As an introduction, I would like
to mention that we just celebrated Veterans Day, and I am thankful
to all the men and women who defended the freedom of this
country by dedicating part of their lives,
in a way, for that very cause. But I can't go through of Veterans
Day and other days as well without thanking my Lord Jesus for every
believer. Those who are set for the defense
of the gospel in this generation and those who have gone on before
us, we're in a war and we need to be set for the defense of
the gospel. And we're surrounded by such
a cloud of witnesses. And I thank my God for you, for
all of the saints of God in every generation, for you today who
support the gospel by your attendance, your prayers, your talents, your
monies. It's just Amazing what God has done in the lives of
His enlightened children, turning us from darkness, delivering
us from that awful trap, sinful trap, from Satan, from self,
and bringing us into this living union with Himself. It's a miracle
of God's grace, and I'm very, very thankful, so I thank God
for you. Salvation is of the Lord. Now, our Lord tells us in His
Word, that we're not saved by signs and wonders. Those who
seek such things are wrong. They shouldn't seek after signs
and wonders. But God does use signs and wonders, and He does
that to draw us to the attention of our need of Christ, and He'll
bring us, His chosen people, through different things. He
uses men, He uses angels, He uses what folks today call laws
of nature, but God's the first cause of all things, and he'll
use whatever he's pleased to use. At his appointed time of
love for us, our Lord Jesus reveals our total depraved condition,
and he reveals himself as God in three divine persons. He also
reveals Jesus Christ as the eternal God, in Him dwell the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, that He's equal with the Father. If we
don't worship Him as we worship God the Father, we don't honor
God at all. And His Word reveals that to
us, and God reveals to us that Jesus Christ became a man for
this very purpose, to do His Father's will. and to accomplish
the salvation of His chosen people. He tells us, by His Spirit working
in us, that we need Jesus Christ. Then He reveals to us that Jesus
Christ is all we need. He enlightens our mind to the
fact that Jesus Christ bore our sins in His body on a tree, took
care of our sin debt forever, and that he is now the resurrected,
exalted Christ of God, all power and heaven and earth belonging
to him. And he reveals to us that he's coming again. He's
coming again in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who
do not know God and who do not obey his gospel. So we have a
great God who deserves all the praise and all the honor and
all the glory for his unspeakable gift, and that's eternal life
through Christ our God. Now I want to ask you to turn
to Genesis chapter 8, and most professing Christians have heard
the story of Jonah. I've preached it here. David
has preached it here. I believe every man that's been
called of God has preached on Jonah. If not yet, they will,
I believe. It's a God-honoring event that's
full of lessons for the Lord, for the child of God who is trusting
in the Lord Jesus. Now, it's not my intent To preach
on that so much this morning, just to remind us that God saw
that the wickedness of man was great, and the earth and every
imagination of the thoughts of the heart were only evil continually,
that included Jonah. That includes us. God reveals
to us that there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Now,
at the top of the page in my Bible, the caption reads, Noah
alone findeth grace. And that's a true statement,
but that's not all of the truth. Any truth mixed with a lie, and
I'm not saying that's mixed with a lie, but there are self-righteous people who claim to be followers
of Jesus Christ who would teach that Noah was seeking God and
found Him. That's not true. There's none
that seeketh after God. No, not one. Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. That means God looked upon Noah
with divine favor, unmerited favor. And that's exactly what
the Lord does with all of His chosen people. He looks upon
us with divine favor. And God's glory is to have mercy
on whom He will have mercy. He tells us that in His Holy
Word. So here in Genesis chapter 8 and verse 1, We read, and God
remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that
was with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over
the earth, and the waters assuaged. Now, God never forgets when we
read that he remembers Noah. It means he thought on Noah. He thinks on us. Isn't that amazing? God thinks on his people. He
thought on us back when he wrote our names in the Lamb's Book
of Life before the foundation of the world. He thought on us
when he purposed our salvation through the perfect redeeming
work of Jesus Christ. He thought on us when Adam fell
in the garden. He thought on us When we were
in our mother's womb, He thought on us when He separated us from
our mother's womb. He thought on us when we were
running from Him, hating Him, loving darkness, and would not
come to the light that we might have life. God thinks on those
that He loves. He thought on us when Christ
was walking on this earth, establishing a perfect righteousness for us.
