able to be preached clearly right down to the end of time. We don't know precisely what's
going to happen But you know, in the days of the Lord when
He was on the earth and in the Gospel of Matthew, we're warned
about this situation in the 24th chapter of Matthew and the 37th
and 39th verses. This is what we read, I'll just
read it to you. 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, marrying and giving
in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and
knew not until the flood came and took them all away, so shall
also the coming of the Son of Man be." Well, of course, Noah
knows when the Son of Man will return. We do know He will return.
The Word of God tells us, Be also ready, for in such a day
that ye think not, The Son of Man cometh. So there are plenty
of warnings in the Word of God for us today to consider these
things. And as we read this account in
Genesis of this flood, to think of the terrible situation which
occurred then and see that we're fast hastening really to a similar
scene. And remember the Word of God
says that when that time shall come, the Word asks the question,
shall there be faith on the earth that indicates a time really
of quite desolation. So let us ponder and think of
these things. Now let's just return then to
Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. So what kind of man was Noah? Well, quite clearly he was a
man of God. And he was a man who was blessed
with the humbleness to do those things which God commanded him
to do. You know, we read the account,
don't we? But just think for a moment,
it would appear that before the flood there was no rain on the
earth. There was a mist that came up
and watered the earth every night. There was no rain. So the people
wouldn't have been aware of rain. And therefore now is commanded
by God to build this great big boat. It was, of course, vast,
as we read together, 300 cubits, 450 feet. You know, that's a
long place, isn't it? You could say, well, it was something
like 300 meters. It's a long way, and very broad
and very high, with three stories. And we're not told how long it
took Na to build the Ark. Many people have made conjectures. If you study the Word of God
carefully, you can't actually come to a conclusion exactly
how long it was, but it was clearly many years. And therefore Na
was commanded to do this. We can imagine all the criticism
and all the mockings he would have gone through building this
great large boat on dry land. And yet you see, why did he do
it? Why did he do it? The very simple
and wonderful answer is this. He believed God. He believed
God. That's a great blessing, isn't
it? And what a blessing for us today if you and I believe God. And if we do, do you know what
that means? That means that we believe the
Bible. That means we believe the truth of the Bible. That
means we believe the prophecies in the Bible. And that we believe,
therefore, that we perhaps today in our little lives live on this
earth, as we read in the book of Esther, for such a time as
this. We haven't accidentally come
on this earth. God has ordained that you and
I should live here today for such a time as this. And the
Word of God tells us very clearly in Isaiah, ye are my witnesses. The Lord has called a people
to walk on this earth to testify of the goodness and greatness
and solemnity and work of Almighty God. And therefore, if we are
those whom he has called, those who he has set his grace upon
like Noah, we should not be found just hiding in a corner, and
just sitting in our armchairs at home and ignoring the situation
which exists, we should be very conscious. The Lord has called
us to live on this earth for such a time as this. And to realize that that word
is true, ye are my witnesses, all of us, you children at school,
those who go to work, those who are at home, those who we mix
with our neighbours, we are witnesses. And we should therefore not be
ashamed of the truth of the Word of God. And we should not hide and say,
well of course I'm somebody that's pretty timid and of course I
don't like to really speak, I'm not very good at speaking. Well,
you know, we can all hide under those kind of excuses, but they
don't wash with Almighty God. because the Lord has placed us
in the earth for such a time as this. And Noah therefore was
commanded by God to build this ark, and he conscientiously built
it. He laboured, no doubt with his
sons and no doubt with a number of other workers, and again the
solemn position is that All those who may have helped him apart
from his sons all perished in the flood. The testimony that
he set before them, that God had told him to build this ark,
they ignored. They ignored and they perished
when the flood came. Again, just for you, the younger
ones, perhaps some of the older ones as well, just to give some
indication. We read of this, and when I was
young, I used to work out in my little mind, 40 days rain,
how much water would that produce on the earth? And I used to conclude,
well it wouldn't be very far, it wouldn't be very deep, and
therefore how could it have covered the hills and the mountains,
which of course we don't know the height of them, which existed
at that time. But what we forget is this, The
Word of God tells us that the fountains of the great deep were
broken up and it seems to be that which really began. There
would have been great earthquakes and great tsunamis which occurred. Vast volumes of water gushing
