This morning we're going to think
about Noah and think about why this is so important, which it
is. If we are going to be mocked
about our faith, one of the things you might be mocked about is,
do you believe in Noah? It's just an amazing thing. Since
I decided to look into this a couple of weeks ago, I've come across
Noah so many times. The very next, I started working
on it, the very next morning I picked up my daily reading
notes which were by Mr Spurgeon and it was on Noah. And then
I picked up the Gospel Standard and I read Mr Ransbottom's very
fine opening article and he mentions Noah. And it just went on almost
every day, I would come across it. And even this week I went
to the dentist on Wednesday, I picked up the magazine, it
was a BBC science magazine, I opened it up And there's a big article
on Noah in it, all full of lies. It's just amazing, isn't it?
This man is still before people's eyes. But they're told, and children
are told, that it's a myth. There's a creation myth. And it's fairy stories. And they
said in this article that actually it's only a copy of a Babylonian
myth that's older. and it says the real ark wasn't
the dimensions that we've read this morning, by the way, which
I'm sure you know are the perfect dimensions for an ocean going
ship. That's the same basic dimensions that you would use to build today. Absolutely perfect, as you would
expect. They said, oh no, it was a giant coracle, like a realm
ship. In the Babylonian records they've
even found instructions on how to build it. But you see, the
original story is of a global flood of Noah. And do you know
that almost every culture throughout the world and every continent
has some history of there being a global flow. Isn't that remarkable?
You can't escape the truth of it. But if you tell people you
believe this, they say, they'll mock you. It's a myth, it's all
these, the Gilgamesh story, they always wheel that out on television.
He's older and they use this word myth. Well was he a myth?
Was he a real person? This is very important. To me,
when I was looking at this, either we believe the word of God is
truth, or we don't. And there are paths that aren't
so easy to believe. We might find we have difficulties. With the passage we read, we'd
like to know more, but we are told all these remarkable facts. Quite a long and detailed account,
isn't it? Wonderful. It's on something
of the events of the flood, the dramatic events of the flood. So either it's history or it's
full. Now we have to take stock here. We all know, we believe, I trust
us believers, that we are descended from Adam. But do you know there
is also this equal great truth, we are all descended from Noah
and his three sons. The human race, this is a few
thousand years ago, the human race as we know and understand
is a very close family. Paul says this, Acts 17, that remarkable passage
when he is talking there to the wise men of the day, and he makes
this very remarkable statement that is so important for that
which we are looking at. Acts 17 verse 26, he says that
I have made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on
the face, or the face of the earth. and have determined the
times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation."
We are one in Adam, we are one in Noah and his family and that
great salvation. He is one of those of Seth, of
the line of faith, isn't he? He's a very important man in
there. So we understand, it is very
important that we know something of the history of this man. As I said, it is not all easy
for us. There are many challenges in
the word of God. God has placed this before us. We read in Genesis 10 verse 32,
These are the families of the sons of Noah after the generation
in their nations and by these were the nations divided in the
earth after the flood. So that's where all the nations
came from. Again you read books and you
watch documentaries and so on and they'll tell you that from
the few bones they found lying in the Kalahari desert that man
evolved and originated in Africa. And from Africa humans spread
across the world. But actually that's not true.
And I think they know and they actually study migration It was
from the Middle East, from Ararat. That's where the human migration
took place. This is what the Word of God
tells us. Why do I believe? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ believed
in Noah. And there are people who say,
they're Christians, who say, well, we can't believe the myths
of the Old Testament. We'll believe the New Testament,
but we had problems reading the myths of the Old Testament. Well,
Jesus had no problems at all, whatsoever. and he's always pointing
to the Old Testament to point the truth about himself he says
in 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 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." The Son
of Man is going to come in judgement. Men are not going to be ready
for this. He points to Noah. He doesn't
say the story of Noah. To the Lord Jesus Christ, Noah
was a real person. What did Paul think about Noah? He goes to that great record,
that wonderful account of of the line of faith, people who
believed God and were set forth in Hebrews 11, that remarkable
chapter on faith. And verse 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.
