Let's go back to Genesis 8, and
maybe you left your Bibles open to that location. And I want to reread chapter
8, 20 and 21, and then speak to you on the subject of the
sweet savor. Genesis 8, 20, and Noah building
an ark, or an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean
beast, and every very clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on
the altar. And the Lord smelt a sweet savor,
and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground
anymore for man's sake. For the imagination of man's
heart is evil from his youth, neither will I again smite any
more everything living as I have done. I've said on many occasions
that God uses everyone to accomplish his purpose. He may use people
to accomplish his purpose regarding evil, And it may be that he will
use people to accomplish his purpose regarding good. Who he uses and in the manner
that he uses them is all according to his sovereign will and purpose. As you read through the word
of God and consider the books of the Bible, we know God used
40 men to write the scriptures, men who were moved by the Holy
Ghost. God breathed on them, and they
wrote that which God would have them to write. In the New Testament,
he used 12 men for his apostles to keep the truth of the gospel
being sent forth after our Savior ascended back to heaven. But generally, generally, in
the Old Testament, God used one man, one man at any given time, to do a specific work in the
kingdom of God. God used one man, Adam, He used him to be the representative
of the entire human race. He didn't use Abel, not like
that. He didn't use Seth. He didn't
use anybody else in the manner that he used Adam. And when our God instructed Adam
the proper way to worship, to draw near to the Lord, He first
taught that to Adam, and Adam, using that knowledge that God
gave him, he taught his family how to worship. God is to be
worshipped by means of a sacrifice of an innocent victim, that is,
a victim innocent of any sins against God, and that one would
the life would be taken from it, would be forfeited in order
that the guilty might live. Therefore, we read in Romans
chapter five, by one man, one man, that's how sin entered into
the world. When the Lord would form a nation
through which the truth would continue and go forth. When he chose one man out of
Ur of the Chaldees to make of that one man a great nation through
whom Messiah would come, he raised up and he saved Abraham
and he used that one man. Our Lord would have the Israelites
go into Egypt. There's one man that he used,
just one, Joseph. Oh, others had, maybe we could
say supporting roles, but it was really Joseph that God used. And he wound up in Egypt according
to the mysterious purpose and providence of God. Then as a
result of Joseph being there, the rest of the family of Jacob,
that is all of that very small insignificant nation of Israel,
entered into the land of Egypt. After a number of years, When
God would have Israel to be liberated from the captivity of Egypt,
he raised up one man, Moses. And God used that one
man. To that one man, God gave his
law. God gave his commandments. The
law of God was given to show us our guilt, to expose our sinfulness. And the law of God also included
laws and rules regarding the worship of God, ceremonial worship,
by means of the priesthood and the sacrifices. But still, all
the laws were given to one man. that one man was Moses. Here's my point. When the Lord would instruct
His people regarding serious spiritual truths, He generally
used one man to do it. The men that I have mentioned
were in leadership roles. Why do you think that God would
use one man? Think about that for just a little
bit. Why would God instruct and teach and then make use of one
man at a time? Not a whole bunch of men, but
one man, one leader, one instructor. Why would God use just one man? Well, was he not teaching us
that salvation is in one man? That the way of approaching a
holy God was by one man? I mentioned Romans chapter 5,
by one man sin entered into the world, and by one man's obedience,
righteousness came upon all those that he represented. That one
man being the Lord Jesus Christ. In the death of our Savior, there
were many who had what we would call supporting roles. Some for
good, some for bad. But there's only one Savior.
There's only one head of the church. There's only one Redeemer. There's only one who came to
rescue His people from our fall in that first representative
man, Adam. So the Lord throughout the Old
Testament, and really to an extent in the New Testament as well,
He teaches us great things by using specifically one man. In fact, when you get to the
New Testament, the one man that I think about, other than, of
course, our Lord Jesus Christ, is a man by the name of the Apostle
Paul. He founded more churches than
anybody else. He went on three great missionary
journeys that are detailed in the book of Acts. And he wrote
over half of the New Testament, one man. But each of these men
are examples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when God would destroy
the world with water, He chose one man to build the
ark. Only one. I'm sure that others
had roles of assisting him and helping him, but all the commandments
of the Lord regarding the building of the ark were directed to one
man. His name was Noah. God used one man, according to
Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 7, to the saving of his house. Just like our God used one man,
the God-man, Christ Jesus, to the saving of the household of
God, the elect of God, Christ Jesus himself. Noah only was
chosen of God in a world that was corrupt, In a world that
was rotten, in a world that was totally given unto sin and violence,
a world destined for destruction, God raised up one man and that
one man found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God was gracious
to Noah. And like Enoch before him, Noah
walked with God. He walked with God. And to him
was given the great work, the great task of building the ark,
which would be the place of safety for his family and to preserve
the various animals that Noah took into the ark. Now the dimensions
and the specifics of the building of the ark were given to Noah. There was no task so enormous,
so marvelous, so impossible it would seem for one man. But they
were given to one man. They were given to Noah. And
the work is not even documented. The Bible doesn't even go into
detail about how he built the ark. Turn back to chapter 6. Watch this, verse 14. Here's the command to this one
man. Chapter six, verse 14. Make thee
an ark of gopher wood. Runes shalt thou make in the
ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And then notice in verse 22.
