I appreciate Joe reading and
being prayerful for us. I had the opportunity yesterday
to speak briefly with Cheryl and then talk quite extensively
with Brother Wiseman, Clarence Wiseman. And we have missed seeing
them. And a lot of others just haven't
felt comfortable coming back. And I understand that people
have some serious conditions, underlying illnesses. We miss them, a good many of
them. But I did have an opportunity to talk to Clarence And it was
so good to visit with him on the telephone. And we're hopeful. In fact, he and I were talking
yesterday about the fact that there's kind of a good hope that
there's a vaccine that people can be vaccinated with, and it's
showing good promise. And we hope that I heard someone
say today That may be available in December and at least to a
few people and after the first of the year it will be available
to many more that's the Lord willing of course and It will
be good Things to kind of get back to
normal and we can resume having our Bible classes. It sure would be good to sing again.
I miss that greatly. And then having the Lord's Supper
together, having a baptismal service, we look forward to that. fellowship lunches. This virus
has affected our congregation, though I don't know of anyone,
at least not right offhand, who has actually gotten the virus
of our congregation. But nevertheless, it has affected
our weekly service schedule. As far as doing the things that
we enjoy doing, singing and that sort of thing. But maybe God
will be pleased to bring about a vaccination and we can get
inoculated and that sort of thing. And we can resume regular schedule. Well, let me pray with you and
for you and for me before I go into the message this evening. Our Father, it is so good of
you to bring us together that we may sit under the sound of
the Word of God once again this evening. We're so thankful that
you have provided for us this Elam, this oasis in the wilderness
where we can meet together and join our hearts in worship of
our God. Lord, we seek to magnify your
name this evening to exalt the Son of God, that One who laid
down His life for us, and who not only laid it down but took
it back up again, and who governs over all things to fulfill your
purpose and to work all things for the good of your dear children. We thank you for the Spirit of
Grace who reveals Christ to us, the Spirit who quickened us from
the dead, and who indwells us, who abides with us, who teaches
us, who guides us, and who will be with us always till we get
home to glory. Take, Lord, the things that are
before us this evening and this portion that our brother has
read to us and we ask that You would teach us. Lord, give us teachable spirits. Give us the desire to learn the
Word of God and to see how You have I've been working always
since the foundation of the world, moving and directing and having
the oversight of all things and working in all of us that which
is well pleasing in your sight. Exalt the son of your righteousness,
the son of your love this evening. And Lord, work in us that which
is well-pleasing in your sight. And do us good, Father, we ask
for Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, as we get to the
middle of Genesis chapter 8, and then, of course, get on into
chapter 9, we see a new beginning, a new beginning. God had indeed
poured out his wrath upon this earth and though the storms filled
the sky and the rains fell from heaven and the fountains of the
deep were opened, yet God did spare some in those days of judgment. And when all was said and done
and when God's wrath had been expended and judgment had fallen,
then the Lord caused the sun to shine again and there exited
from the ark Noah and his wife and his three sons and their
wives and of course all of the animals that God had instructed
Noah to take into the ark. The Lord sent a flood of judgment,
and certainly we should learn from that that God doesn't take
sin lightly. Sadly, we do, by nature. In fact, most people, and we
would be included in this, most people really don't care much
about sin. Actually, I don't even know what
sin is. They have no awareness of the awfulness of offending
God's justice and God's law. There is no fear of God before
the eyes of everyone by nature. And men don't understand the
seriousness of breaching the commandments of God. But God
takes sin very seriously because every sin is a direct attack
upon His sovereign authority. It is rebellion. It's nothing
short of rebellion. And I know we tend to say, well,
there are little sins and there are big sins. And there's no
question about the fact there are sins that have greater consequences
as far as outwardly is concerned. and a greater effect upon those
against whom we have perhaps committed a sin, but every transgression
must, must receive a recompense, the scripture says, of reward.
