Alright, you want to turn in
your Bibles to two places in Hebrews chapter 11 and also in
Genesis chapter 6. Today I want to look at Noah
in the 11th chapter of Hebrews. As we're going through there,
we're going to see what God says about Noah and his faith. So let's ask the Lord to be with
us. Father, we thank you for your mercy that you've given
to us your word and that you've given in your word this great
and wonderful news about salvation from our sins, that rebellion
in our heart where we pitted ourselves against the holy and
just and righteous God to our damnation and our shame, and
yet you in great mercy found a way to save us and to honor
your justice and honor your law and to make known your grace,
make known your goodness and all this, and did it all in your
Son, our Savior. Help us now to see him. and like
Noah, to believe him, to believe his word, and to seek refuge
in him alone. We pray this for ourselves and
for our children and all who hear your word, that the Lord
Jesus Christ might be magnified in our salvation, to the glory
of God. In his name we pray, amen. In
Hebrews chapter 11, it says the following, 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, or his
household, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of
the righteousness which is by faith. That's the text of our
sermon today and I want to go back and read the sixth chapter
of Genesis because there's more detail there and it will help
us as we expound this seventh verse in Hebrews 11. Genesis
chapter six and verse one, it came to pass when men began to
multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them.
So here's the situation. It had been, if I remember correctly,
nine generations from Adam. And if we just add up the space
of time between the birth of each son in that generation of
Adam through Seth, we get approximately 1,656 years when the flood came
upon the earth. Whether or not that's accurate
or not, I'm not quite sure. But that's what you get when
you add those numbers together. 1,656 years by just adding up,
for example, Adam was 130 years old when he begat Seth, and Seth
105 when he begat Enos, and so on. And just add those times
up. and you get 1,656 years. So it hadn't been very long,
about nine generations from the time of Adam. And so there were
a lot of people, a lot of people on the earth. In fact, the descendants
of Cain, as you read in chapter five, took not just one wife,
But multiple wives, and so the rate at which people were being
born was very fast, and the earth was being populated. In fact,
most of the people on earth, and get this, most of the people
on earth were the descendants of Cain. And those who were the
descendants of Seth, who in this chapter are called the sons of
God because they profess to be children of Seth. They were born
through Seth and Enos and his children. They profess to be
the people of the Lord who called on the name of the Lord. and
were his people, those people were fewer in number than the
children of Cain. And so we read this in chapter
six. It came to pass when men began
to multiply in the face of the earth and daughters were born
to them, not just daughters, but sons, that the sons of God,
meaning those who were born through Seth, saw the daughters of men,
those who were born through Cain, the women born through men, were
attractive to those born through Seth. that they were fair, they
were beautiful, and they took of them wives of all which they
chose. So they didn't regard the way
of the Lord, they regarded their own way. They saw what pleased
them and they followed after it. These who professed to be
the Lord's people, the sons of God, they departed from the Lord's
way and they chose wives of Cain's children, those women. They were
beautiful to look upon, and that's what was attractive to them,
and they didn't find Christ to be attractive. And so it says
in verse three, and the Lord said, my spirit shall not always
strive with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall
be 120 years. Now, here, the word strive is
a word that's used elsewhere in scripture where someone sits
in judgment. The Spirit of God is sitting
in judgment. He's making an appeal against
the wickedness of men at this time, as he does through all
time. But especially at this time, his appeal is against them
for their wickedness and their ungodliness. In 2 Peter 2 and
verse 5, it says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness.
So the way that the Lord's spirit strived with men was through
the preaching of righteousness against their wickedness and
for God's righteousness. And he says here, my spirit shall
not always strive with men. God's not always going to contend
with them in a judgmental way to reprove them and to bring
them to judgment because they were completely rebellious. They
didn't care about that message. They put off. the truth that
God was revealing through the preaching of the gospel, through
the preaching of his righteousness. So God says, my spirit will not
always strive with men. God had given them the message.