Thus did Noah, According to all that God commanded him, so did
he. Between verses 14 and 22, 120
years. 120 years and we're given no details. Because we don't
need the details. And as Noah saved his house,
so our Lord Jesus saved his house. He lived a life of perfection,
giving abundant evidence. He was the one and the only one
qualified to be the savior of sinners. And then he laid down
his life to establish righteousness for us and to put away our sins,
but we're not given the details of what happened during the three
hours of darkness on the cross. What we do know is this, just
like in 120 years, Noah built the ark for the saving of his
house. So during three hours of darkness,
our Lord Jesus Christ, He, by His obedience and by His suffering
unto His very death, which His death was voluntary, in three
hours of wrath being poured into His soul, our Lord Jesus satisfied
all the justice of God. And the Bible doesn't go into
details about what He suffered. God put his hand over the sun
and refused to let it shine for three hours. We don't know what all happened
except that God dealt with our sins in the only way that they
could be dealt with so as to be put away and removed from
us. He punished his only begotten son. with wrath. In the case of the ark, we don't know where he got his
wood. The Bible doesn't tell us. You know,
it's to be covered with pitch on the inside and on the outside,
and that speaks of atonement, by the way. That speaks of redemption. But we're not told where he got
it, how he got it, How was transported to the place where he built the
ark? All we know is God used one man
to do it. That's all we know. What is said of this singular
great task that this man undertook to finish as he was commanded
was that he did everything God commanded him to do. Right there
it says it in 22, thus did Noah. He did everything God told him
to do. According to all that God commanded
him, so did he. Oh, how this pictures what our
Savior did in his work upon the cross of Calvary. And make no
mistake about it, he did it all by himself. He said, there was
none with me, none with me. In Hebrews chapter one in verse
three, when he by himself purged our sins, he then sat down at
the right hand of the Father. Were others involved in the crucifixion
of our Savior? Yes, but he only did the work. Nobody else was qualified to
do it. The work of our redemption must
be attributed to this one man, Christ Jesus. No wonder Peter
said, there's none other name under heaven given among men
whereby we must be saved. Scripture says that he did the
work himself, and finally he cried, with a strong voice, it
is finished. What a task was said before our
Savior. It would be impossible, impossible
to even imagine the wrath of God being poured into his soul. Just as it would be impossible
for us to imagine the labor that Noah had awaiting him after God
gave him the instruction. But the work that Noah did was
a physical work. The work that our Lord Jesus
volunteered to do involved emotions, mental agony, and physical suffering. What a task was set before our
Savior. One would think surely it is
impossible for one man to bear in his body all of the sins of
all of the elect of God of all of the ages. But with God, nothing is impossible. He had to face the horror of
being made sin. and bearing up under the wrath
of God. And he must finally of his own
sovereign will give up his life. Understand this, he had the power
to lay it down. They could not take his life
from him. He is life himself. Man cannot
administer the penalty of death, not to the eternal God, not to
the Son of God. He had to die of his own volition. I have the power to lay it down,
he said. I have the power to take it again.
This commandment, he said, have I received of my Father. Like with Noah, little is recorded
of the actual work of Noah building the ark and
of our Lord Jesus establishing righteousness for his people.
