Remember the Lord Jesus said,
as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the end of
the world, the coming of the Son of Man. Remember that? And
then you also remember that in the book of Hebrews, chapter
11, Noah is cited there as one who was a believer by faith,
Noah being warned of God, and so on. And then also in the book
of Peter, 1st and 2nd Peter, Noah is mentioned there. We're
going to look at those scriptures. He's also mentioned in Isaiah
54. We've got a lot of ground to
cover. We won't cover it all today,
clearly. There's too much to cover. Noah is a central figure
in scripture, and we don't want to skim over it. When I write up the bulletin
frequently, it's before I've actually completed my studies.
Until you start looking at things, you don't realize how big it
is. So today, we're going to just cover a short part of that.
But we want to read here, in any case, from Genesis chapter
5. We're going to read through the
end of chapter 8. Like I said, it's a bit of a
reading. But I want to give you just a little overview. So as
you read this, As we read this together, you'll be able to fit
some of it in time. Enoch had a son named Methuselah,
and Methuselah is well known as the oldest man who ever lived,
at least the oldest recorded age, 969 years old. As we go through here, if you
do the math, it turns out that Methuselah lived until the year
of the flood. I'm not going to show you how
that works out here, but if you just add up the dates, it works
out. It's not clear. I doubt that
he died in the flood, but that's an optimistic view perhaps. Anyway,
Methuselah. Then along came a few other people
and finally Noah, who had three sons that are mentioned, Shem,
Ham, and Japheth. We'll see them, see how old they
were, but it looks to me that Japheth was the oldest. We'll
probably see that. After him, it looks like there
was Ham and then Shem, but God reverses the order because of
His priority. So, He always mentions them as
Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We'll see their relation here.
Just to give you those overviews. It turns out that men lived a
long time before the Flood. After the Flood, they started
living shorter and shorter lives. So, just a few generations. When
Abraham lived, he only lived to be 175, which is quite old,
but he was just a few generations after the flood, and no one after
the flood lived to be 900 years old. I think Shem, Ham, and Japheth,
or at least Shem lived to be 600 years old. But he was born
before the flood. So God shortened men's lives
and you'll see that through here. Let's begin reading in Genesis
chapter 4. Actually, let's ask the Lord
to be with us first and then we'll start the reading. We pray, Lord, that you would
reveal your truth to us, the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ,
as we read through these scriptures. We pray that we would hear from
you, your spirit would explain your word, not just the facts
and figures and the history, but the spiritual meaning of
it. Lord, we know that it's the truth that is our salvation,
the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and everything is meant to be
scaffolding to hold up the Lord Jesus Christ. So we pray, Lord,
teach us about Him, our Savior and our Lord, who is the center
and substance and source and the end purpose of everything
in time and eternity. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Genesis chapter 5 verse 25. It says, And Methuselah lived
a hundred and eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech. And
Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred and eighty
two years, and begat sons and daughters. All the days of Methuselah
were nine hundred sixty and nine years, and he died. Almost a
thousand. Lamech lived a hundred and eighty
two years, and begat a son. And he called his name Noah,
saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil
of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.
So Lamech named his son Noah, and that was a prophecy. God
used the name to indicate what he was going to do in Noah's
life. Verse 30, And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred
and ninety-five years, and begat sons and daughters. So he, 595
years after Noah, but Noah's, the flood came in the 600th year
of Noah's life. So he died five years before
the flood. Lamech did. Only 777 years. All the days
of Lamech were 777 years and he died. And Noah was 500 years
old and Noah beget Shem, Ham, and Japheth. It didn't beget
them all at the same time, they weren't triplets. It's possible
that they were, but we know they weren't because later on it tells
us that Japheth was the eldest. And it tells us that Shem, well
I won't get into that, but Shem was 100 years old when he begat
a son two years after the flood. Anyway, if you do the math, we
know that Shem was just a little bit younger than Japheth and
so on. We'll get to the details if you're interested later. Chapter
6, verse 1. This is the meat of where we
want to be today. And it came to pass, when men began to multiply
on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them,
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were
fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. And
the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for
that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty
years. And that statement right there is not referring to the
fact that men are only going to live to be 120 years old,
but that there's going to be a 120 years period from this
time, when God is speaking of here, until the end of all flesh
comes to the Lord. Verse 4, 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 bare children
to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old men of
renown. And we'll comment on that in
a minute. Verse 5, And God saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually. And he repented to the Lord that
he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from
the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing,
and the fowls of the air. For it repenteth me that I have
made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Verse 9. These are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations. And
Noah walked with God, just like Enoch. His grandfather, his great-grandfather. And Noah begat three sons, Shem,
Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before
God, and the earth was filled with violence. Sounds like our
day, doesn't it? I was thinking about the recent
shooting that occurred. The most recent one. It seems
like there's just seems to be a never-ending stream of these
things, doesn't it? The earth is filled with violence.