He had given them time to repent. They would not repent. They would
not receive that message. And so the Lord says, I'm not
always going to strive with men. Yet his day shall be 120 years. And he's referring here to the
time before the flood When God had given instruction to Moses,
he was going, not Moses, Noah, God is going to commission Noah
to build the ark. At the time when the flood would
come from this time spoken of here would be 120 years. A long
time God is waiting for men to repent and he's long in his suffering
with them. And we know this from the New
Testament. I'll take you to that in a moment here. God is long-suffering
in the time of Noah, waiting. That's what it says in 1 Peter
3, around verse 20. He is preaching to them by his
servant Noah, and the Spirit of Christ is in Noah preaching
to them of God's righteousness, his righteous requirements of
men, His justice must be satisfied. And they're hearing this message,
and the Spirit of God is in Noah in that message, and yet these
men are disobedient in the days of Noah. And God puts up with
it, and God sets a time limit, 120 years. This is going to be
preached. What has happened since creation
is that sin has increased. Evil has gotten worse and worse. God created man on the earth.
He observes, because the Lord sees all things, that men are
growing in their wickedness. And God has sent forth his servant
to preach by his spirit in him the righteousness of God, and
men are putting it off. They're not turning from their
sins. And God sets a time. He says, 120 years. It's going
to be over. And notice what he says next.
There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after
that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men,
and they bared children to them, the same, these children, became
mighty men, which were of old, men of renown." They had great
names. They were notorious. for their wickedness, for their
violence, for their bold rejection of God's Word? Lamech, if you
were to go back in chapter 5, after he knew that God had, I'm
sorry, in chapter 4, after he knew that God had cursed Cain
and put a mark on him for killing his brother Abel, Lamech, I think
it was Lamech, he boasted he took two wives in chapter 4 verse
19. He took two wives. He broke this
one woman, one man, one woman rule. He took more than one wife. And then Lamech said to his wives, in
verse 23, chapter 4, whose names were Ada and Zilli, he says,
hear my voice, you wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech, for I have
killed or slain a man to my wounding and a young man to my hurt. If
Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly, Lamech seventy and sevenfold. What a bold, audacious repudiation,
complete disregard for God and His way and His Word. He knows
that Cain is cursed. He knows that Cain killed Abel
and was rejected and was a fugitive, a vagabond, separated from the
Lord, and he boasts in his wickedness. And so when these children who
were the descendants of Seth married or were joined to these
other women who were the descendants of Cain. They took them wives
of all they chose. When they had children, those
children became notorious, strong, and they boasted in themselves.
They wanted to have a name, and they had a name, and men regarded
that name. And so the Lord sees all this
in chapter six, again, in verse, chapter six and verse five. 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. What a pronouncement by God.
God saw what was in men's hearts, what was in their imagination,
what they intended to do, their motives, and what they actually
did, and it was, this is what God said about it, it is only
evil continually. Everything man thinks is wicked
and evil. And verse six, and it repented
the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved
him at his heart. Now God had a purpose. His purpose
never changes. His thoughts, His decrees are
never changed. He doesn't need to change. But
in the way that God acts, in His providence, sometimes we
see God acting in one way and suddenly God changes, it seems
to us, in His providence, in His dealings with us. For example,
throughout history, how many nations have been raised up and
seem to prosper and in the next few years, they're brought to
ruin and completely destroyed? The Edomites, the children of
Esau are one nation like that. The nation of Rome, remember
the time of Christ. The city of Rome was burnt. or
just before 70 AD, and then what about the nation of Israel? So
many nations have just come and gone. To those people, what is
their experience? God's goodness towards us has
changed. In fact, God is responding to our wickedness in a way He's
taking away the blessing and He's bringing on us the consequences
of our sin. God repented in that way. He
changed. He changed in His ways towards
them, in their experience. But see, this is what God is
telling us that the consequence of our actions bring a different
response from God. God brought this upon them. And
this should cause us to do what? To have a holy fear, right? God is God. To run upon the thick
bosses of his buckler, as it says in the book of Jude, like
an idiot. To cast yourself on the justice
of God and offend against him and then boast in your wickedness.