All the people in that chapter were real people, they are not
quoted as stories, these are people who are set forth as examples
before us, and of course we see this as well, you will probably
know this in Peter's epistles. On Peter chapter 3 and verse
20, those disobedient souls, which sometimes were disobedient
when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of
Noah, While the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls,
were saved by water, the like figure whereunto even baptism
doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of
the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because it is faith that
saves us, and baptism is a sign of that. And we know that it's
a work of God. It's interesting, isn't it? They
were saved through water. I wasn't actually going to go
into the baptism, but you can see there, the analogy is a very
good one and powerful one. And then in 2 Peter, in chapter
2, again, and verse, I think it's verse 5, And spared not
the old world, but saved no of the aged person, a preacher of
righteousness. bringing in a flood upon the
world of the ungodly. He's a preacher of righteousness. I believe he was a preacher of
righteousness in the day that he lived. He walked before God.
He was a just man, a godly man. He was an example in that ungodly
world. Was the world then more wicked? Was it worse than the world now
that it was destroyed? This world is so evil, isn't
it? We see it more and more. God has promised, we'll see,
not to destroy it again by a flood. Was the world any worthy? It
must have been a very, very wicked place. But there was Noah, a
righteous man, by the grace of God. God saved Noah. So he's mentioned. He's mentioned
also in last scriptural reference in Ezekiel, quite remarkable
two verses in Ezekiel and chapter 14. And you'll know these verses. we said, who do you think were
the greatest men of faith in the scripture, well this is what
Ezekiel set forth in his day, though these three men, Noah,
Daniel and Job were in it, they should deliver but their own
souls by their righteousness saith the Lord. These are as
it were the three heavyweights almost here, aren't they? And
in verse 20, though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it. As I live,
saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter. They shall but deliver their
own souls by their righteousness. Do we believe there might be
some who say, well maybe there was a prophet called Daniel,
but I can't believe in Noah. Well Ezekiel puts them together. People say that the book of Job
is a piece of fiction. It's a fictional character. It
isn't invented. It's a piece of writing, a piece
of literature. But according to Ezekiel, he's
a real person. These are the challenges of Scripture.
And so, with Noah, and we must not believe, there's a film being
made in Hollywood, I think it's Russell Crowe starring, and I
saw a clip of it on television, it was nonsense. He had a young
daughter, and we're told that he had three sons and their wives,
and that's all who went into the ark, eight persons. Not according
to Hollywood. And no doubt people will see
this as a tissue of lies and they'll believe it. They think that's what the Bible
says. When we had two young boys, there used to be a television
program about Noah and his wife. I won't tell you their names,
but they were given silly names. And it was presented as a piece
of foolishness. But you see, we need to know
this. Because it's in the book of Genesis. We will not understand
the origins of mankind We will not understand the world that
we live in, why the world is as it is, if we don't believe
in Noah as the events, the climate, the topography, the geology,
the loss of species, the existence of fossils, all these things
are there. We are seen, of course, in believing
this as being very ignorant. You know that, don't you, people?
Oh, you don't believe all that. I've been told you don't believe
that stuff, do you? We are seen as foolish and ignorant. almost
as dangerous but we know the truth if we look in to Timothy
in chapter 3 you know verse 16 very well but verse 15 and that
from a child that has known the holy scriptures which are able
to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Jesus
Christ all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is
profitable for doctrine for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness. Like this, you know the scriptures
which are able to make me wise. Of course, wise unto salvation,
that's being wise. Your eyes are open. God opens
your eyes. You see the world. You see yourself
as well and sin, exactly as there are many, many warnings in scripture. not just this flood, but there
was that terrible event of Sodom and Gomorrah and those cities
of that valley were destroyed because of their great evils.