He thought on us when Christ went to the cross and endured
the eternal wrath of God in our room and in our stead. He thought
on us when Christ rose from the dead and entered into heaven
itself there to appear in the presence of God for us. He thinks
on us today as we walk with Him, even though we still have the
old nature that rebels against the new nature, and we struggle,
and have wrong thoughts and do wrong deeds and do those things
that we know are not pleasing to God, but He won't leave us
in those thoughts. He thinks on us, enlightens our
mind through the perfect redeeming work of Christ day after day
after day, month after month after month. God thinks on His
special, particular blood-bought children. You know how I know
that? God loves us with an everlasting
love. And with loving kindness, he
draws us unto himself. So if he loves us with an everlasting
love, he was always thinking on us in Christ, of course, but
always thinking on his people. That's just a special blessing
to just meditate upon that God thinks on his people. Now we
know God was thinking on Noah because verse one tells us that
God made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters assuaged. God caused the rain to stop.
The whole world was flooded. Then our Lord caused a warm gentle
wind to blow as the floodwaters begin to decrease, go away. This
is another verse to show us that our Lord Jesus controls the wind. He caused the wind to blow. Now, the Word of God has a good illustration
in the New Testament when our Lord Jesus was in a small ship
with his apostles and the storm came up and the boat was filling
up with water. Our Lord was asleep in the hinder
part of the little boat there, and they cried out, Master, carest
thou not that we perish? And he stood up, said, O ye of
little faith. And he rebuked the wind. He caused
the wind to stop blowing, and the sea became calm. And they
said, one of them said, what manner of man is this that even
the winds obey his voice? He's the God-man, that's what
manner of man He is. The sovereign God-man. And if
He caused the wind to be stilled by the voice of His mouth, then
the winds obeyed Him when the storm came. He brings the storms
as well as calms the storms. And every stormy trial that comes
our way, God has purposed it for His glory and for our good
that we might trust Him more as we go through these trials
and hear Him saying to our heart, peace, be still. And we see the
hand of the Lord in that and thank Him, not only for calming
the storm, but for bringing the storm. They're working together
for His glory and for our good. Now the ark could not move itself. It wasn't designed for that.
And it could not direct itself. It wasn't designed for that.
It took God himself to do that. God caused the wind to blow to
move the ark to where God wanted it to go. That was on Mount Ararat. That was the highest mountain
in that area. And that mountain would be seen
first. And God was directing that, not
only for the sake of Noah and those who were bored, but to
remind us that we live and move and have
our being because of God. We're directed by God. Even in our unregenerate state,
God has a purpose for where we walk. He has determined the bounds
of our habitation. And as we walk through this world
without God, hating Him, when He delivers us, we look back
and see that awful pit that He delivered us out of and give
Him all the praise and all the glory. And we're on that path
that leads to the highest place ever, that's in Heaven itself,
to be with our Lord Jesus and see Him in all of His glory.