up from the depths and then of course that would have gone up
into the sky and would have the steam and except for that it
would have then come down as rain again and there would have
been therefore this great rain. So it's very easy to understand
how this flood occurred. You see people will belittle
it and say well it couldn't have occurred. Yes it could and yes
it did. The great flood came. And therefore there were all
these animals and there was Noah and his family all locked in,
in the ark, safe. And the flood came and destroyed
everything. Well, God is still God today. And God still rules and reigns
today. And we just don't know what God's
purposes are. Who would have thought a year
ago? that this virus would have been upon the earth as it is
now. If we'd been told a year ago, we would have probably belittled
it and thought it was impossible. And yet we see there are still
thousands of people dying every day from this virus. We see that the Lord, you see,
can bring things about in a very simple way. Our God reigns. Never belittle God. Never forget God is Almighty
and God can do anything and God can do everything. People belittle
God today. They treat Him as a little God. He's not. He's the Almighty God
and we should realise that. And it's a very wonderful thought
to think that God rules and reigns today. And as God watched over
Noah, and as God blessed him with this wonderful favour of
grace, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So today, thankfully,
there are many people who find grace in the sight of Almighty
God. God spared not the old world,
The old world perished. All those people perished. The
whole landscape of the old world changed. Totally different when
the flood came. And now we have this changed
situation. And Noah and his family basically
recommenced. the life of mankind on the earth. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Well, having given that, if you
like, quite long introduction, just think of this. All of us,
without any exception, all need to possess the grace of God. All of us. Every one of us. Because without it, we shall
perish. We shall perish in our sins.
We shall not be found in glory with God. We shall be found in
that terrible place of hell eternally. Again, as I said, the Word of
God is true. The words of God are true. should
not think, as people do, well, it's just, of course, a load
of fairy tales just being made up. No, it hasn't. It's God's
Word, which he gloriously and wonderfully instructed some 40
people to write. We today have it translated into
our language, for which we should be very thankful. But the great
truth is, because of that, all of us would not be able to come
before the judgment seat of Christ and say, well, I wasn't told. Well, I wasn't warned. Well, I never saw the Bible,
because all of us have seen the Bible. And all of us, no doubt,
have been warned. And none of us will be able to
stand before Almighty God on that great day of judgment, at
the end of time, and to say, well, I've got an excuse. None of us will ever have an
excuse. None of us. That's a very solemn
thought, isn't it? We don't have any room to say,
well, of course, I'm excused, none of us are excused. And so
what an important thing it is for us today to desire to have
the evidence of God's grace within us. And that means possessing
the life of God, the new life, so that our souls are blessed
with the wonderful light of the Gospel. The wonderful light of
the Gospel. No doubt, if I was to ask you
and go around, everybody would have said, well of course I know
what the Gospel is about. I know that Jesus came into the
world to save people. And many people are satisfied
with what we might just term a theoretical knowledge. That's
just a factual knowledge of what the Bible tells us. But the great,
wonderful blessing is if the Holy Spirit has shone into our
heart and reveals to us the light of the Gospel. And that light
shines forth in the face of Jesus Christ. I'm sure it's a familiar
text to many of you because it's a text which I never weary in
quoting in the second epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians
in the fourth chapter and the sixth verse. For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, well we know when the world was
created the Lord commanded the light to shine out of darkness
And then he says, hath shined in our hearts. And that's the
blessing, if God has commanded the light to shine into our hearts. And what is it? To give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the light of
the world. In him is light, and in him is
no darkness, and no doubt by faith. No one would have looked
ahead to have viewed the need for a saviour. Just like Abraham,
as the Lord Jesus Christ said, Abraham saw my day and was glad. What a blessing for us today.
If we rejoice in the Gospel, that means we rejoice in what
Jesus Christ has done in his great and glorious work of salvation. And that will be so if the Lord
blesses us with his grace. That grace of God which reveals
to us what we are, where we are and what we need. And where are we on the earth? What are we? Sinners? What do we need? Salvation? Where does it come from? The
Lord Jesus Christ. These are all so important. Mankind today, as a generality,
passes it off, ignores it, wants to enjoy life to the full. They want to live for today.