What a message for today. What a warning for today. People
ignore it. It's a message for today. And
then there's the children of Israel, there's their great deliverance,
but all because of their sin and idolatry, the wandering in
the wilderness. Isn't that set forth before people? Don't wander away from God. Do
not reject God. Do not go into idolatry. And even the nation of Israel
itself. Firstly, the northern kingdom
of Israel lapsed into idolatry. All its kings were evil. Eventually,
God allowed the Assyrians to come and take them into captivity.
And then, over a hundred years later, sadly, the southern The
Kingdom of Judah was also overcome by the Babylonians and they were
taken into captivity. There was a restoration of course
under Nehemiah and Ezra. These are there as warnings.
The things in scripture are not just stories for us to look at
and perhaps tell to the children. They are Sunday school stories
but they are there as very solemn warnings to all of mankind. Now
the key point here about the Ark is that it wasn't a ship.
because it didn't have any means of propulsion, it didn't have
any sails. It was just designed to float
and of course we read it had pitch inside and out. Now what
was that pitch? Well in the Middle East there
possibly was some oily substance. I talk about miry pits in the
scriptures, I think often that's referring to the natural existence
of hydrocarbons in the Middle East and probably there were
areas where there was black pitch came to the surface and so they
could use some of these materials to waterproof that boat. It was
very big wasn't it? You know, nothing bigger than
the Ark was built until Brunel built his great eastern liner. Just think about that. In the
middle of the 19th century, there were some quite big boats built
by the Romans, but nothing of that size was built until the
mid-19th century. And of course it was designed
to float. That was all it was to do, to
keep people during the flood, that they might be kept safe. There's a lot we don't know about
it. It seems to have adequate windows. You could ask lots of
questions. How did he get the animals in?
How did he feed them? But we're talking of a supernatural
event. And as you read the account,
the animals came. They came two by two. No one didn't go out and collect
them. It would seem the Lord moved. How were they kept? some
wild ones. How were they kept passive? It's
a supernatural act. We can't answer. We don't know.
God doesn't tell us. So we can't know all these things.
But they were preserved. The people were preserved. They
had to keep some form. It's quite remarkable. Was the
land there desert? How could they build a boat in
the Middle East? Could you build a big wooden boat today in Iraq
or Arabia? You could say there's no trees.
But you see, we don't know what the world was like before the
flood. There was no rain. If there was no rain, we're told,
in Genesis chapter 2 verse 6, how could there be abundant plants
and trees? But you see, we read that a mist
went up from the ground. No, we can't prove it. It is
believed, and I go along somewhat with this, that the climate in
all the world was very humid. It was like a vapour canopy around
the world before the flood, and probably towards the end of the
day, as it called, this would vaporise, it would be a mist,
and that would drench the ground, and I think there is evidence,
you can see that from some geological records, that would suggest that
all the globe seemed to be fairly abundant in life and plants,
in a colossal way, far more abundant than it is today. Massive, massive
amounts of plants and animals, and all the animals that are
buried, they were there. teeming with life, absolutely
teeming with life. And that's what was described.
We don't know how many humans, of course, were there people.
There may not have been very many. We just don't know. These
were early days, remember. And so all that was going to
change. And the world we're in today
is very different, I think. And therefore there would have
been probably ample, rapidly growing trees, ample wood. for
Noah, whenever they go for wood, I'm not quite sure, to build
this ark. And it was set forth, wasn't
it, as a witness to people. Now, people say, well, could
the oceans have actually covered all the land? Well, you know,
today, 70% of the world's surface is still under the oceans. If
you look at the great depths, like the Mariana Trench down
to seven miles, well, there's more than enough water to cover
the earth if there were upheavals. And we can't understand movements
of land that must have taken place. The pressures, the weight
that were involved, we don't know. The hand of God was in
all these things. And we know the sea is young
because it's not very salty. without going into it. And the
chemicals they've got in it are not the ones you would expect
to have come off the land. Again, I was reading recently
in the Creation Science documents at the back there that there's
chlorine, bromine and sulphur. And that's not what rivers wash
into the sea. There's a mystery in the oceans.