That's what the people were doing here. And so the Lord, he has
a different attitude towards them than they have been experiencing. He created the world, and now
he says, I'm going to destroy man from the world. I'm going to destroy him. He
grieved him in his heart that he had made these wicked men
on the earth. Now, he had something he was
going to do. It wasn't as if God was surprised
by this or that his purposes failed in this. But understand,
this is God recording for us the ways of God from the perspective
of men. We see God represented to us
from his word as acting in the way men act. because this is
the way we experience his providence in our lives, the reaction of
God. It should cause us to be very,
stand in awe and tremble because the Lord is God and we are but
men. He has made us for himself and
to act in opposition to him in the arrogance of our ignorance
and our wickedness is to invite destruction. That's what he's
saying here. Notice here. So while this is going on, it
says, and the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created. So in the first part, we see
God, we see sin increasing. In the second part, we see the
Lord striving in judgment against to reprove and convince men of
their wickedness, but men refuse. They will not repent. And then
we see that the hearts of men is fully set in them to do evil.
Their thoughts and their minds and their intents and their motives
are fully against God. And so God says, the things are
gonna change. I'm not always gonna strive with
man. 120 years, he's gonna destroy the world. And so he says, he
says in verse seven, I will destroy man whom I have created from
the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping thing
and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made
them. He's gonna change. He's gonna change from having
created them to destroy them. He brought them into the world.
He's gonna take them out of the world. But notice in verse eight,
and here we see the purpose of God, to make himself known in
his full holy character, his perfections. Notice, verse eight,
but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. What is the explanation
why the world wasn't entirely destroyed? Why did God not destroy
every person on earth? Because God is gracious. because
God is a God of mercy, because he forgives iniquity. And so
he says here, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. What
is grace? Is it something that we can motivate
God to do? Can we influence God to be gracious
to us? All that we can do to influence
God is to bring upon ourselves destruction and damnation. That's
the best we can do. Our sins call for God to destroy
us. We have offended the one who
created us, who is holy and good, and we have stood, as it were,
in his face the only one who is good and we've denied his
goodness and called him a liar and made our own ways to be the
right way and exalted ourselves as a man would exalt an idol
and trust his idol. That's what we've done for ourselves.
We're not going to influence God. God has to find reason in
himself to be gracious. In Deuteronomy chapter 9 and
chapter 4 and chapter 7 of Deuteronomy, God tells the children of Israel,
look, I didn't bring you here, I didn't give you this land because
of your righteousness, but because he would remember his covenant
with Abraham and because of the wickedness of those people. He
gave it to them out of pure grace. In Romans chapter 11, if you
want to look at that, in Romans chapter 11, notice how God says
this about His grace. And this is the verse's key to
understanding. We'll look at a couple verses
in Romans. Romans chapter 11 first. In verse 5, about God's
grace it says this so even so then at this present time there
also at this present time also there is a remnant a very small
part a remnant a leftover part a part cut out and left by God
there is a remnant according to the election of grace that's
what God did for Noah God showed grace to Noah. Noah found grace
in God's eyes. God didn't find grace in Noah's
eyes. It was God who, that Noah found
grace in God's eyes. So there is an election of grace
because God chose, because God chose to be gracious because
that's his character. And he had this remnant, verse
six, and if by grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise
grace is no more grace. We can't influence God, we can't
motivate God, we can't incite God's grace towards us. All we
can do is attract His wrath. But He Himself finds a reason,
without our works, or our contribution, or anything in us, to be gracious. He says in Isaiah 43 and verse
25, I, even I, and he that blotteth
out thy transgressions, why? For mine own sake. That's why
the Lord did this. Why did God, why was God gracious
to Noah? For his own sake. The Lord does
everything for his own sake. And when he does, he saves his
people. So back in Genesis chapter 6,
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Grace undeserved,
because by definition it's not of works. Grace that sprang from
God's heart, from His electing choice made before the world
began. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated before the children were born, and this God said in order
that the purpose of God according to the election of grace might
stand. Not of works. but of him that
calleth. We're saved not by our works,
but because God chose to be gracious and called us according to his
own purpose and grace, which were given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. And you can look at that in 2
Timothy 1.9 and in Romans 9.11-13. So, back in Genesis 6.9, these
are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man. Who said that Noah was a just
man? What does it mean to be just?