They don't live for eternity. What a blessing for us if we
are found living, not for today, but living for eternity. Because
be quite aware of this, all of us will live in eternity. We all possess a never dying
soul. Our body is dying, our soul lives
forever. You might ask, youngsters might
ask a question, well how do you know that? I'll tell you how
we know that. We have a case that when the
Lord Jesus Christ was crucified upon the cross, there were two
thieves, you may remember, crucified with him. And there was one,
they were both, first of all, they were both cursed and about
their condition. But then the grace of God came
into one of those thieves. And he made this statement, this
man We receive the due reward for our sin, but this man hath
done nothing amiss. God gave that thief faith to
view the Lord Jesus Christ as that one who had never sinned. And then he said, Lord, remember
me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And the Lord said, this
day shall be with me in paradise. Well, we know that his body,
died in his body, wasn't with the Lord that day, but we know
that his spirit was. Therefore, let us be very clear
that all of us possess, therefore, a never dying soul. When we die,
many people think, well, that's the end, annihilation. That's probably one of the reasons
why people are cremated. They think they've destroyed
everything. What they don't realise or they don't want to realise
is that they possess a soul which the fire or anything cannot destroy. It lives forever. The body will be reunited to
the soul in that great day of the resurrection. but you and
I possess a never-dying soul. Therefore we need this blessed
grace of God, just like Noah had, to make us spiritually alive. The Apostle Paul uses the word
quickened in the second chapter to the Ephesians. He says, And
you hath he quickened who were dead. Naturally we are born spiritually
dead. But what a favour it is when
God brings us spiritual life so that we then are amongst those
whom the Apostle is addressing, not only the Ephesians, but the
whole Church of God. And you hath he quickened. All of us need to know the great
wonderful favour of that, that we may be made spiritually alive
and that we have therefore found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So let's ask ourselves the question,
am I born again. Have I received God's grace? It's a good question to ask ourselves. The Word of God tells us to examine
ourselves as to whether we are in the faith or not. To examine
ourselves. You see, I can look at you, you
can look at the person next door to you. We don't know where we
stand in relation to the eternal state of our souls. God knows
and you know. You know whether you are spiritually
alive. You know whether you are those
who receive grace. to be able to come like that
man who was blind. And he was asked the question,
and he said this, one thing I know, whereas I was blind, but now
I see. That was natural life, natural
sight rather. That's exactly the same really
with our spiritual sight. to be able to come and say well
I don't know very much that's okay as long as you know a little the
word of God tells us a little that a righteous man hath is
better than the treasures of many wicked you know it's not
the quantity it's the quality of this great gift of God of
the knowledge of ourselves as a sinner and the knowledge of
this great and glorious Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, as our
Saviour, to know that He is the One who has brought grace into
our hearts and that we are amongst those, therefore, who do believe. You see, this man, Noah, We're told this in the ninth
verse of this sixth chapter. These are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a just man and a perfect in his generation.
And Noah walked with God. Noah walked with God. Or are we walking with the world? And are we happy to walk with
the world? My friends, the world will perish.
No, walk with God. He was, especially latterly,
a lonely man. He must have been on the earth.
Sometimes we might feel to be lonely. Word of God has a good description.
A sparrow alone upon the housetop, there to be seen, but lonely. But to know the great blessing
of God being with us, as the Apostle tells us in the Romans,
if God be for us, who can be against us? We want God to be
for us. We want God to be on our side.
We want to be found walking with God. Now, if you and I are walking
with God, in some measure, in some measure, it will be like
this. You remember, after the Lord
Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead, we have the account
in the last chapter of Luke, of those two people walking on
the Emmaus Road. And they were talking about the
things of God. They were talking about what
had happened. And again, it is a good thing, isn't it, to be
talking about the things of God. They didn't understand them.
They couldn't make them out. But then we're told Jesus himself
drew near and went with them. Initially they didn't know, of
course, it was the Lord. But Jesus was with them. They
walked with Jesus. What a blessing that was. What
a wonderful occasion it was. And Jesus, of course, spoke to
them and gave them a wonderful sermon about himself and how
he was described in all the scriptures with their eyes were not only
opened, they tell us this, did not our heart burn within us?
They were hearing the glorious news of the gospel. It wasn't
boring. It wasn't dry. It was life to
their souls. Jesus was telling them about
himself. What a blessing it is today.