Now, if we don't believe in Jesus Christ, if we have not come to
Him by faith, the wrath of God abides on us. And there's two
places, two places where all the descendants of Adam are going
to spend, either in eternal glory with Christ our Savior or eternal
torment. And that's the lowest place I
can imagine is eternal torment. So if your faith is not in Christ,
come to Him. Believe on Him. Give Him the
glory for what He has done for us in taking care of our sin,
dead and full, by the supreme sacrifice of Himself. Now if
you'll turn over to the 9th chapter of Genesis, I can't even begin
to imagine what Noah and his family were going through. They
knew that all of their loved ones, all of their friends, all
of their neighbors had died. They knew that. They were all
alone, lonely, filled with doubts and fears. Some might say, yeah,
but they had this understanding that God had spared them. Yes, they did. But they were
still human, they still had the old nature. And fear grips the
hearts of all of God's people at one time or another, even
after we're delivered. And our Lord remembered Noah
and thought on him. And he knew that Noah's heart
and those with him were fearful. Well, that's a picture of us
I know we still have some of our loved ones with us. I know
we fellowship with them and love to do so, but if they're not
in Christ, we just don't have the conversation with them that
we have with each other. Worldly things, and we delight
in knowing that they love us, They're dead to us and we're
dead to them. And we just long for them to come into the faith
of God's elect and embrace Him. So we really don't have the fellowship
with our loved ones who are not in Christ as we have with each
other. We know that they hate Christ.
We know they're running from Christ. We know they're dead
in trespasses and sins. But we also know that if they
will hear the gospel and embrace the gospel and believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ as he set forth on the pages of Holy Scripture,
then they'll be with us when we go to glory. We'll see them
in glory when this is all over. Now God made a covenant with
Noah and gave him a token to remind him of his covenant. Our
subject this morning is God's symbol of covenant mercy. And here, in Genesis chapter
9, starting at verse 12, we read, 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 perpetual generations. I do 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 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." Now, the bow in the sky, or the rainbow if you will,
that was a reminder of God's covenant. Now, God didn't need
that to remind him, of course, but he knew that Noah needed
to see that rainbow. Can you just imagine what might
have gone through Noah's mind and the minds of his family when
it started to rain again? Well, God knew that Noah would
be filled with fear, and so he gave him a sign to show him that
he had made a promise and he would keep that promise. That
was the covenant that God made with Noah. And every time we
see a rainbow, we should be reminded of God's eternal covenant. That's
the symbol of God's covenant mercy with all of his chosen
blood-bought children. Now, let me take you over to
the New Testament, to Revelation chapter 4. If you would turn
there with me, please. Revelation chapter 4. Now, all
power in heaven and earth has been given to the God-man. God has always had all power.
But God wasn't always a man. And the Lord Jesus Christ, like
I mentioned a while ago, is the exalted, glorified God-man. All power in heaven and earth
has been given to Him. He upholds all things by the
Word of His power. Jesus Christ is the power of
God. And the powers that be are ordained
of God. That doesn't just mean those
who are in authority, that means all power, whether it's electrical
power, nuclear power, solar power, petroleum power, all power comes
from God. He reveals to His people that
all power belongs to Him. When you get in your car and
you take off and you can speed up, that power is petroleum power,
And that power was ordained by God. He gave men and women the
wisdom to know how to develop these things into the power that
we use today. I'll give you an illustration. When you go to a place of business
and they have doors that automatically open, that's an illustration
of God's power. Automatic doors have been around
since, well, clear back to the Apostolic Age, I know. And before,
even when, I think it was one of God's prophets who broke down
the gate of the city. Well, my mind just doesn't work
like it used to. But anyway, even the power that God gave
him demonstrated the opening of the door, but these automatic
doors. Peter experienced it. He was
shackled to guards in a prison. The angels came and his shackles
fell off. The doors of the prison opened
up by itself. The gate of the city opened up
by itself. Paul experienced it. An earthquake came when him and
Silas were in prison. Shackles fell off. Prison doors
opened. God did that. He did that because
there were people in that prison where Paul and Silas were, the
Philippian jailer and others that needed to hear the gospel.