It means to be righteous. Who said it? The Lord said it.
So what does it mean when the Lord says that a man is just,
that he's righteous? That's when God justifies a man. When God says he's just, God
is justifying him. He's declaring him to be righteous. But how did Noah come by this
righteousness? Did he do what was necessary,
what God required in order to be righteous? Did he fulfill
the law in order to be righteous? Did he remove his own sins? Of course not. By the deeds of
the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, because
by the law is the knowledge of sin. What God requires of us
only shows us what sin is, but it doesn't fulfill the law. It
doesn't make us righteous. The law can't make a sinner righteous. And so Noah was a sinner like
every other man. He was included in this pronouncement
by God that men by nature are wicked and the imaginations of
their heart are only evil continually because we know this throughout
scripture. For example, in Romans chapter
3 verse 9, the Apostle Paul asked this question, what then? Are
we better than they, the Jews? Are we Jews, or are we believers,
or are we Gentiles? Are we better than the Jews?
No, and no wise. That's his answer. No, and no
wise. We've before proved both Jews and Gentiles are all under
sin. There's not a just man on earth
who does good and sinneth not. Ecclesiastes 7, verse 20. So
there's none that doeth good. There's none that seeketh after
God. There's none that understandeth. There's none righteous. No, not
one. Not even Noah. So then. Here when it says that Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord and that Noah was a just man,
this is God declaring that Noah was righteous in his sight. And
how did he become righteous? How does anyone become righteous
in God's sight, any man? Well, there's only one way, because
there's only one righteousness. The first Adam sinned and we
fell in him and became sinners. And we sin in our own self. We
bring upon ourselves the condemnation of our own sins. Out of our own
heart springs all these sins, adulteries and murders and thefts
and everything, according to Jesus, springs from us. We can't
blame anyone else for it, it's our problem. So the Lord's pronouncement
that Noah was just and righteous comes from the Lord because God
made him. He declared him to be righteous,
not for his own obedience, but for the obedience of another,
for the obedience, for the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. His
is the only righteousness by which anyone can be righteous
before God. It says in Romans chapter 10
in verse 4, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. It's only his obedience, only
his obedience by which we're righteous. So if Noah was just
in God's eyes, it's because God had already considered Christ
for him. God looked upon his son. God
received obedience from his son. God received payment for sin
from his son. And he imputed it. He pronounced
Noah to be righteous because of the obedience and the death
of his son. And that's called justification.
And so here, Noah was a just man, meaning God declared him
to be just by the righteousness of Christ. And he was perfect
in his generations, and Noah walked with God. Perfect means
that he walked according to, he believed God according to
that righteousness which was his in Christ. He lived upon
Christ as we saw last week about Enoch. Paul the Apostle said
in Galatians 2.20, it's not I that live, it's Christ that lives
in me and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So Noah
was one of those. He believed Christ. He believed
in him, and this is what we're gonna see as it goes forward.
And so Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations, and Noah
walked with God. I was thinking about this as
I was down in Southern California with my grandkids, and I was
thinking, what would it be like to go on a walk with someone
who knew everything, whose only answer was true, never deceived,
and who could do anything? and always did what was right.
Someone who you could trust. Someone you could tell everything
to and would tell you everything. That's walking with God. And
that's what happens when we live upon Christ by faith and we listen
to God's word rather than the words of men. When we don't trust
our own heart but trust the Lord. And so he walked with God. He
walked confidently, Knowing that God disclosed, revealed himself
to him, and he knew God in Christ. Now notice, go on. Noah begat
three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before
God, and the earth was filled with violence. It sounds like
today, sounds like throughout history, and yet it was at a
peak at this time. And God looked upon the earth,
and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way
upon the earth. And God said to 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. So what is the setting? God is
giving Noah a warning, I'm going to destroy all flesh on the earth. Is this anything like what God
has said elsewhere in scripture? Has God made such a warning to
mankind? Oh, yes, he has. Can you imagine
what it would be like if we were sitting in this room and I said,
God has told me that he's going to destroy the world with a flood. He's going to cause it to rain,
and the water's going to rise up, and everything's going to
be covered. Even the mountains are going to be covered. And
there's only one way to escape. God has told me how to build
an ark. And so we all need to pitch in here. We need to get
this ark built. And we start working. And it's
going to take a long time. And everyone around us is thinking,
what are you doing? Oh, well, it's going to rain.