Jesus comes to us, tells us about himself, tells us what he's done,
tells us he's redeemed our souls, tells us he died upon Calvary's
cross to put away our sin, tells us he shed his precious blood
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. And to give us
that good hope therefore that we have an interest in that shed
blood. And if we do, it's well with
our soul. And if we have the wonderful
evidence of it, we're amongst those also who have found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. Come back to what I said at the
beginning. All of us must find grace in the eyes of the Lord
if it is to be well with our soul. Well, it's a blessing for
us then today to be found walking with God. And not only did he
have grace, not only did he walk with God, but also He was blessed
with faith. What a mercy that is, to possess
God-given faith. Again we read in that 11th chapter
to the Hebrews, so many accounts of those who were blessed with
true faith, By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen
as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his
house, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of
the righteousness which is by faith. God-given faith to Noah. All of us, my friends today,
need to possess this God-given faith. Now, we have a very clear
picture, don't we, in this account in Genesis of the Ark. And one thing which is so amazing
is that God told Noah to take all these animals and birds,
everything that breathed, into the ark two by two and then some
of those clean animals to be by seven so they could offer
them up for sacrifices. So there were all these animals
and we don't read, do we, of Noah rushing around the countryside
and caging these animals and dragging them back to the ark
and putting them in. These animals came of their own
accord. These animals were influenced
by God. So they came. They came to the
ark. And they went into the ark. Wasn't
it amazing? Just think of that. All these
animals coming along. All the birds coming along. Two by two. and all going into
the ark. And then of course, as we read
together, when they were all safely in this finished ark,
what happened? God shut the door. That was amazing, wasn't it?
God shut the door of the ark. And then the flood began. Not before,
spot on the right time. You might say, well, what's the
relevance of that? Well, I believe the relevance
is very simply this. We consider the Lord Jesus Christ
as that place of safety. There is only safety in Christ. And let's put it this way, the
Lord Jesus Christ, he draws people to himself. We're not beaten, we're not lashed,
we're not driven, we're drawn. We're drawn. We may be a bit
slow sometimes, we may not want to perhaps come initially when
the Spirit of God begins working in our heart. But you see, there
will be the time when we're drawn. Do you know what that is through?
The love of Christ. He draws us to himself. What do we see? We see that the
Lord Jesus Christ has loved us so much. Not that we love He
loved us, loved us so much that he was willing to die that terrible
death upon the cross at Calvary that our sins might be taken
away. He bore the punishment instead. Do we not have to say, what a
Saviour, what a Saviour. who should have been willing
to die for such a hard-hearted, evil sinner as me. That great God had so much patience
toward me. I was rebellious. I was hard-hearted. And yet, in love to my soul,
the Lord drew me to Himself. Do you know then, by the grace
of God, we were shut in. Shut in to Christ. Now if you and I think upon that
wonderful picture then, of the natural arc and the spiritual
arc. The analogy really is very beautiful,
because there was complete safety in that arc, and it was a terrible
time, those 40 days and nights when there was all that rain
and all those fountains of great deep broken up, great tsunami's
going backwards and forwards, and yet safety. It doesn't mean
to say therefore in this life, you and I won't have to face
storms. We will, but safety in Christ. You see, once in Him, in Him
forever. Yes, none of them fell out of
the ark, did they? The ark didn't break up. Everyone was safe. And that is
true today. safe in the arms of Jesus. It's wonderful, isn't it? You
ponder it, you think about it. Go home today and meditate upon the glory of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Well, now I lived in this dark
day, this evil day, and yet we find but Noah found grace. We live in a dark day. What a
mercy if there is a but. But I have found grace. And you won't say, well that's
because I was a great person. I really deserved it. I've done
this and I've done that. No, you won't come there at all.
You'll come as the Apostle Paul did. As I quote to you, most
of you know, I quote often those two situations where the Apostle
Paul considered himself to be on the one hand the greatest
sinner and on the second, less than the least of all saints.
He didn't value himself in his own eyes as of anything, but
he did value his Saviour. He did value Jesus and he did
look forward to that great day when he would come and to be
with Jesus. Well, that's the end, isn't it? To be found with Christ, which
is far better. But our little life on this earth
will have ended. Time will be no more. and we
shall be found eternally with Christ, that great and glorious
Saviour who redeemed us from all our sin. Now all the Church
of God is redeemed. May you and I be amongst those
who indeed are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ
and therefore have great cause and great reason to praise God,
from whom all blessings flow. Amen.