Who could ever, who could ever begin to enter in to the agony
in the soul of our Savior? Such an agony stood before him
as he prayed in the garden. My father, if it be thy will,
let this cup pass from me. What do we know of Noah's work? We know that God gave him the
instructions and he obeyed. That's good enough. We don't
need to know anything else. What do we know about the Savior's
work? Everything was outlined and specifically
recorded in the covenant of grace when the triune God met together
as it were. establishing to save a people,
establishing who the Savior would be, and establishing what the
penalty for sin must be, and who must endure that penalty. Every detail of our salvation,
of our redemption, of the work of atonement, of the work of
reconciliation was ironed out, if I could put it that way, in
the covenant of grace. But we don't know all the details. But we know enough. We know that Christ died for
our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that
he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Noah did what God told him to
do. And when he finished the work
of building the art, here's what the Scripture says. Now look
in chapter 7, chapter 7, verses 7 and 8 and 9, chapter 7. And Noah went
in, Noah went in, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives
with him into the ark, because of the waters of the flood, of
clean beasts and of beasts that are not clean, and a thousand
of everything that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two
and two unto Noah." There's that one man. They all came to Noah. into the ark, the male and the
female, as God had commanded him. You see, the same hand that
brought these animals to Adam to be named, the same hand brought
them to Noah to be preserved. And the same hand that set us
apart for salvation is the hand that was raised up to save us
by the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now look over in chapter 8. Chapter
8. I'm sorry, let me read two more
verses in chapter 7. Verses 15 and 16. I want to read these two. Chapter
7, 15 and 16. And they went in unto Noah. That's two times that's said.
Into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath
of life. And they that went in, went in
male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him. Watch this. And the Lord shut
him in. Ain't that interesting? The Lord shut him in. See the
emphasis here is on one man. One man. God brought the man's
family to him. God brought the animals to him. And the Lord shut him in. And
when the Lord shut him in, that meant all that he had brought
in, they were shut in too. Here was preservation. Here's
salvation. As it is in the Lord Jesus our
Savior. God brings us to Him. All that
the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to
me I will in no wise cast out. We're brought to Christ by effectual
grace. The One who redeemed us, is the
one who regenerates us, the Son quickeneth whom He will. And
He's the one who preserves us in Himself. You see, there was no life for
anybody or for anything except they came to Noah. And the Lord shut him in. And
I'll tell you, there's no life for anybody except in Christ. And when the Lord brings us to
Him, you know what He does? He shuts us in. He shuts us in. You say, well, what if somebody
wants to leave? Are you crazy? None of the Lord's
redeemed ones want to leave Him. We're glad we're shut in. There's
our preservation, there's our safety. He's our salvation, and
he's our safety. When the angel announced the
Savior's name to Mary, and then a little later to Joseph, the
angel said, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save
his people from their sins. You see, our Lord Jesus is typified
not only by Noah, but also by the ark itself. There's safety in him. There's
salvation in him. Throughout the whole world, and
you can read commentators on the book of Genesis, and most
all of them will say there were millions upon millions of people
upon the earth then. But only one place of safety. In an ark built by one man, Noah. Well, what about all the rest of the
population? Well, they perished. Well, God's not fair. He didn't
give them a chance to go into the ark. Well, salvation, you
see, is not by chance. It's on purpose. And everybody God purposed to
save in the ark, they wound up in the ark. And everybody God
did not purpose to save, they perished in the floodwaters of
His wrath. Our Lord, He saves His family. He saved His family upon the
cross of Calvary. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
11. Look at Hebrews 11. Look at verse 7. Hebrews 11, 7. By faith Noah, being warned of
God of things not seen as yet, it had never rained. Boy, you're
building something that'll float on water It's never rained. Well, he was warned of God, of
things not seen as yet. Noah moved with fear, and he
prepared an ark to the saving, not the possibility that they'd
be saved, Not the hope that they'd be saved, but He built an ark
to the saving of His house. God said, you build this ark,
and I'm going to bring your family to you, and you and your family,
therefore, will be safe in the ark, and there's no possibility
that you're going to die. That's pretty simple. And our
God gave to Jesus Christ a people more numerous than the sands
of the seashore, more numerous than the stars in the sky. God chose these people unto salvation
and gave them to Jesus Christ and said, you save them now.