But they need to be sorted because that keeps them pure and fresh.
And also it affects the currents as they heat up and the water
moves. It's quite important for the
currents and the climate in the world. Many, many mysteries there. We read that God repented of
all he had made. He made this wonderful world.
He put all this teeming abundance of life. He made man in his own
image. And it says it repented him. The word repented here is really,
it grieved him. It was very sorrowful. It didn't mean he changed his
mind as such. If you read modern versions of
the Bible, they would use words like sorrow or grief. And I'm sure in the day this
was written, repented could mean that as well. People understood
in repenting that God was very sad. what he'd made, and you
could see the thoughts of man's heart was in evil continually.
Men have not changed, have they? And he said, I will destroy man.
This is an amazing thing. I will destroy man whom I've
created. That's a huge decision, this wonderful world God described. But he was setting forth, isn't
he, in this salvation and judgement. And he's going to blot out. It's
a very, very strong thing. It's a picture, isn't it, of
the world we're in today. It's a world ripe for judgment. A world full of evil. A world that is against the Gospel,
against God. These people were ignoring God.
They weren't worshipping Him. They weren't walking before Him.
But we find this. This holds everything together
I want to talk about this morning. We talk about Noah, but verse
8, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That is all and
everything. Wasn't that he, it says he was
a good man, therefore God thought I'll save him. No, this is sovereign
grace. He found grace in the eyes of
the Lord. God showed favour to him. There
was spiritual life in Noah. We see that the work of God in
this man's life, there was fruit. How do we know someone's a believer?
Jesus said, by their fruit you shall know them. Noah was a just
man and perfect. in his generations and Noah walked
with God. That's the difference. What's
our situation today? We're in a wicked world. Do we
walk with God? Do we know what that means? We
walk with Him every day. We commit every day to Him. We
want to love Him. In the Lord Jesus Christ we want
to serve Him. We want to be His faithful servants
and to acknowledge that if we know Him, it's because of sovereign
grace, because He loved us. Before we ever loved Him, He
came to us and revealed His Son to us. And there were few. Of course, there's a type of
the people of God, always a remnant, isn't there? Remarkable. Israel was set forth as a pattern
for the Church, but in the end, We read that not all Israel were
Israel, there's a true Israel of faith. And that picture of
Israel as the people of God is also the same as the church as
the people of God. Always a remnant. Isn't it sad?
We don't understand there's a mystery in there. We know that when all
the same ultimately at the end of things gathered round the
throne there will be a number without counting, a myriad. But
we have to be faithful in listening now. What about free will? People
say that's unfair. You see? Why did God only say
one family? God is not just. God is just. If I was an Arminian, and there
are Arminian versions of this story, a free will version, I
would say, well I didn't know how to build a fleet of arcs.
I'd invite everybody to come in and say, come on, you come
in here, you'll be saved. Come into this ark I'm building
for you and you'll be saved from the flood. But Sovereign Grace
says not one person would believe him, not one person would go
in that ark. That's the point. No one in his family went in. Why? Because they'd been shown
by the grace of God. They saw the need for deliverance.
There had never been a frozen flood before. They may not even
have an ocean inside. There were probably oceans. Perhaps
they couldn't even see one. Why was this man spending a hundred
years doing this great vessel? He's a fraud. Why do we come here on Sunday
morning? Some people think we're utterly foolish. Because we want
to be like Noah. We do not want to walk with God. And there are many questions
on these logistics. We thought of the ark as a symbol
of salvation by water. We could talk about baptism. Baptism doesn't save, but it's
a sign that we are saved by water and that we go through the waters
of baptism. Like somebody in that lovely
service Not so long ago, a year ago, wasn't it? Because we want
to testify to Christ. We want to testify to newness
of life. We want to testify to washing from unrighteousness
no godliness. Coming out of the water as if
we were rising from dead to new life. That's what we want. That's
surely what the Ark is all about. We can't answer the logistics.