And so the next time you go through a door that opens by itself,
remember this. God gave somebody the wisdom
to develop the opening of those doors to a power that was already
here. That's God's power. He's behind
all of that. I just got a call from a man that took over as pastor
and rescue, and he came down with COVID, and he had to be
sent to the hospital. And in that hospital room, now
if he hadn't been as seriously affected by the virus as he was,
they would have just sent him home. His wife has it too, but
they sent her home. But the pastor had a severe case
of it, and he was in a room with a man who was dying of it. They didn't expect him to ever
be released. And his son, the man that was dying, his son had
prayed that God would send somebody to minister to his dad. And interestingly enough, he
was going to a church where one of our former members are going
now, who rebelled against the truth. And John Reeves, the pastor
rescue, spent his two or three days that the Lord had him in
the hospital, quoting scripture, ministering to that man. You
know, the Lord controls everything. And I've said this before, but
it bears repeating. He will get his preacher and
his chosen blood-bought children, he will cause their paths to
cross somewhere along the line. The preaching of the gospel is
the most important part of our worship service. That we might
hear about Jesus Christ, who by himself took care of our sin
debt, redeemed us to God by the supreme sacrifice of himself. And this is all according to
the eternal covenant of grace that was established by the great
three in one before this world was ever created. God the Father
gave a people to his son, of particular people. We read in
the Scriptures where our Lord Jesus, while He walked on this
earth, came to certain men, certain ones who were ordained to believe
the Gospel. You all believe that? I believe
that's what the Word of God says. God ordained us to eternal life. As many as were ordained to eternal
life, they believed. We have to believe. If we don't
believe, we're going to go to hell. That's eternal torment. So God gives us, by His sovereign
grace, according to His eternal purpose, according to the conditions
of the eternal covenant that our Lord accomplished, met in
full, He said, That time when He was nailed to the cross, just
before He gave up the ghost, He said, it is finished. Folks,
we have entered into a finished work. A finished work that Christ
Himself performed. He didn't try to save us. He
saved us. He took care of our sin debt.
He by Himself purged our sins. Removed them from God's remembrance. as far as the East is from the
West. Now, I don't understand that. God can't forget, but He
has taken our sin debt so far from us, as far as the East is
from the West, that He remembers them against us no more. That's good news for a hell-deserving
sinner. Good news to this sinner. And
it's according to a covenant The blood of Jesus Christ is
referred to as the blood of the everlasting covenant. God thinks
on us because of Christ. God forgives us because of Christ. It's for Christ's sake. Everything
that takes place in time was purposed by God Himself before
time began for Christ's sake. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, is
the object of all worship and praise. That's why we assemble
together to worship Him in spirit and in truth, to sing praises
to Him, to have the remembrance of who He is and what He has
done brought before us that we might understand that absolutely
nothing can take us away from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. And here in Revelation chapter
4 we have the Word of God teaching us what we saw in this the account in Noah that we read,
we have the truth concerning the rainbow, the sign of God's,
the symbol of God's covenant of mercy. Look at verses 2 and
3 of Revelation 4. This is John. He said, Immediately
I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and
one sat on the throne. Now that's Jesus Christ. And
in verse 3, we read, and he that sat was to look upon like a jasper
and a sardine stone, and there was a rainbow. There was a rainbow
round about the throne and sight like unto an emerald. That's
as far as I'm going. It's not my intent to expound from these
scriptures, just to point to you this symbol of God's covenant
mercy that we read about Back in Genesis 9, God himself is
seated on the sovereign throne of power in heavenly places and
around the throne of grace where he is seated is a rainbow, a
rainbow. Now everything in scripture from
Genesis through the book of Revelation points to Jesus Christ. And this
rainbow is around His eternal throne. It will be there forever.