And men, they lament the fact that this happens. But how many
people are really lamenting the fact that they're murdering far
many more babies than people are getting killed in schools
with guns? You don't see anybody crying about that. Well, you
do, but not that many, certainly not in politics. But how many
more, how few or more people are lamenting the fact that by
teaching false religion we're murdering men's souls? That's
a bigger problem, isn't it? What seems to be the most important
thing to men is way down the list on God's list. So here it
says that the earth was filled with violence. Verse 12. It's
interesting that Enoch walked with God and God took him. Enoch, he didn't taste death,
he was translated before the flood occurred. Not immediately
before, a few hundred years before, but not long before, really.
You see something in that. God doesn't bring the rod of
the wicked on the righteous. That's a principle in scripture.
Enoch was translated. wasn't translated, nor were his
wife and sons and their wives. But he went through the flood,
and that also teaches us about God's people. So we'll get to
that here in a minute. So in verse 14, the Lord said
he's going to destroy the earth, and he said in verse 14, "...make
thee an ark of gopher wood, rooms, shalt thou make in the ark, and
shalt pitch it, within and without with pitch." And this is the
fashion which thou shalt make of it. The height of the ark
shall be 300 cubits, and the breadth 50 cubits, and the height
30 cubits. A window shalt thou make to the
ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above. And the door
of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof, with lower,
second, and third stories shalt thou make it. And behold, I,
even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all
flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven, and everything
that is in the earth shall die. And with thee will I establish
my covenant. And thou shalt come into the
ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with
thee. And of every living thing of
all flesh, two of every sort, shalt thou bring into the ark,
to keep them alive with thee. They shall be male and female.
Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of
every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every
sort shall come unto thee to keep them alive. And take thou
unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather
it to thee, and it shall be for food for thee and for them. Thus
did Noah, according to all that God commanded him, so did he. Chapter 7, verse 1. And the Lord
said to Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee
have I seen righteous before me in this generation. And I'm
actually tempted to stop there because we're going to get too
long in this if I continue reading that. We'll read the rest of
this either the next week or the week following. It's going
to take a while to get through this. Let's go back though and
look at chapter 6 together. I want you to see what's the
main thing you think the Lord is teaching through the flood.
If you were to say, what are the main points I've learned
so far just by reading this, what would you say? First of
all, we see in chapter 6 what happened as men began to multiply
on the earth. And it was a long time between
creation and the flood. If you add up the years, which
is not absolutely certain, you can just take the sequence of
years from Adam, the birth of his son, and add that time when
Seth was born, and add the The amount of time between Seth and
his son, and add those times together to get the total lifespan. But if you do that, you'll find
that there was approximately 1700 years between Adam and Noah
and the flood. The flood in Noah's day. And
then there were approximately 23-2500 years between Noah and
Christ. So, somewhere around 4,000 to
4,050 years between Adam and Christ, if you just add those
times up. But again, it's not important that we get those dates
right. God, if He wanted us to know
that clearly, then I think He would have made it a little clearer
for us, because nobody's really been able to nail that down definitively. So I'm not so much concerned
about the dates, but I do want to point this out that there
was approximately at least 1700 years before the flood. And if
you just take the average number of children that a couple would
have, a man and his wife would have, let's say they had six
children each, I mean, these guys lived a long time, and some
of their children were born, Noah's sons were born after he
was 500 years old. So they were able to bear children
late in their lives. So it's got to be a very conservative
figure to say each family had six children. But if you just
take that number, you see that between Adam and his, first he
had Cain and Abel, then Seth. If you just start with Adam and
Seth, you'll see that there were Adam and Eve produced, what,
six children at least? including girls and boys. And
those six would have had each of them. Those three pairs would
have had another six each. That's 18. Pretty soon you do
the math, and you're going to get up to a lot of people in
1,700 years, assuming that conservative estimate of the population growth
rate. In fact, one person is estimated
to be about a billion people on the Earth. 1700 years, that's
not unreasonable. In fact, it's probably a little
shy of that number. But however many it was, the
point is that there were a lot of people on the earth. A lot
of people. We think of it like there might
have been a few hundred, or maybe a thousand, or something like
that. The way we think about things, because we see the pictures
in the storybooks, right? And there's Noah, and there's
a few people making fun of him, and the animals, and so on. But that doesn't really reflect
it at all. There were a lot of people, a lot of people, a world
of people. The earth was populated and there
were people all over the earth. And that actually enheightens
the severity of this tragedy, this judgment of God, doesn't
it? The number of people that must have died in the flood could
have been easily a billion people. And that just makes the hair
on the back of your neck kind of stand up, doesn't it? To think
that God... would so strictly hold men responsible for their
sin." Because that's what he's saying here. Verse 1, he says,
"...and men came to pass, when men began to multiply in the
face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons
of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they
took them wives of all which they chose." So the first thing
you see here is that those who were believers, called the sons
of God, saw the daughters of men, which were unbelievers,
and they said, man, I want to marry her. And they went out
and they married these women who were not believers. And that, what do you call that?