They're set forth, aren't they here? They're poured for 40 days
and 40 nights. And again, if you read creation
scientists, they would say that's the vapour canopy collapsing.
We don't know, but it seems to have some credibility. And then
the fountains of deep were broken up, it seems to be water trapped
somehow. Come out, there was a breaking
up from below, and then from above, great turbulence. But
those in the upwind sea, and this ark was watertight, it had
big doors, it was sealed, they were safe. As long as they stayed
in that ark, they were safe. Isn't that wonderful? And they
were spared. And it took a long time. They
had to be patient all that time, waiting for the waters to abate.
And then they didn't go out immediately. They used the birds to see whether
it was safe to come out of the ark. All these great events. We are told that God has promised
that he will not do this again, we read this morning. He will
preserve the world. There will be summer and winter. There will be day and there will
be night. God will not bring a flood. We
are told all the ice in the world is going to melt and we are going
to be buried. A lot of the inhabited land is going to be buried in
seawater again by global warming. But God says that's not going
to happen. And there's no evidence that it really is happening.
Obviously there are some changes, climate is always changing, but
the word of God says we're not going to be immersed in a flood
again. But it's important we And I said,
we understand the scriptural account, you won't understand
the human race, that we are all related. I was taught as a young
child that the different races had evolved separately. No one
believes that anymore, they have to rewrite all the labels in
the Natural History Museum. We won't understand why the topography
of the earth is as it is. We're told that certain things
are carved by rivers over millenniums. We're told that's how the Grand
Canyon was built. That was a colossal amount of
water carved the Grand Canyon. You see similar features in the
Mount St Helens disaster in Washington State. Water very rapidly created
modern features like the Grand Canyon very, very rapidly with
water power. We don't understand the world
we're in. We won't understand why there
are so many fossils. People find whole intact dinosaurs and mammoths,
but they can just lay down and die because they would have been
scavenged, they would have been broken up by the weather, they
would have turned to dust. You've got to be a perfectly
preserved fossil, you've got to be buried. And what we see
in the enormous number of fossils is massive burial. What caused
that massive burial? Layer upon layer upon the world,
it was surely the flood. That's not what everybody believes,
but if you believe the Bible that's what happened. Why has
man spread from the Middle East, not Africa? Why we have the extreme
climate we've got now, why the world's climate has changed,
and so on. Now is the world now worse or
more evil than it was then? We don't know, do we? God has promised, it may be more
evil, we don't know, God has promised that he will not destroy
the world, but he will bring a judgement upon it, and in these
last days he's not set forth Noah and Isaac, God has set forth
his son, Will men believe him? Remember the parables that Christ
taught when the beloved son was separated? They took him and
murdered him and said, we'll have his inheritance. What is
man's attitude? If they didn't believe Noah,
will they believe Christ? Only by the grace of God. We have the gospel. We're a gospel
age. Noah was set forth. Christ was
set forth. But we have to understand the
world we're in. We don't want to go into it, but you understand
we live in a country where When I was a young boy, there was
a Christian mentality. It wasn't a Christian country. I don't believe that for a minute.
But at school, we were taught Christian things. We read the
Bible. I said, I was converted then, absolutely full. When I
was a teenager, reading Romans 10 in RE class, God saved me. I'll be allowed to do that today.
I have no idea what they're doing. And we used to celebrate Easter. We used to celebrate Christmas.
and we kept the Christian calendar. And it was important that there
were national services during the war. The king called the
whole nation to prayer. The churches were filled during
the war. When we were at war with Iraq, the Queen called the
nation to prayer, couldn't she? Because that offends people.