In fact, we read in Romans chapter six, for the wages of sin is
death. And that's every sin. That's
every transgression. That's every iniquity. And as
we arrive, as we've studied already in Genesis chapter six, after
what, 1,656 years since God made Adam, things have proceeded downward. And the world is a wretched mess. And men's hearts are in rebellion
against God. And God, He pictures Himself
as though He were one of us. In this sense, He visited earth
to look and see the condition of all things. Now, of course,
God didn't have to visit. God didn't have to look down.
God knows all things, but He speaks in a language that we
can understand. And as God viewed all of mankind
throughout this earth, He saw that every imagination of men's
hearts were only wicked and evil continually, always, thoroughly
evil. You see, there isn't a spark
of good in any of us and there wasn't a spark of good in any
of them. And all men had gone stray and
they willfully sinned against God. We know that as Genesis
chapter six begins, the sons of God married the daughters
of men. That is, there was a compromise
among the people who had at least a head knowledge of the truth
of the gospel. As we visited through Genesis
chapter five, we saw these various men who were in the lineage of
our Lord Jesus, who loved the gospel, who believed the truth.
They embrace the gospel that God taught Adam and Eve, the
gospel of substitution, the gospel that His law must be avenged
when men break it. And when Adam transgressed God's
law, he fell and Eve fell with him and they would have right
then plunged into hell were it not for the grace of God that
God had given to Adam and to Eve in the Lord Jesus even before
the world began. The fall of Adam and the sinfulness
of Eve, that didn't overtake God by chance or as though He
was unaware of what was going to happen. There had already
been a provision made for man's sinfulness even before he transgressed
God. There was already a Savior before
there was a sinner. There was already a surety of
the covenant of grace before we needed a surety. That is,
we were given to the Lord Jesus who is fully responsible for
and accountable for our everlasting safety. And As God viewed the
sinfulness of men, he saw that they had corrupted his way. Go
back, if you would, to chapter six of Genesis, and let me show
you something. And I pointed this out before,
but it must be taken notice of in Genesis chapter six. Look
at verse 11. The earth also was, the scripture
says, corrupt. That means ruined. perverted
before God. And the earth was filled with
violence. And the word violence means unrighteousness. Look at verse 12. And God looked
upon the earth and behold, it was corrupt. It was ruined. This is the same earth that about
what, 1600 years before this, that God looked everything over
and he said, it's very good. And now one thousand, one and
a half, a little over one and a half millenniums later, God
looks at everything. He said it's corrupt. It's ruined. It's perversed. I made a perfect world, a perfect
environment for Adam and Eve to live in. And all was beautiful
and all was perfect. There was nothing but innocence
in Adam and in Eve. But now look at it after one
and a half millenniums, a little more than that. God said it's corrupt. And notice
verse 12, for all flesh had corrupted his way before the earth. Upon the earth, man had ruined
God's way. Now, God's way is the way of
grace. Let's understand that. God's
way is the Lord Jesus. He's the way. He's the way to
God. He's the truth of God. He's the
life of God. No man comes to the Father but
by Me. And this way of good news, the
way of the gospel, this way of salvation by God's grace had
now been perverted. You see, God gave this gospel
to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve gave this gospel
to Abel. They also taught the gospel to
Cain, but he rejected it. He would have nothing to do with
it. Later on, they had another boy. His name was Seth. And he
embraced this gospel, the way of grace, the way of God. And
those men that are listed in Genesis chapter 5, they believed
in this way. This way, which is the way that
Saul of Tarsus persecuted according to Acts chapter nine. This is
the way of God. But then as those who believe
the truth began to mix with those who didn't believe the truth,
over a period of a number of years, then the gospel became
perverted. There is but one gospel. We know
that from Galatians chapter one, but men introduced works into
it. Well, that's what Cain believed.