God said he's going to destroy everybody on the earth. What
a bunch of... of nonsense. There's no forecast
of rain in the future. We have looked at our instruments.
There's no rain coming. Besides that, when the rain comes,
I mean, even if there's a flood, it's always local. No way God's
gonna, that the earth itself is gonna be covered with water
and everybody's gonna die. What kind of a God is that? People
begin to mock, and they completely discount whatever Noah said.
You've got to be out of your loony, your mind. You're crazy. You're a dingbat. This is what
God said. Noah, like Seth and Enos and
Enoch and all these men, what did they do? They discounted
what the world said, and they believed what God said, and they
lived upon what God said. They sought to understand what
the Lord was saying, and they wanted to know God, and so they
walked with Him and depended upon Him, and they separated
themselves. They would not follow the ways
of the world. They followed the ways the Lord
had revealed to them. This is what faith does. Everything,
no matter how ludicrous it sounds to the natural mind, to our natural
selves, whatever God has said, this is all that we want to hear.
And what has he said? Sin has brought you under the
wrath of God. God reconciled us to himself
by the Lord Jesus Christ by his death, and now live upon him.
Trust Him. And so, this is what's happened. The end of all flesh is gonna
come. But, again, has God said anything like this? Look at 2
Peter 3. First of all, look at Matthew
24. This is the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 24.
And verse 36. Well, I'll read verse 35. Jesus
said to these people in Matthew 24, verse 35, heaven and earth
shall pass away. That sounds unbelievable. Heaven and earth are going to
pass away? Yes. Heaven and earth shall pass away. But my words
shall not pass away. What Christ has said is not going
to fail. Everything will be fulfilled.
Verse 36, but of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not
the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days
of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
What were the days of Noah like? corruption, wickedness, it seems
like men were doing whatever they wanted, violence filled
the earth. He says, for as in the days of Noah 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. Now that's something
to make us stand up and take notice, isn't it? Christ is coming,
that's what he's saying, the coming of the Son of Man. It
will come unexpectedly. The whole world will be doing
whatever they normally do, eating, drinking, marrying, giving in
marriage, building homes, getting jobs, raising children, and they
won't even think. And then suddenly, Christ will
come. And what will happen? Well, look at 2 Peter 3. 2 Peter
3. He says here in verse 1 of 2
Peter 3, the apostle Peter says, the second epistle, beloved,
I now write to you, in both which I stir up your pure minds by
way of remembrance, that you may be mindful of the words which
were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment
of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior. In other words, they
were preaching, they were saying what the Lord and Savior told
them to say. Verse 3, knowing this first,
that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after
their own lust. Scoffers are those who say it
can't be true. What you're saying is nonsense. And whatever God says, it cannot
be true. That creation, bunk. No possibility. All evolution. Or in verse four,
he puts the point on it. He says, and saying, where is
the promise of his coming? He's mocking, they're mocking
them. You say Christ is coming? Where is it? Show it to me. For
since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of creation. 5. For this they willingly are ignorant
of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the
earth, standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the
world then was, being overflowed with water, perished. So he's
saying in creation God made the land to be separated from the
water and the land stood out of and in the water and it was
the same water that he took that earth from that he brought over
that land to destroy it. And they are willingly ignorant
of this. They reject the testimony of God that he created the world
and that he destroyed it with a flood. They mock it. Now here's,
he's going to bring it to the greater judgment. Look at verse
seven. But the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same
word, the word of God that brought that flood on the world then,
by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against
the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. What's the promise
here? God is going to destroy the world,
not in water, but in fire. And men don't suspect it. Jesus
said they'll be just going along until the Son of Man comes. And
judgment is coming. God is going to bring judgment
on the ungodly, just like he did in the days of Noah. Only
this time, it won't just be a flood over the world. The whole world
is going to be destroyed in fire. He's going to reserve it. He
promised he wouldn't destroy it in the flood. He promised
until the end of time, seed time and harvest, spring and summer,
cold and heat will not end until the Lord brings an end to it
all. Here's the end he's going to bring. And so he says in verse
8, 2 Peter 3 verse 8, But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing,