We're in a very different world. We've been taken over by political
correctness, by atheism, humanism. These things dominate. It's communism
as well. These things dominate and they're
very evil and they're causing great harm. But we want to be
followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there's a great principle
in the story of Noah. It's a doctrine, the truth, and
our pastor majors on really, verse 18 of chapter 6, but with
thee will I establish my covenant, says the Lord, and thou shalt
come into the ark, thou and thy sons and thy wife, and thy two
sons wisely, my covenant. And we know that God works by
covenant, this is all. It's not a two way thing, it's
like a testament, I like that, when we talk about the New Testament,
if you have a will, And we've been having to deal with the
will, when you have a will it's written by the testator and he
bequeaths or sets out certain things in that will and it comes
into force when they die. And we know that ultimately the
covenant of grace is bound in the death of Christ when Christ
dies. They've kept it if he kept it.
And he saved us in his death. And to us comes an abundance
of grace. It's the fulfilment of every
teaching every view of covenant in the whole of scripture is
fulfilled in Christ. This is how God dealt with us,
I will establish my covenant with you, I will make promises
to you, I will keep you, I will bless you, it is the gospel that
we see here. We saw something of that you
were reading in this morning, the beginning of the service,
in that lovely psalm, Psalm 62, I love that psalm, and those
words are great words. He says, my soul wait thou only
upon God, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock,
my salvation. He is my defence. I shall not
be moved. This is the ground that Noah stood upon. This is
the ground we stand upon in Christ. God is my salvation and my glory. The rock of my strength and my
refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, ye
people. Pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us. This is the covenant he sets
before us in Christ that he will be our refuge. What is our faith? What is our obedience? Noah is
an example to us. Incredible obedience to spend
all that time making something that people saw no possible need
for. Quite remarkable. And he continues. and it's set forth in his day
in an offering. So when he came out of the ark
we see that there was a need to make this offering. Chapter
8 and verse 20 we read, Noah built an altar unto the Lord
and took of every clean beast and every clean fowl and offered
burnt offerings on the altar. You know of the clean animals
there were seven of each male and female that went into the
ark, not two like the unclean beasts. So there were creatures
available to make a sacrifice. And we read, The Lord smelled
a sweet savour, and the Lord said in his heart, I will not
again curse the ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination
of his hand's heart is evil from his youth. And he says, I will
not destroy everything again. The seasons and the days will
continue, says God. All these things are fulfilled
in Christ. The idea of sacrifice is fulfilled. When Christ was offered, as we
read in Hebrews, there remains no further sacrifice. That lovely
man, now with the Lord, Franco Maggiotto, who has preached here
once, There was a Catholic priest, he was saying the Mass, about
to offer up the bread, and they were reading the scriptures and
they read that passage, and he said, he's done it all, I think
were the words he used. We don't need to do any of this,
he's done it all, and he walks out of the church, never again. He walks away from being a Roman
Catholic priest. and became a great warrior for
the Gospel in Italy and suffered many privations and attacks and
harm. But it was that very thought,
God has done it all, not in Noah and his sacrifice, but in Christ,
the offering of himself. Where are we standing today?
Are you standing on Christ? What he has done? Or are you
hoping in other things? We have read of those last days,
they are going to be like the days of Noah. We know prophetically,
after the coming of Christ, we are in what the scriptures would
call the last days. But no one knows, Jesus said
in Matthew 24 and verse 36, no one knows the day when Christ
is going to come again, only my Father knows. But, we are
told, that day and hour knoweth no man, know not the angels in
heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noah were,
so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the
days that they were before the flood they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered
into the ark, I knew not until the flood came and took them
all away so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. There's
a warning isn't there? There's a warning in the Ark,
still a warning today in the story of Noah and there's a warning
from Christ in his life. Do we turn to him by the grace
of God or do we reject him? It's terribly important. that
God has entered into covenant to save his people in all righteousness,
they will be a remnant. And of course if you actually
look up Ark in the scripture which I did with my online bible,
which is very useful, and you put the word Ark in, most of
the references to do with the Ark of the Covenant. It was a box, it wasn't meant
to float, but it was a symbolic box. In that box was the law,
the law of God, which is perfect. In the early days it had Aaron's
rod which budded, but we know above that box, not very big,
is what we call the mercy seat, the propitiation. This was where
God met and would presence himself in a remarkable way. We know
that once a year the high priest would go in to the most holy
place, but he could only go in the right clothes and perform
the right cleansing and with the precious blood upon him.