He believed in salvation by works. And now by the time we get to
Genesis chapter six, here's what God says. God, as he views man
in his utter, Sinfulness and depravity. God said, they corrupted
my way. And as a result of corrupting
God's way, then the result was outward wickedness. Understand
this. Here's the progress. Here's what happens. First of
all, the way of grace is forsaken. God is forsaken. Man refuses
to believe the gospel. And then as a result of that,
then outward corruption, it soon falls. That's always the way
it happens, the way it happens. You look at society today. There have never been more denominations,
more churches, more religions than we have today. We have more
Bible colleges. We have more seminaries. Churches
are everywhere. Lots of churches have day schools. And kids don't go to public school. A lot of them in these churches,
they go to a private school. We have all of this. But for
all of the religion, especially in our country, that we have,
this nation has never been more perverted and wicked and outwardly
corrupt than it is today. And yet we have more religion.
Now, how do you explain that? Well, we explain it this way. As you leave the gospel of God's
grace to sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ, and as you
go for other religions, and the gospel is kind of lost in this
mixture of works and grace, as you forsake the gospel, then
outward corruption rises in society. It's always the way it works.
And this is what has happened in Genesis 6. And God said, I'm
not going to stand for it. Man's corruption has come before
me. And God said the same God who
said, let there be light. And there was light. God said,
I will destroy. And he did. Now he saved Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And he saved Noah's family, which
at this time, as far as we know, there was not another believer
among Noah's family, saved Noah only. And God spared his family for
Noah's sake. And God gave him instructions
about an ark. And he built the ark. And then
after he built the ark, God said, come into the ark. And all of
the animals that Adam had named, now Noah, finds that God brings
those animals to him, and He leads them into the ark, and
then his family goes in, and Noah goes in, and God shut the
door. And as God shut the door, He
not only shut them in, He shut everybody else out. He sealed
the door, and then the heavens opened up,
and the fountains of the deep opened up, and God sent a flood. But then, after over a year,
a year and four or five weeks, something like that, God who
said, come into the ark, God said to Noah, go out of the ark.
And they all go out. Everybody who went in came out.
The Lord didn't lose any of them. They had endured the judgment
of God that fell on the ark with them safe inside the ark. And
I said last week, and it bears repeating over and over again,
The judgment of God fell on the ark of our salvation, the Lord
Jesus. And we were in Him. And we're
spared. Not a drop of judgment ever falls
upon His children. All of God's elect were in the
Lord Jesus Christ when He died the death of justice satisfying,
when He honored God in His death. And then, justice having been fulfilled,
we were saved and justified. And because He justified us by
His bloody death, He arose from the dead. Well, as we then get
to the end of chapter 8, Noah and all the rest, they exit the
ark. First thing he does, of course,
is offer burnt offerings, as we mentioned last week. These
were offerings that were totally for the Lord because the offerings
were utterly consumed in the fire. Our Lord Jesus, he died
as the burnt offering for sin, but Justice did not consume him. Now, these animals that Noah
put upon the altar in chapter 8 and verse 20, when Noah built
an ark unto the Lord, he took of every clean beast and offered
them, and the fowls that he offered, why, they were totally consumed
by the fire. But our Lord Jesus, when He died
upon the cross of Calvary, justice did not consume Him. But rather,
He consumed justice. The judgment of God did not consume
him. He consumed justice. All of the
hell that all of his people would have suffered forever and ever,
he bore in our stead till there was no more hell. There was no
more justice. And he said, it is finished.
God was satisfied. He wasn't consumed. The wrath of God was consumed.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.
And so as we get to chapter nine, then God makes a covenant with
Noah regarding the future of the earth. They'll never again
be destroyed by water. but it will be destroyed by fire,
be renovated by fire, but not with water. This is a new beginning, a new beginning, but there's still the same old
problem. That's the title of the message,
new beginning, same problem. What is the problem? It's sin. Still there. In fact, I'm very
certain that when Noah and his family exited the ark, and they
built an altar, and as they began to look around, they'd see things
growing. Weeds, briars, thorns, thistles. Noah became a farmer, a husbandman. He planted his crops. He really
found out then about how cursed the earth was. And he found out
sin is still effected in the earth, in the world, the curse
of sin. But that sinfulness, which was
not in the earth, the earth was cursed because of man's sin.