That's called compromise. The first thing we see here is
that as men began to multiply, among those who held the truth,
there was compromise. Now, in 2 Corinthians 6.14, the
Apostle Paul said, It makes no sense. It's absolutely antithetical to good reason that
someone who knows the truth would marry someone who doesn't know
the truth because truth and error are opposite. They don't mix
in any way. And righteousness doesn't have
anything to do with unrighteousness. Light has nothing to do with
darkness. These things are opposite. So to marry a believer to an
unbeliever is compromising the truth. And whenever you mix error
with the truth, what do you get? You get error. You don't get
truth anymore. You don't get a partial truth. Look at Nehemiah chapter 12.
Solomon is a classic case in this. Nehemiah comes just before
the book of Job. Or Esther, rather, which comes
before Job, I think. Anyway, find Nehemiah. It's in
chapter 12. I don't know how I find things
in the Bible because I don't remember the order of the books, but I
think it's poke and try. Nehemiah chapter 12. Listen to
what happened here. You remember Solomon? The wisest
man on earth. Wisest man to have ever lived.
But he's a classic case of compromise. I said Nehemiah chapter 12 is
actually chapter 13. Look at verse 23. This is Nehemiah. He's correcting those who married wives that
were not Jews when they were in captivity in the land of Babylon
and other places. He says, in verse 23, Nehemiah
13, "...in those days also saw I Jews that had married wives
of Ashdod..." Ashdod would be... A group of people who worship
that idol. And Ammon and Moab, who happen
to be the children of Lot. In verse 24, And their children
spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews'
language, but according to the language of each people. That's
a problem. Merry people who don't speak
your language. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and
smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them
swear to God, saying, You shall not give your daughters unto
their sons, nor take their daughters to your sons, or for yourselves.
And then he uses Solomon as an example. Did not Solomon, king
of Israel, sin by these things? Yet among many nations was there
no king like him, who was beloved of his God. And God made him
king over all Israel. Nevertheless, even him did outlandish
women cause to sin." What he's saying is, you might think that
you can marry this person who's an unbeliever, and somehow you're
just going to convert them. But no, it doesn't work that
way. Solomon, the wisest man on earth, Blessed more than anyone,
you could say. And yet, these outlandish women
caused him to sin. In verse 27, "...shall we then
hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against
our God in marrying strange wives?" And he goes on and lists those
things. The point is, compromise. Marriage between a believer and
unbeliever is just one example. It's a very tangible one, but
it's just an example of a bigger problem called compromise. compromise. Whenever you mix a little bit
of error with the truth, you get error. That's what Satan
did to Eve. If God said, you shall not eat
of every tree of the garden, and then she said, no, we can
eat of every tree except this one tree. And God told us the
day you eat of that, you're going to surely die. And he said, well,
she won't surely die. Because God, you know, the story.
So he mixed a little bit of error, a lot of error, with the truth.
And she was deceived and the whole thing was the ruin of Adam
and then the whole human race in Adam. So compromise is bad. But why do people compromise?
Look at Galatians chapter 1. People compromise to gain an
advantage. And it's wrong. Every time we
compromise the truth, it's wrong. But when we compromise the gospel,
it's not just wrong, it's eternally fatal. It's deadly. And so in
Galatians chapter 1, Galatians is the classic example of compromise. What is the book of Galatians?
It's about? Men who came into the church at Galatia and taught
the believers there that believing Christ is good, but you also
need to add something to it. You need to add something, because
if you do, if you add circumcision, for example, then you'll be perfected. But that's a denial of the Gospel.