They're your responsibility. Their sins will I require at
your hands. You will be punished for their
sins. Bring them all home safely to
heaven. Bring them home in the ark of
salvation. And that's what our Lord is doing. He prepared an ark to the saving
of his house. When our Lord Jesus died, he
was preparing an ark. He was preparing salvation. by the which he condemned the
world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Just as Noah saved his household,
Christ saved his family too. And as we go back over here to
Genesis chapter 8, now we see the end. That's why I asked Ron
to read the eighth chapter. And the same ones that went in,
they came out. Verse 18, and Noah went forth and his sons and his wife and
his son's wives with him. Isn't that something? Everybody
who went in came out. And every beast, and every creeping
thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth after
their kinds went forth out of the ark. Everybody who went,
went in. Every animal that went in came
out safely. And all of those that Christ
took unto Himself, bearing the responsibility for our salvation,
we have been brought in by effectual grace into the ark of God's salvation,
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself being our Savior, and all will
be in the end safely in the presence of our Lord. And Noah, when he got out, he
left the ark. The earth has been devastated. Washed away his home. His sons and daughters-in-law's
homes. That's all gone. And you would think, well, the
first thing Noah's going to do, he's going to have to build a
house. That's what he's going to have to do. That's not the
first thing he did. He came out of the ark, his family
came out of the ark, and the animals came out of the ark,
and Noah said, here's what we're gonna do to begin with. Here's
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna build an altar unto
the Lord. And he did. He will establish right from
the get-go, as soon as he left the ark, he will establish the
only way of approaching a holy God by means of a sacrifice,
the blood being shed of an innocent victim for the guilty. He said,
that's the first thing on my agenda. I wonder if his wife
and his sons and daughters-in-law said, His wife said, honey, what's
the first thing you're going to do when you get out of this
ark? He said, I'm going to worship
God. I'm going to establish the worship of God immediately. And I'm going to teach by example
the only way anybody can approach a holy God, by means of a sacrifice. And that's what he did. He took those animals, a bullock,
picturing the strength of our Lord Jesus Christ. Sheep, the
meekness of the Savior. Goats, picturing Christ is our
food. He is our milk. He's the one
who provides for us. The pigeons, the turtle doves,
showing meekness, peace. And you worship the Lord. And
he sets a precedent, this one man. I don't care what the world says. They frown upon the preaching
of the cross of our Savior, of that effectual atonement of the
Redeemer. They really are not interested
in that. Preacher, don't preach that to us anymore. We hear that
all the time. We want to hear about practical
Christian living. Well, this is as practical as
you can get, eternal life. And it's in the just as satisfying
death of the Son of God. And the Lord smelled it. And verse 21 says it was to the
Lord a sweet savor. It is a good smell. You know,
at the beginning back there of chapter six, the smell that reached the nostrils
of God, as it were, was the filth, the stench of man's depravity
and rottenness. The flood came and washed all
that away. And Noah offers Sacrifices to
God. It delighted the Lord. It pleased
the Lord. Which reminds me of Ephesians
chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. And I know the building of the
altar was an act of thanksgiving, indeed, I'm sure. But it was also an act of worship,
and I believe an act of worship primarily. And it teaches us the way we
can approach God, the only way we can approach God, by means
of the blood sacrifice. And before I read this passage
of scripture, Remember this, for the next 2,400 years, for
the next 2,400 years, what Noah did right there in chapter eight,
that's what men who would worship God continued to do. That's what they continued to
do. One man, God used one man to teach people who came after
him for the next over two millenniums. This is how you approach a holy
God. Not by your works, not by keeping
the law, not by your good deeds. I was listening to some song
the other night that some country singers were singing and they
talked about being good and If you're really good, you get
into heaven, that sort of garbage, you know. You can't be good. You can't be good. That's an
impossibility. Flee to the one who is good,
the only savior of sinners. Well, look here in Ephesians
5, and I'll quit. Ephesians chapter 5. In verse
32, by the way, of chapter four, it says, Be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's
sake, hath forgiven you. Why has God forgiven you? Are
you forgiven? Yes, I'm forgiven. Why am I forgiven? I'm forgiven for Christ's sake
because of who He is and what He did for me upon the cross
of Calvary. So he says in chapter 5, Be ye
therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love
as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us
an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. Nothing else is pleasing to God. And I'll tell you what, when
our Lord Jesus sealed our pardon with his blood as a sweet smell
to God. And everything else stinks. So I'm living by the commandments,
preacher. That stinks. That's just rotten. I hope you can see that. I got baptized. Washed my sins
away. That just stinks. That's pitiful. Well, something happened to me
and I can't explain it. I just had a feeling went all
over me. Really. I had a dream. I had this happen. By one offering, He put away
our sins. And God said, that's a fragrance
to me. And you see the gospel of the
substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's
a fragrance to his people too. I don't want to smell anything
else coming from this pulpit. And you don't either. Well, the
sweet savor. Let's sing a closing song, shall
we? Number one.