That sinfulness was still in Noah. That's what we saw as our
brother read to us this night. So learn several things from
Noah's sinfulness. Number one, And of course this
now is based upon chapter 9 verses 18 through 29. Here's the first
thing. Notice the honesty of this book.
Now Noah was a righteous man before God. We know that from
chapter 6. The scripture says that. But
he was still a sinful man. He's a righteous man, but he's
a sinful man. And that's the way it is with
all of God's people. We're righteous in the Lord Jesus. We're the saints of God. All
of us who know Him, who believe Him. We're sanctified by grace. We're sanctified by virtue of
the fact that the Lord Jesus is our sanctification. We're
set apart in Him. We're a holy people unto God.
That's what we are before God in the Lord Jesus Christ. In
Him, we're saints, but in ourselves, we're still sinners. It's just
the way it is. You can't gloss over that. We
read in Romans 7, here's what the Apostle Paul said, Oh, wretched
man that I am. who shall deliver me from the
body of this death. I thank God through Jesus Christ
my Lord. He didn't say, oh wretched man
that I used to be. Oh, I used to be a really wretched
man. I used to be quite the sinner.
He didn't say that. Years and years ago, we used
to have testimony meetings, and people would get up and they'd
say things like, I used to really be a rebel rouser. Oh, I was
really wild. I used to be an enemy. I used
to be this. I used to be that. Here's the
fact of the matter, you still are. You still are. That's what you are in yourself. In me, that is in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. That's what we read. This is
a faithful saying Paul would later say. 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. Noah, you're a righteous man. Yes, I am. You found grace in
the eyes of the Lord. Yes, I did. You're perfect before
God. Yes, I am. But he'll be the first to tell
you, I'm just a sinner saved by grace. And he was capable of doing anything
that any other sinner would do. If God gave him a little bit
of rope, a little bit of leeway, which he did. Noah, he sinned against God in
an awful way. As we shall go into, He got drunk. But it shows you the honesty
of the book. If we had been designated as a writer of the historical
facts pertaining to Noah and not being inspired by the Holy
Spirit, why, we would have left this out. This is the blot on
his character. This just doesn't look good.
We'll just leave this chapter out. That's the way it is with
us! And you know, it's wonderful
to read biographies. We have good biographies in the
library, autobiographies, and it's beneficial to read those
about the men of faith and women of faith that God blessed and,
you know, people write about them or maybe they wrote about
themselves. But remember this, men wrote
those books. And oft times they don't actually
tell us fully of the rottenness that was still in those people. I remember young, when I was
young in the ministry, I read some of these men and I thought,
wow, I'm not even worthy to carry their briefcase. These are such
holy men. I don't know anything about the
kind of lives that they lived. And I said, I've got to do better. I found out that I don't think
their biographers were totally honest with us. But the Word of God is honest. And it presents to us a factual
picture of all men and women. We're sinners by nature. Now
here's the wonderful thing. Here in Genesis chapter nine,
you read of Noah's fall, of his drunkenness. But when you get
to the New Testament, you don't read anything about it. It's
forgotten by God. It's blotted out due to the blood
of the Lord Jesus. It's not on His record. It's
just like your sins. You're righteous in the Lord
Jesus, you're sinful in yourself, but His blood has wiped your
record perfectly clean and there has been imputed to you the righteousness
of the Son of God. This is an honest book. If we'd been writing the history
of Abraham, we probably wouldn't have recorded that part where
he told the king of Egypt, this is talking about his wife, Sarah. Go ahead and take her, she's
my sister. We'd have left that part out.
Abraham, what's the matter with you? Well, he's trying to save
himself, trying to save his own life is what he's trying to do.