that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day. Time. is of no consequence with
God. Just because men scoffed, where's
the promise? It's been so long. God isn't,
He's not bothered by the passage of time. It's the longsuffering
of God, waiting as He did in the days of Noah, giving men
space to repent. Look at 1st Peter, 1st Peter,
not 2nd, but 1st Peter, chapter 3. Show you this. In 1st Peter, chapter 3, in verse
18, notice what God is saying here. 1 Peter 3, verse 18, For
Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust,
that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
suffer for his own sins. He is the just one. But he suffered
for the unjust. the wicked, God's people. He was put to death in the flesh,
but he was quickened, he was made alive, he was raised again
from the dead by the Spirit of God. Verse 19. By the witch also,
by the Spirit of God, by the Spirit of Christ, his own spirit,
he also went and preached unto the spirits in prison. When Peter
wrote this, there were men who, in their souls, in their spirits,
were in the prison. in their spirits they were in
prison. But, he says in verse 20, which sometime were disobedient
when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of
Noah. Those same spirits who were in prison then, when Peter
wrote this, they were alive in their bodies in the days of Noah
when Noah was preaching to them, and the Spirit of Christ was
in him." That's what it says here. "...by which also," verse
19, "...he," Christ, "...went and preached to the spirits in
prison," now in prison, when Peter wrote this, "...which sometime
were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in
the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing." So you can
see, God's striving with men was that long-suffering, that
waiting of God in the days when the ark was being prepared, when
he's preaching through Noah, the preacher of righteousness,
about God's righteousness and the ark. So, of course, they
completely thought he was a nut. Noah, while the ark was preparing,
wherein few, that is eight souls, were saved by water. So who was
saved? Noah and his wife, that's two. Noah's three sons, Ham, Shem,
and Japheth, and their three wives, and we don't know their
names, so that's eight souls. Noah and his household were saved
by water. Did the water save them? No,
they were saved through the flood. They were in the ark. The ark
was lifted up by the floods. As the floodwaters came down
from heaven, they were inside the ark. And through that being
in the ark, the waters that should have been the destruction was
actually for their salvation. It destroyed all those outside
the ark, but all those in the ark were saved through that water
being poured out by God. Now listen. He's going to explain
why this is so. how they were saved. Verse 21,
the like figure, in other words, the flood that came on the world
and the ark and Noah and his family in the ark being saved,
the like figure where unto 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. Baptism is being immersed. That's what happened in the flood.
The ark was fully immersed in water. Flood underneath, water
from heaven coming down upon it, the people inside the ark. Baptism is an immersion in water. When we're baptized, when our
bodies go under the water, it portrays, it's a symbol of the
believer. When the Lord Jesus Christ died
and was buried, we died We died to our sins in the death of Christ. The body of our sins died. It
was put to death and our sins were buried. God remembers them
no more. OK? So we are, by God's doing,
we were with Christ in his death, with him in his burial. And when
we're baptized in water, we're saying that. We're confessing
with faith, with God-given faith, that my being in Christ in his
death and burial is the way my sins were brought under the wrath
of God. And they were put away from me,
and the book of God that recorded my sins in His account was blotted
out. My sins were remitted. by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he suffered for my sins,
God accepted his suffering, his justice was satisfied, he became
the propitiation for my sins, God's wrath was appeased, and
I was saved in the death and in the burial of Christ, and
the proof of that, like our brother Rimmel said, was that Christ
rose from the dead. He rose to live to God, and in
my baptism, when I go under the water, I confess my death and
burial with Christ. My sins were put away, and God
remembers them no more because of the death of Christ. And then,
because of His resurrection, I'm justified. God accepted His
sacrifice, and that is all my salvation. I'm coming to God
on the basis of what Christ did, what God thought of Him, and
I'm trusting Him alone. And baptism portrays that. And
that baptism that we experience when we go under the water, confessing
our union with Christ in His death and burial, and our coming
up out of the water, confessing that we were justified because
God accepted Him and God receives us for His sake and imputes His
righteousness to us, It's all my salvation. That was portrayed
by the ark, and Noah and his family in the ark, and them being
lifted up out of the water. They were, as it were, buried
in the ark, and yet, when the floods were taken away, they
came out of the ark, and they were like, they were a new world,
a new heaven, a new earth, only not fully, because it was just
by water then. It will be by fire then, later.