And when we look upon Christ, we don't need that rainbow because
we'll see Him in the nail prints in His hands and feet and the
wound in His side. But that rainbow is the symbol
of God's covenant mercy. And the Word of God is plain
enough to me to know that this covenant of God's grace was established
by God Himself And it was fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ as far
as conditions of the covenant is concerned and revealed to
us at God's appointed time. There's another scripture over
in Revelation chapter 10 if you would like to turn there. I'll
read this one to you. It's also a symbol of this eternal
covenant of mercy. Here in Revelation 10, And in
verse one, we read, and I saw another mighty angel. Now this
is Christ. This mighty angel is Jesus Christ
himself. I saw another mighty angel come
down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon
his head. And his face was as it were the
sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. So this angel, this
is Christ himself. And the rainbow was upon his
head. Now, God loved the church and
he gave himself for it. There's one body, one church,
one faith. And Jesus Christ is the head
of his body, his church. And we make up that body of Christ. We're His members. Each member. Each member of the body of Christ
sees Jesus Christ as our glorious head. I heard this illustration
given years ago. We might be able to function
if we lose a finger, or even an arm, or both legs. But we can't do without our head.
If they remove our head, we're done. And if there's a way to
remove Christ off His throne, which there isn't, if they could
destroy the head, then they could destroy the body. But they can't
do that. Jesus Christ is sovereign. He's
over everything. And He is over even the angels. We know that angels and principalities
and powers are made subject unto him. Even the evil forces of
darkness, including Lucifer, have to get permission from the
Lord Jesus Christ before they can do anything. Not only do
we read that in the book of Job, the first couple of chapters,
we know this, but it was revealed when Christ walked on this earth.
He came to a man possessed with the devils and He said, depart. And they had to obey Him. He
had the power to deliver those people who were possessed with
devils, casting out those devils. That's His power. And that power
is still His. Nobody, absolutely nobody can
take that power away from Him. And like I mentioned a while
ago, the powers that be are ordained of God. And brethren, we know
this, perfect love casts out fear. We read that in 1 John. And it was the perfect, eternal
love of God for His covenant children that purposed our salvation. God loves us with an everlasting
love. Therefore, with loving kindness, He draws us unto Himself.
It was the perfect, eternal love of God for His covenant children
that accomplished our salvation by the supreme sacrifice of our
perfect Savior. That was God's doings. God sent
His Son to do His will. And by the will of God, Jesus
Christ himself accomplishing that will, God has sanctified
us and perfected us forever. It was the love of God for us
when he sent Jesus Christ to suffer the eternal wrath of God
for us. I don't understand fully the doctrine of substitution,
but I believe it. I believe Jesus Christ was punished
for my sins. I believe my sins were on him. He bore in his own body on a
tree the sins of all of his people. And I believe I was punished
in Jesus Christ. And I believe, because of what
the Word of God says, He was delivered for my offenses, and
He was raised again for my justification. I believe that. And I believe
we're walking with Him. If our faith is in Him, we walk
by faith. And when faith gives way to sight,
we're gonna see Him in all of His glory. What a sight to behold. We see this now through the eye
of God-given faith. We didn't conjure up that faith.
Jesus Christ is the author and the finisher of our faith. And
as we walk with him through this life, he assures us, because
of the eternal covenant of grace, the grace of God's eternal, everlasting,
covenant of mercy. As he walks with us and we walk
with him, in this fellowship with the living God, the true
and living God, this fellowship warms our heart as we consider
what he has done for us, who he is and what he has done for
us. And we know assuredly that absolutely
nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord. So we cling to Him by faith.
But let me assure you, no matter what the trial might be that
comes your way, our Lord will give us the victory through those
trials, even if that trial results in the deliverance from this
body of death, even if we go through that door marked death,
we'll have the blessed assurance that Jesus is mine, that He loves
us and tells us that we belong to Him, and all of this for the
glory of Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for us. And
if your faith is not in Christ, Come to Him, right now. You don't have to take a step. You don't have to speak a word.
Just in your heart, cry out for mercy. And the Lord never turned
a deaf ear to the sincere cry of a sinner who sees their need
of Christ and Christ is all they need. God bless you as you ponder
these wonderful truths and thank the Lord for delivering us through
his perfect redeeming work according to the eternal grace of God's
sovereign mercy.