And there are other examples as well. David's crimes, his lust for Bathsheba, and then
taking her to be his own, and then murdering Uriah to cover
it all up. Well, let's leave that out. This
is a man after God's own heart. Here's the sweet psalmist of
Israel. Here's a man who wrote about
the Lord as my shepherd. Well, certainly don't record
what a vile scoundrel he was. Oh, yes. Because we need to be
reminded, all these people in the Scriptures, just like us. Just sinful people. That's who
God saves, sinful people. We wouldn't have recorded the
strife between Paul and Barnabas. Oh, no, we'd have left that out.
That don't look good on Paul. Don't look good on Barnabas. Yeah, but people have strife. Even the people of God have strife. Now, understand this, in Noah's
case, drunkenness is wrong. It's always wrong. Proverbs 20
verse one, wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever
is deceived thereby is not wise. It has ruined many a family. Drunkenness has. The rule of
the word of God is moderation. in all things. And I know there
have been, you look back through, you know, comedies on television
and the drunks are funny, some of them, and they stumble around
and people laugh at them. It's ungodly. Drunkenness is wrong. Second thing, This shows us by
example that salvation is of the Lord. You must never turn
to any man who's declared by the Lord to be righteous and
then say that that man had some hand in his own salvation. No. Grace was the first thing God
gave Noah in Christ Jesus. and grace once given is never
taken away. Now, Noah did an awful thing
in this. The scripture says, for there's
not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.
There's not a justified man. There's not a righteous man upon
this earth who doeth good and sinneth not. You see, according
to the theology, the doctrine, the beliefs of a good many people,
no one would have lost his salvation here. But he didn't lose his salvation
because it's God's salvation. And God gave it to him and God
preserved him in this state of righteousness before him. Noah was accepted in the Beloved
the same way every other sinner is accepted. If they are accepted
before God, they are accepted in the Beloved. I think he could probably say,
after all this was over, he would say with David in Psalm 73, 22,
So foolish was I, and ignorant, I was as a beast
before thee." Have you ever had thoughts or perhaps even your actions,
and then when you kind of came to yourself, you would echo the
words of David, I was like a beast. I was like an animal that didn't
have good sense. That's the way Noah was. That's
the way David was. And yet he remained righteous
before God the whole time because his righteousness was in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Which reminds us that no child
of God is immune from temptation And no child of God is immune
from yielding to temptation unless God keeps us looking to Christ. Now we're kept from condemnation,
but we're not kept from corruption. That corruption's in you. I'm
telling you, corruption's still in you. And you're capable of
doing anything that any other son or daughter of Adam has ever
done since the beginning of the history of mankind. You're capable
of doing it unless God restrains you. And thankfully, He does. In most cases, He restrains us
from just doing some very stupid things. But here's the sin of Ham in
verses 22 and 23. Ham, the father of Canaan, he
saw the nakedness of his father. So Noah gets drunk and he's in
presumably his bedroom and he's naked. He's out of it. I mean, he is three sheets to
the wind. He didn't even know what's going
on. And here's this man, Ham, one of his boys, Ham, who's the
father of Canaan. He saw the nakedness of his father. He entered into this room where
his father was, and he saw his father naked there. But instead
of covering him up, instead of hiding this awful
sight that he sees, and then keeping his mouth shut about
it, and not telling anybody, and kind of keeping his father's
good name intact, and not going out and spilling the beans to
everybody and letting them know what he saw. His dad's drunk
in there. Instead of doing that, he just
leaves him as he found him and he goes out and he tells his
two brothers, you'll never guess. Y'all go in there and look at
dad. Boy, he's a fine Christian, I'll tell you that. He says he
believes God. Well, y'all go in there and see
him now. He's out cold. He's drunk. And I'll tell you, Ham's doing,
he did a terrible thing. You see, the scripture says that
love covers a multitude of transgressions. He should have, not sought to embarrass his father,
but out of love and respect for his father, he should have just
covered him up and then slipped out and never said a word about
it. Now that'd been the right thing to have done. But you see, Ham is like a good
many people, they can't wait to tell others of somebody's
fault. They've just got to tell somebody. I hate to say anything, but let
me tell you something. It was that kind of thing. And
he just thinks nothing of him bringing embarrassment to his
own father. But you see Ham, and I'll put
this in, the Jews, and Josephus, who was a Jewish historian, and
there are a good many other people who believe that, and you notice
Canaan's name, one of Ham's sons is mentioned. in this context,