Okay, does that make sense? The figure, the like figure,
whereunto even baptism doth now also save us. Does baptism save
us? Does our being put under the water and brought up out
of the water actually save us? No. But what baptism signifies
does. When we take of the bread and
eat the bread, when we drink the cup, does that actually do
anything inside of us? Does it make us holy? Does it
cause God to accept us because we're doing that? No, we do it
in faith because we look to Christ whose broken body and shed blood
did make us holy, did take away our sins. In other words, that
eating and drinking and that being baptized is expressing
our faith in Christ. our substitute, the one who by
whose death and burial and resurrection we are saved. This is phenomenal. Think about it. He's the substitute
who stood for us before God's law and had to fulfill every
requirement and before God's justice and had to satisfy for
all of our sins and he did this in his own person so that he
experienced the very wrath that we should have experienced. The
ark is fully experienced the flood. The people inside didn't
experience the water because it was the ark itself that lifted
them up. And just like that, we were considered
by God in Christ, His death and burial and resurrection was considered
our death, burial, and resurrection. And our baptism is a symbol of
that. It signifies that. And we confess
in our baptism, this is all my salvation. I trust Christ only. I have nothing else. The world
will be destroyed, and I would have been destroyed with it,
but God provided the Lord Jesus Christ. Put me in Him. Made Him
my wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And so, that's
why he says, the answer of a good conscience toward God by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. A good conscience means, I truly
believe this. And God says, whoever looks to
Christ, he has eternal life. He's given me this faith. Then
verse 22, Jesus Christ who's gone into heaven and is on the
right hand of God, like Brianna said, on the right hand of God,
angels and authorities and power being made subject to him. Everything
is in his control. Okay? So there's the snapshot. Now, in Genesis chapter 6, Genesis chapter 6, when the Lord
said these things to Noah. In verse 14, I want to read one
more verse here. He's going to destroy the earth.
Verse 14, Genesis 6. Make thee an ark of gopher wood,
rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within
and without with pitch. Pitch, we think of pitch as tar,
something that resists water, something that would be able
to go through the water of the flood and not leak. And so put
all this pitch on the arc. But the word pitch is a very
interesting word. The word pitch over 71 times
in scripture is translated as atonement. Isn't that amazing? For example, in Leviticus 16,
verse 30, the high priest on that day shall make an atonement. Same word. So that the pitch
on the ark signified the atoning work of Christ. And this is why
Noah going into the ark shows us that our salvation is in the
atoning work of Christ. Now back to Hebrews chapter 11.
Try to bring this to a close here in short time. Hebrews chapter
11, he says this in verse seven, by faith Noah being warned of
God of things not seen as yet. What was the foundation of Noah's
faith? He was warned of God. God spoke
to him. The Word of God is the ground
of faith. Faith is believing what God has
said, and therefore believing God. By faith, Noah, being warned
of God of things not seen as yet, because that's what faith
is, is walking by God's Word, not by our sight, moved with
fear. What was Noah afraid of? Well,
he certainly was afraid of God's wrath coming upon the earth,
and he was afraid that his family would perish under that wrath.
And notice, because of that, he prepared an ark. What was
the ark? It was that place where atonement
was made between God and men. The separation, our sins that
caused that separation was removed because Christ fulfilled the
satisfaction to God's justice in enduring the wrath of God
for his people. So Noah prepared the ark according
to God's design. God is the one who said, do it
this way. God is the one who provided it. And God is the one
who put them in it. God is the one who kept them
safe there. Noah prepared an ark to the saving of his house. Amazing here. Remember the four
men who brought the paralytic to the Lord Jesus Christ? When
he saw their faith, he said to that man, Son, your sins be forgiven
you. Rise, take up your bed and walk.