Because the Gospel says that when the Lord Jesus Christ had
by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of
God. He finished the work. And when he offered himself to
God by that one offering, he perfected forever them that are
sanctified. Hebrews 10.10. So, the point
is that our salvation from first to last is in Christ alone. And it's by grace alone without
our works at all. But according to God's work and
to His glory entirely. But the Judaizers came to Galatia
and tried to convince them otherwise. And so in chapter 1, look at
this. He says in verse 6, I marvel that you are so soon removed
from him that called you into the grace of God, grace of Christ,
unto another gospel. But it didn't seem like another
one. All they were doing was just adding circumcision to it.
No, it's another gospel. Which is not another, not from
God that is, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert
the gospel of Christ. That's compromise. But though
we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you
than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."
Accursed! That's a really serious thing,
isn't it? I don't care, Paul says, if it's an angel from heaven,
or another apostle, or anyone else who preaches another gospel,
at the very outset of this book he says, let that one be accursed. As we have said before, he reiterates
it, verse 9. In other words, do I persuade
men? To trust men? Do I persuade men
in order to be found pleasing to men? Or do I persuade men
to trust Christ and to be found pleasing to God only? Do I persuade
men or God? Or do I seek to please men? That's
why we compromise, to please men. For if I yet please men,
I should not be the servant of Christ. And now look at chapter
5, the same book. Galatians. How serious is it
in Galatians? Well, in chapter 5 he says this.
After he does all the explanation between there, he says in verse
2, chapter 5. Behold I, Paul, say unto you, that if you be
circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again
to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the
whole law. Christ is become of no effect
unto you. Whosoever of you are justified
by the law, you are fallen from grace." That's the problem with
compromise. between a believer and an unbeliever,
between a man in the pulpit or a person in the pew. Whenever
the truth is mixed with error, we need to stand firm. Never
compromise the truth in order to gain agreement. never compromise
the truth in order to gain unity of agreement. Sacrifice unity
at the cost in order to maintain the truth. James 3.17 says the
wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable and easy to be
entreated without hypocrisy. So truth is always pure. God
What does it say in scripture? God is light, and in Him is no
darkness at all. God does not tolerate any untruth. God is truth. His word is true. It's pure. And so that's the
first lesson we learn in Genesis chapter 6. There was a compromise
of the truth. And we see the compromise in
the way that men were willing to marry other wives who were
not believers. And then we see what happens. It says in verse 3, and the Lord
said, My spirit shall not always strive with men. I'm looking
at Genesis 6.3. The Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive
with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be
a hundred and twenty years. A hundred and twenty years until
the flood. Verse 4, 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 bare children
to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of
renown. So what happened? There was compromise
of the truth, Believers married unbelievers. They had children.
And these children became mighty men of renown in the eyes of
men. To men, it seemed like it was
producing a marvelous race of people. Mighty men. Men of renown. Let's see what God says. 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. There's not a more powerful case of condemnation against
mankind than that verse in all of scripture. Every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Man, you can't get it any clearer
than that, can you? Every imagination, not just his
occasional thoughts, but every imagination, and not just sort
of his words, but what the spring of who he is, the thoughts of
his heart, The fountain of all that that man is was only evil,
and not just for some of the time, but continually. Is it
any wonder that God says we're dead in trespasses and sins?
Now that statement... Remember, when we see Cain, as
we reviewed it last week, we see this in its epitome, don't
we? Cain, he's a bad guy. And I read
a thing briefly that someone had written, a public figure
who purports to be a comforter of men who spoke about the shootings.
And he said, we can take comfort in this that there's coming a
day of judgment against the wicked. And I thought, there's really
no comfort in that, you see, because here it says that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And this applies not just to
some really bad people on earth, like Cain, or like the shooter,
or somebody else in politics, maybe. It applies to every man. So if we hope, somehow, that
there is a segment of humanity that's really bad, but for the
most part, the rest of us are just kind of average, and God
understands that we're just people. I mean, can you really think
that God is going to judge everybody? I mean, just look at us. We can't
help the way we are. We do good pretty much most of
the time. That's not what God thinks. That's
not how He sees it. The end of all flesh has come
before me. Men like to hold on to this vain
thought that somehow in judgment God's going to understand that
we're just people and we're just flesh. He's going to make allowances. On the average we were not outside
that That distribution, statistical distribution of the curve, there's
a few out there. And sure, we're all going to
stand by and watch them get punished. But the rest of us, we're going
to be somehow safe. We're not going to get too much.