many believe that he went in with his dad. Now, obviously,
this has been some time after they have come out of the ark,
because when they came out of the ark, Ham wasn't even born. Well, was he the fourth son of
Adam or something like that? And so we're talking about several
years have gone by. I mean, he's got to plant the
vineyard and the vineyard's got to grow. And then he's got to
make the wine, he's got to ferment and all of that. So a good bit
of time has gone by and many believe that Canaan went with
his dad in and Canaan saw his grandfather. And then he went
out and then got his dad and then Ham comes in and then they
both leave. and then Ham tells his two brothers
what happened. Now, the scripture doesn't say
that, but there is some reason why Canaan's name continually
comes up in the context, so that may have happened. And of course,
according to Jewish tradition, that's exactly what happened.
But what we do know is that This man, Ham, this was not a childish
thing that he did. He's a man of about a hundred
years old by now. And his sin revealed the condition
of his own heart. You see, he gave lip service
to believing as his dad believed, but he didn't believe the gospel.
He didn't believe the truth. He didn't believe the way of
grace. He didn't believe God. And so as he cared nothing for
his dad's God, he really cared nothing for his own dad. But the other two sons, verse 23,
Shem and Japheth, they cared. It says here in verse 23, Shem
and Japheth took a garment, most say a blanket, and they laid
it upon both their shoulders and walked backwards and covered
the nakedness of their father. Their faces were backward and
they saw not their father's nakedness because they loved their dad. You see, when you love somebody,
You don't go out and tell everybody about the wrong that they've
done. You know in your family, in your immediate family, surely
if your boy or girl or your mother or father, whatever the case
may be, if they did something that would bring great embarrassment
to the family, you're not gonna go out and tell people what happened
because you love them, you wanna kinda keep it quiet. because
love covers a multitude of transgressions. And that's the way it was with
Shem and Japheth. They loved their dad. They didn't
want him to be embarrassed. And you know, you and I who are
the people of God, when a brother or a sister falls, they fall a victim of some temptation. Let's don't go bad mouth them
to people. Let's love them and forgive them. I think I've shared this story
with you before, but several years ago, many years ago now,
probably 40 years ago, there was a young man who dated
young lady in our congregation. And this young guy, his dad was
a preacher in another city about 45, 50 minutes away. And he took this girl to a high
school prom and he drank some. His daddy found out about it
and his daddy kicked him out of the house. His dad said, don't
ever come back and you can't ever come back to our church
either. And so this girl he was dating from our church, she came
to me and said, Brother Jim, this is what happened. And my
boyfriend's all broken up over it. He's heartbroken. He messed
up and he acknowledges that he messed up. But his dad said he
can't come back home. He's 18 years old, ready to graduate. He can't come back home and he
can't go back to his dad's church. She said, what can we do? I said, tell him he can come
here. I'm looking for sinners to preach the gospel to. Don't be so quick to judge. You
know, the scripture talks about being kind-hearted and forgiving. We need to be that way. In big
things and little things as well. It's an awful thing to hold a
grudge, to hold a grudge against your son, or in Ham's life, to hold a grudge against
your father, being opposed to his gospel. Well, Shem and Japheth have the
right attitude. Kindness. Kindness. We'll leave the judgment to God. It's for us to show mercy. Well,
verse 24, Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger
son had done. So how did he know? Well, I don't
know. Perhaps he said, where did this
blanket come from that I'm covered over with? It's not my blanket. I don't know. Maybe he asked and then he gets
the whole story. He finds out what his younger
son had done to him. Verse 25, he said, cursed be
Canaan. A servant of servants shall he
be unto his brethren. Which kind of further leads me
to believe that Canaan was involved in this as well. But it isn't
merely the natural seed of Canaan but rather those that of the
same mindset as Canaan and Ham, accursed. And then he said in verse 26,
he said, blessed be the Lord God of Shem and Canaan shall
be his servant. Well, Shem, he's the father of
the Hebrews and the Arabs as well too, by the way. He said, blessed be the Lord
of Shem, the Lord God. Blessed be God our Savior is
what he's saying. He blessed the name of God. He
blessed the name of God who forgave him of his sins. That's what
Noah did. He blessed the name of God. And
it would appear that this is the Lord God now of Shem. Shem
has been converted. He knows God our Savior, the
seed of the woman. And he said, Canaan shall be
his servant. And you get into the book of
Joshua, and you find that that's exactly what happened. The Canaanites
became the servants of the Israelites. And then look at verse 27. God
shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.