Then he would go and meet with God. It's a very holy thing. There's symbolism here that does
relate to the Ark. It does speak to us of common.
It speaks to us of the presence of God. It speaks to us of righteousness. It speaks to us of the shedding
of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. What do these things
mean to us? Do we believe all the Word of
God? Do we believe in Noah? do we believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ who, as he will, fulfills all the law, doesn't it? Law
and the prophets, all that God set forth as truth was fulfilled
in Christ. Thus we hold to what we read
in the Gospels and the epistles and so on, given by Christ the
Apostle, because it's there. We have the complete revelation.
People want to add to it. The Church of Rome has added
all and every nonsense. We go back to Scripture, Scripture
only. This was This was the Reformation,
this is our position, and if you hold that position, do you
hold to Noah? Now, as we come to a conclusion,
there's this lovely thought God has given us a sign of this covenant. It's one you'll all be familiar
with. It's the rainbow, isn't it? We can't deal with Noah without
discussing the rainbow. Some years ago, when our children
were quite small, I had a chance to be away, I suspect the boys,
with my in-laws, and we were in Norfolk, a wild part of Norfolk
coast, which was great because we had a bucket and we were collecting
crab claws and things to bring home for Mark. But we had our
cagors with us and there was a tremendous shower, a really,
really heavy shower and we covered up for a little while and then
the storm cleared. And as we looked out to sea to
the east, the sun was behind us in the west, there was a perfect
double rainbow, perhaps you've seen a double rainbow, and it
went from the sea perfectly to the sea, on the North Sea, and
then inside it was that fainter double rainbow. Never before
or since had I seen one so perfectly. I just stood there and looked
at that. And when you're a Christian you
say, well what a great God we've got. And you can't see that and
not think about Noah. And people say, oh it's just
a natural phenomenon, oh you Christians, you just make it
a fairy story. But you see, no, it's there. we can't just ignore this at
all in chapter 11 God says I will establish my covenant with you
neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of
the flood there is not going to be a global flood neither
shall there be any more a flood to destroy the earth and God
said this is the token of the covenant which I make between
me and you and every living creature that is with you for a perpetual
generation I just set my bow in the cloud and it shall be
for a token of a covenant between me and the earth and it shall
come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow shall
be seen in the cloud this is the important thing and God says
and I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and
every living creature of all flesh and the water shall no
more become a flood to destroy all flesh and the bow shall be
in the cloud and I will look upon it that I may remember the
everlasting covenant between God and every living creature
of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah
this is the token of the covenant which I have established between
me and all flesh that is upon the earth. It's God. See that's
what a covenant is. It's established between God and flesh. The covenant of grace is established
by God, the triune God, and those who we will save in Christ. It
is of God. So every time you see a rainbow,
remember Noah. But also remember this, remember
covenant. Remember, salvation is all by
the grace of God. Now, I've got with me, you may
have read in the news, a gentleman in Holland known as Johan Huybers
has built an ark. And I've got a copy, I'll leave
it on the desk at the front afterwards, but there's a picture, it's probably
not totally accurate, but he's got, from the dimensions, there's
a picture here, a huge ark that he was going to float to London
for the London Olympics but wasn't allowed. It's a big museum in
Holland. There's an article on it, it's
a replica. I've also got a couple of pictures of the young ones
here. But he's built this thing and
it floats. Quite remarkable. But we, in our day, we have Christ
to look to. God has set forth his Son. Do
we accept Christ by the grace of God or do we reject him? People
in Noah's day would believe we are ungodly. They didn't want
to know anything about what he was doing. Only eight were saved. Isn't it a sad truth. May God
bring his gospel in this day. May he bring salvation to many
souls and may we be encouraged and may we every time we are
in the rain and we see a boat remember God's wonderful covenant
to save. Now we are going to sing our closing
hymn and that is number 685 and the tune is Dalhurst 124