Maybe we'll get scolded, but not really punished. And if so,
it'll be temporary. There's a possibility of pain
on Earth to get people out of this place. of pending judgment
or something. There's all these imaginations
of men's hearts. God says it very simply. Every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Does that apply to everybody?
Let me give you some scriptures. Just a few here. I don't want
to take you to every scripture, but in Psalm 14 And verse 1 and
2 and 3, it says this. This is always a powerful, I
refer to it often, but Psalm 14. He says, The fool has said
in his heart, and we immediately jump on this side against the
fool, don't we? When you read that, the fool.
That fool. The fool has said in his heart,
there is no God. What a fool. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works.
There's none that do with good." Ooh, that's a little more personal,
isn't it? Then verse 2, "...the Lord looked
down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any
that did understand and seek God." They are all gone aside. The
conclusion was brought back. They are all gone aside. They
are all together. Individually or taken all in
total become filthy. There's none that do us good.
No, not one. And we could just go through
scripture. I could take you to a dozen scriptures. Ecclesiastes 7.20 says, there's
not a just man upon the earth that sinneth not. Solomon, the
wisest man in 1 Kings 8.38, he said, if any man knows the plague
of his own heart and prays toward this place, he understood that
the first step, the first step In coming to Christ was understanding
that in my heart there is a plague and I'm corrupt at the very core
of who I am. I cannot bring forth anything
clean from myself. Our righteousnesses, Isaiah 64
6, are as filthy rags. Job said, who can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean thing? Not one. There's not a just man. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. It's important that we understand
this. This is God's assessment of all of humanity. From the
beginning to the end of time. He searched. He looked. He searched
my heart. And it's a sad thing to hear
his conclusion. No. None good. Not one. And he searched yours. And it's
a painful realization. But the publican understood that.
God, be merciful to me, thee, sinner. Job understood that. Behold, I am vile. Isaiah said,
woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. And Peter said, depart from me,
Lord. I'm a sinful man. The apostle
Paul said, This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom
I am chief. Not was. I am chief. So all these things tell us that,
and Jesus said this, he says, the Pharisees asked, why do you
eat with publicans and sinners? He says, because the sick are
the ones who need a doctor, not the healthy. I came to call sinners
to repentance." Not the righteous. Those who think they're righteous.
He told the man, those in the end of John 9, he says, they
said, are we blind also? He says, if you were blind, you
would have no sin. But now you say, we see, therefore
your sin remains. The one thing that will keep
you out of heaven is not your sin, but your righteousness. You see, that's the point here.
God gives the conclusion to lay every man low in the dust. And
why? Because it's the truth. But not only because it's the
truth to humble the proud heart of man who is willfully blinded
by his pride. He refuses God's testimony against
himself, like Cain. There's no need to bring an offering
of blood. I'm okay. God's going to accept
it from me. I worked hard for this. No, it's
rejected. Well then he got angry at God,
angry at his brother. He kills his brother and God
says, what have you done? And then Cain starts talking
about, well I can't bear my own punishment. He could only think
of himself and his own limitations. If I can't bring to God an offering,
then I cannot come to God because he will reject me and I won't
have a God that won't accept me for what I can do. And then
when he said, this is the punishment, Cain could only think of bearing
his own. He did not know God. He would not go to Christ. He
rejected the truth. That's what we do, naturally.
We reject the truth. And this is what God says about
us, all of us. The wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Romans
118. That's why the gospel is good
news. Because we are by nature children of wrath, even as others. Even as others. The gospel is
good news because of that. So verse 5 is a powerful statement
about our guilt and helplessness. Verse 6, And it repented the
Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him
at his heart. Now that seems like, if you just
read it face value, you can see God was extremely offended by what man had done. But if you say, well wait a minute,
how can God repent? I didn't think God changed. Doesn't
it say in Numbers chapter 23, 19, that I'm not a man? that I don't repent? The Lord
is not a man that He should lie, neither the Son of Man that He
should repent? Isn't that what Scripture says?
How could the Lord repent here if the Lord doesn't repent? He's
not a man. There's no variableness, neither shadow of turning with
the Lord. James 1, 17. So we know that
God doesn't change. He can't change. He's immutable.
He's God. He's eternal. From eternity He
has been God. From everlasting to everlasting,
Thou art God. Psalm 90, verse 1. So we know
that the Lord doesn't change, He doesn't repent. So why does
it say here that the Lord repented? And how could God be grieved?