In other words, they'll come together. Here's Japheth. From him come the Europeans,
the Asians, us, us Gentiles. And God shall enlarge Japheth. God shall send forth the gospel
to the descendants of Japheth. And if you'll notice in the margin,
beside verse 27, I have the word persuade. Does your Bible have
that? Persuade. God shall persuade
many Gentiles concerning the truth. These are the offspring
of Japheth. And Canaan shall be his servant.
This is all going to work out according to God's eternal purpose. Because there's an elect nation
of every kindred, tribe, and tongue, and people. They're Jews
and Gentiles. They're the descendants of Shem
and the descendants of Japheth. And they come together as one,
one church, one body of believers. And then we get to verse 28.
And Noah lived after the flood 350 years. Did you know, and
if you read, Josephus, it says that Shem and Noah and Abraham
knew each other and that Abraham actually went and lived with
these folks for 38 years. What an overlap, an overlap of
the lives of these men. Noah lived after the flood 350
years. and all the days of Noah were
950 years. He was a sojourner in two worlds,
the old world, destroyed by water, and the new world, the new beginning, after the flood. And then he
died. He died. Nine hundred and fifty
years. And He died. But He died in the
Lord. Blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of His saints. And here's a man that is spoken
of in the New Testament who was a preacher of righteousness. And the scripture says he was
an heir of righteousness, a man of faith. And you read in Hebrews
chapter 11 of him, and you also read in 1 Peter chapter 3, or
2 Peter chapter 2 of him, also in 1 Peter chapter 3, you read
of Noah, and you read nothing negative about him. Isn't that something? Nothing
negative. Oh, He was a sinner in Himself,
like you are, and like I am. But in the Lord Jesus, He's righteous. And none of His failures will
ever be brought up against Him. They've all been paid for by
the bloody sacrifice of the Son of God. Well, let's pray. Thank You, Father. for the honesty
of this book. And you remind us that even with
a man like Noah, he is capable of a terrible fall. But though
he fell into sin, he did not fall out of grace. He did not
fall out of the hand of the shepherd, the sheep, though he stumbled
in sin, yet he's kept by the mighty God of our salvation. And we thank you, Father, that
this gospel goes forth to the descendants of these sons of
Noah. And though we're undeserving
of the least of your mercies, yet you have brought us Jews
and Gentiles, so many of us into the fold of salvation under one
house, one roof as it were, the people of God. And soon we shall
gather together all of the children of the King in heaven's everlasting
glory and there we shall praise the Savior and sing worthy is
the Lamb that was slain who has redeemed us unto God by His blood. Thank you for your grace to us
in Christ Jesus. These things we ask in His name
and for His sake with thanksgiving and with the desire that you
lead us each step of the days that are ahead and watch over
us and keep us Keep us believing and resting in Christ.