He saw their faith and he forgave that man. Now that seems like
proxy, doesn't it? What Noah did here was to the
saving of his household. Remember the woman in Matthew
15 who came to Jesus, my daughter is grievously vexed with the
devil. She pleaded and pleaded, and at the end of it, the Lord
Jesus said, amazing, be it unto you according to your faith.
Her daughter was delivered. You see, throughout Scripture
there's this way that God's people believe God not only for themselves
but for their household. Don't you? Don't you want your
children and your family to be saved and therefore you plead
with them according to God's righteousness that He not only
is just but He's a Savior in Christ? and you yourself leading
them, you get into Christ, you trust Christ, and you profess,
He's all my hope, I'm a sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus
Christ is my all in all. The wrath of God has been answered
in His death, burial, and in His resurrection, I'm justified,
He's all my righteousness. This is our profession, our confession,
this is our life, we live this way. It seems crazy to other
people, But we do, and we want them to be saved, and so we plead
to God for them. And we show them that by living
this way, by faith, we're showing them the example of how we trust
Him. It's God's Word that's really
true. It's not anything else. And so, just like Rahab the harlot,
she believed the spies, and her whole household was saved. This
is the way God works. To the Philippian jailer, he
said, what must I do to be saved? And Paul said, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy household.
So this is a great promise of God. Noah feared God's wrath
and judgment. He feared being found outside
of Christ, the ark. So he pitched, he built the ark
120 years And he led his family into the ark. He got in before
the rain ever started. People are thinking, what a Lulu,
or whatever the word is, a nut. What are they doing in there?
It's got to be some kind of cult. No, they're trusting Christ.
They're in him. They're in him, and he's all
their hope. They're saying, I am going to put all of my eggs in
this one basket. I have no other hope but Christ.
And so he says here, My faith, Noah being warned of God of things
not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving
of his health, by the which he condemned the world. He preached
righteousness, he got in the ark. We preach Christ and Him
crucified, and God's justice and His law is what we must fulfill,
but we can't because we're sinners, and so we preach Christ the Savior
of sinners. That's the faithful saying. It's
true. And so he preached Christ and Him crucified. That's the
righteousness here. And so he became an heir. of
the righteousness which is by faith. He received the inheritance
of Christ's righteousness and all that God gives because of
his righteousness which was eternal. When he walked out of the ark,
what was that? A whole new world, a new heavens
and a new earth await those who are in Christ because only in
Christ will they survive the wrath of God that's coming on
this world. What's the message here? Get
into Christ. Look to Him. Jesus said, whoever
hears my word and believes on Him that sent me has already
passed from death to life. He shall not come under condemnation. Isn't that our hope? that the
Lord Jesus Christ is our ark. And when we're baptized, we're
confessing this, and when we live our lives, we're walking
as Noah did, walking with God, trusting Christ, and living our
lives by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us and gave
himself for us. We trust that God has designed
it so that in Christ, because of his death, burial, and resurrection,
we are saved by what he did. He finished the work. He sits
in glory. He rules over all. We are going
to be more than conquerors through him that loved us. Amazing grace. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that
as you promised Noah and his family when they emerged from
the ark, that you would no more bring the judgments of the water
upon the earth, made a covenant with them, that we would see
that you've made a covenant with us in the Lord Jesus Christ that
our sins would not be brought to remembrance, that you were
angry with us in the Lord Jesus, but now you're at peace with
us, and now you bless us, and no enemy shall prevail against
us, because our righteousness is in Him, and we are in Him,
and all that He did, He did for us, and all that you received
from Him, you received from Him for us, and all that you are,
you are to us in Him, and revealed yourself to us in Him, and all
that God is to us in Christ, is all that we have and all that
we need. The Lord, our God, shall supply all of our needs in Christ
Jesus, our Savior, and we trust Him, and we rejoice in Him, and
we find peace in knowing this, and we confess with a good conscience
that you have received Christ for sinners, and we are sinners,
and so we trust that you've received Him for us too. In Jesus' name
we pray.