Doesn't He know what's going to happen? Didn't He design things
as they would be to bring about His will? Well, first of all,
understand that men sinned and it wasn't God's fault. Ecclesiastes
7.29 says, God made man upright, but He has sought out every invention. Every evil invention. So men
have sought out every evil invention. God is not tempted to sin, and
He cannot tempt men to sin. He's righteous. He's holy. God
cannot do that. He cannot lie. Those are just
statements from Scripture. Well then, how is it that men
came to be sinners, and why would God be grieved? Doesn't it also
say, don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God? You see, all these things
are spoken to us because of the weakness of our flesh, our understanding. We can't understand God. He's
a spirit. He doesn't have a body. He doesn't
have a heart, like a man's heart. God doesn't change in that sense,
but He teaches us these things about His justice and His wrath
in order so that we, because we have this sense of the way
things are, this is the way we respond in order that we might
understand God's anger towards men because of their sin. And so it's done for our sake.
And it says that in Romans chapter 6 around, I can't remember, verse
16 or so. He says, I speak this way to
you because of the infirmity of your flesh. Because you're
weak to understand it. We can't understand God. He's
a spirit. And He says throughout the scripture
that we're going to hide under the shadow of His wings. He doesn't
have wings. But He speaks that way for our
sake. Because we're just children in our understanding. And so
don't stumble at this fact. The point here is that God determined
to destroy the earth for their wickedness. And God always determined
to bring judgment on man for his wickedness. This is the principle
of Scripture. So we need to fear God, don't
we? We need to fear Him. We shouldn't ever take comfort
in the fact that there's a lot of us who are sinners and God
made us, so He's going to overlook this. He's going to grade on
the curve somehow. He isn't. So he says here in
verse 7, "...the Lord said, 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 man. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Noah
found grace in the eyes of the Lord. You see, here's something
in the midst of all the sin and the destruction. Because that's
what we see here. First we see compromise. Compromise
of the truth. And then we see wickedness multiplying. And God saw that every imagination
of the hearts of men was only evil continually. Compromise,
wickedness, God's sentence, and God's judgment to come. A warning
is issued. But then in the midst of all
this, and justice left unbridled, would have destroyed the world. But something else in God. God
teaches us something else in God. It's called grace. And Noah
found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Look at Exodus chapter
33. Remember when the children of Israel had made them an idol? And Moses was up on the mountain. God told Moses, go down to the
people that you brought out of the land of Egypt. They've corrupted
themselves, made themselves idols. And Moses intercedes and prays
to God. But look here in Exodus chapter 33. Moses asks the Lord
to be gracious to these people. And he says here, in Exodus chapter
33, Verse 18, the Lord Moses said
he had been talking to the Lord about the people, and he said,
I beseech thee, show me your glory. Show me your glory. Show me the perfections of your
nature. Show me who you truly are, so
that I can see and understand it. And the Lord said, I will
make all my goodness pass before thee. Because all that God is,
is good. But I will make all my goodness pass before thee.
And I will proclaim the name of the Lord. In other words,
I'm going to tell you who the Lord is. Before thee. I will proclaim the name of the
Lord before thee. And I will be gracious to whom I will be
gracious. And I will show mercy on whom
I will show mercy. What did Moses ask for? Let me
see your glory. And the Lord says, I'm going
to make all my goodness pass before thee. And the first thing
he says is, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. You see, unless the
Lord of hosts had left us a seed, According to Isaiah 1.9, we had
been as Sodom and been made like Gomorrah. We, the whole earth,
had been destroyed in the flood unless God had reserved for Himself
a people, unless He was gracious to whom He would be gracious.
Grace comes not from God seeing something in us. Grace comes
from God Himself. God declared His goodness. Grace, by definition, is unmerited. It doesn't find its cause in
us. It springs from God's heart. There's no reason to show grace
to a sinner. Not in the sinner, but in God
there is. Because God is gracious, and
He's sovereignly gracious. He is gracious to whom He will
be gracious. And that should make us fear
His goodness. Fear His goodness. Hosea 3.5
says, "...in that day they will fear My goodness." There's nothing
that causes us to stand in reverence of God than to know that in His
hand is salvation for me, the worst of sinners, and yet it's
in His hand and not in mine. And He must be gracious to me.
He must save me. Are you that kind of a sinner?
Are you the kind of sinner that God must save? Or a sinner that
can take a salvation that's universal and you get in there and do your
part and then God will see what you've done and say, there, now
I'll save him. I'm a sinner that needs God to
do everything. And that's the truth of Scripture,
because every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was
only evil, and that continually. And so God had to be gracious,
and Noah was in that lot. He was not unique. He wasn't
like one that popped up out of the slime of humanity as a pure,
shining... No, he was a sinner. Job said,
if I say I'm perfect, my own mouth will condemn me. So, Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And that's a statement of Noah's
sinfulness. Because God will be gracious.
Moses knew that the children of Israel deserved God's wrath.
God was going to destroy them. He'd destroy them all. And he
prayed for them. Lord, don't destroy them. Remember,
if you destroy them, then what will Egypt think? What will Pharaoh
say? Those men, they'll say, he brought them out of Egypt,
but he couldn't really save them because they were such sinners
that he had to destroy them. He didn't think far enough ahead.
He couldn't do what was impossible to save sinners who couldn't
help themselves. No. God thought plenty far ahead. The Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ,
is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.
He thought plenty far ahead. And He had a way in His wisdom. Not only to be just, but to be
gracious. To be just and the justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus. And that faith, we know, comes
from God Himself, by God's grace. It is of grace that you're saved.
Through faith, and that faith is not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God. Everything comes because of God's
grace, by the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. God showed grace
to Noah, and to his wife, and to his sons. Look at this. These are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation. And
Noah walked with God. What's the result of God's grace
in our lives? God's grace to us, if God gives
us His saving grace, what's the result? God will see us in His
Son. And seeing us in Christ, He will
say, He justifies them freely by His grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. That's what He'll say. Freely,
without cause found in them, but found in God by His grace,
without any merit from them, He justifies them, He calls them
just. Because of what he finds in Christ,
this is the good news of the gospel. God looks, he sees that
we're sinners, and yet, in his own sovereign grace, he puts
us in Christ, and from Christ he receives everything. And having
received all from him, he says, he's righteous. He looks upon
the sinner, the one he's put in Christ, as his son. And he says, I see no sin in
all of my people, in all of Israel. This is an amazing thing, isn't
it? And so he goes on, verse 10,
And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth also
was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt,
for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth, none in exceptions.
And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before
me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold,
I will destroy them with the earth. You would think, if God's
going to destroy the earth, He needs to take Noah out. He found
grace, take him out. No, He's going to find another
way. He's going to take him, He's going to keep him. He's
going to preserve him. When God brings the judgment
on the earth, He's going to put Noah in a place so that when
the judgment comes, the judgment will fall, and Noah will be there,
but the judgment will fall on him, but not on him directly,
on the covering which he's in, the ark. And God said to Noah
in verse 14, "...make thee an ark of gopher wood. Room shalt
thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with
pitch." You know what pitch is? We used to call it pine pitch
or something. You get that on your hands and
stuff when you touch a pine cone. It's so sticky you cannot get
it off. It's like, oh man. It keeps the water out. It keeps
things tight, doesn't it? It's a covering. You know what
the word pitch is here? In the scripture? Where it says
here, pitch. You know what that word is? It's the same word as
atonement. The Lord said, pitch the ark
within and without. What is He saying? The ark is
going to be covered with pitch because the ark represents the
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who made atonement for our sins. And this is the way that God
was gracious to Noah. He told Noah, build this ark
and then he told him to get into the ark and he told him to take
his wife and his three sons and their wives, their three wives
and the eight of them were in the ark and then the flood came
and the flood And the springs of the deep were opened up. So
the water came from up, and the water came from down, from heaven,
and from the earth below. And the whole earth was covered
with water. And the ark rose up. And the rain beat upon the
ark. And it came from beneath and
it was all around the ark and they were immersed in this water.
But there was something that preserved them. It was the ark. It was the gopher wood and the
pitch. The Lord Jesus Christ and His humanity and His divinity
standing in our place before God. Bearing in Himself the wrath
of God because He bore our sins. And bearing that wrath, Noah
and his family were lifted up. And they were preserved. And
let me take you now, just real quickly. Next week I hope you
were able to make it, because I want to explain several scriptures
in the New Testament. I'll take you to Isaiah 54. And I'll close with this today,
but we've got to do more here with Noah next week. You know
what Isaiah 53 is about? Have you ever heard of Isaiah
53? You know, don't you? It's all about the sufferings
of our great substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord hath
laid upon Him the iniquity of us all, all of God's people,
and none but them. He laid their iniquity on Christ. And having laid it on Christ,
and Christ bearing the wrath of God for their sins, they're
justified. So Isaiah 53 is all about the
suffering servant, our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered in our place
as a servant to God, in obedience to God, to do His will. And His
suffering and obedience is the righteousness of His people. But now, Isaiah 54, what's that
about? It's about the people of God.
The people of God who we know, first of all, through the disciples.
Those 12 disciples. Judas went to his place. Only 11 were left. And then what
happened after that? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ did
what was prophesied in Isaiah 53. But then what happened? The
Lord Jesus had been killed. What did they think? He was going
to redeem Israel. What happened? He died. And they
were grieved. They were troubled. They were
sad. And that's why Isaiah 54 was written. To those people,
those people for whom Christ died. Look at Isaiah 54 verse
1. Now that That's a reflection back on Sarah
and Hagar and the fact that Hagar had a child and Sarah didn't
and so on. But it's really speaking about
the fact that the Church of God, who were redeemed by Christ,
it seemed like they were nothing. And all of the false religion,
all those who had put Christ to death, they were prospering.
But the Lord says, no, something else is going to happen. The
children of the desolate, the church of God, outwardly desolate,
are going to be more than the children of the outwardly married
wife, the Jews, by nature. Verse 2, "...enlarge the place
of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine inhabitation.
Spare not. Lengthen thy cords, and strengthen
thy stakes." In other words, make your tent really big. For
thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left, and
thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities
to be inhabited." Not just the Jews, but the church is going
to wrap its tent around all people. Not all people without exception,
but all throughout the world of every kindred, tribe, people
and nation. The Gentiles. Fear not, verse
4, for thou shalt not be ashamed, neither be thou confounded, for
thou shalt not be put to shame, for thou shalt forget the shame
of thy youth, and thou shalt not remember the reproach of
thy widowhood anymore. Why would he call the church
a widow? Because her husband had died.
But he didn't die permanently, because he rose again. So her
shame of reproach was going to be taken away. Why? For thy maker
is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, and thy Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel. Who is he? The God of the whole
earth shall he be called. Who was it that loved the church
and gave himself for it? The Lord Jesus Christ, wasn't
it? Ephesians 5, 25. He married her, and she's one
with him. "...the God of the whole earth
shall he be called our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Verse 6,
"...for the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and
grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused,
saith thy God." It's like a woman who got married when she was
really young, and then her husband got rid of her because he didn't
like her, and she had all of her hopes built up in this, and
then he gets rid of her and treats her like nothing. Well, that
was the church because she seemed like she was insignificant. But
then, the Lord poured forth His Spirit and the preaching of the
gospel came. And then we saw what happened. All these 3,000
souls were saved in one sermon. Verse 7. For a small moment have
I forsaken thee. But with great mercy will I gather
thee. In a little wrath I hid my face
from thee for a moment. But with everlasting kindness
will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this
is as the waters of Noah unto me. For as I have sworn that
the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have
I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. The
mountains shall depart, the hills shall be removed, but my kindness
shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace
be removed, saith the Lord. Have mercy on thee. What's he
saying here? God's wrath was poured on thee
for a moment, and a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a
moment. When did that happen? when the Lord Jesus Christ hung
on the cross and the sheep were scattered, when God took the
sword of His justice and plunged it into the heart of His servant,
the man who was my fellow, and in that He poured out the cup
of the indignation of the wrath of God on His Son. He made Him
to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him. And in Psalm 88, 6 and 7 he says,
Thy wrath lieth hard upon me. All thy billows and waves are
gone over me. The wrath of God was poured out
on the Lord Jesus Christ. For a small moment, for a short
time, God's wrath was against His people in Christ. Paul said
it this way in Galatians 2.20, I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
I live, yet not I, Christ liveth in me. You see, when Noah and
his family were in the ark, it points to the believer who is
in Christ. Believing in Christ is the evidence
that God has looked upon us from eternity as being in His Son,
and received all that He put upon His Son, all that we had
done, and required of Him all that He required of us, and He
provided it all in His sufferings and in His obedience, so that
what He did was counted ours. And we look to him as all of
our righteousness. And God said of Noah, I found
grace, you found grace in my sight. I've shown grace toward
you and I've seen you righteous. Why? Because he saw him in his
son. The wrath passed away because
God took it away. He expended all the justice required
in Christ and received from Him all the justice, all to satisfy
justice, the fulfillment of the law, every jot and tittle. Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. We're
saved from wrath through Him. Romans 5 verse 9. Let's pray.