for our good, and we do rejoice
in that. Okay, 2 Peter 3. This second epistle, beloved,
I now write unto you, in both which I stir up your pure minds
by way of remembrance, that you may be mindful of the words which
were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment
of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first,
that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after
their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant
of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the
earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the
world that then was being overflowed with water perished. But the
heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word are
kept in store, that is, they are being preserved, reserved
unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly
men. But, beloved, be not ignorant
of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack
concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance. And we'll stop our reading there
with verse number nine. Let's see God's face. It is so very good of you, Lord,
to arrange our lives so that we would be under the sound of
the Word of God this evening. Lord, I ask that we have come
here. I pray that we've all come here
with a desire to be fed from the Holy Scriptures. fed with
the manna that is from high on a high and to drink the water
of life again freely. We thank you for the scriptures.
And Lord, for a holy man of God that you used so many, many years
ago to write down that which you would have for us to read
even this very evening. And this, the Word of God, lives
and abides forever. And though heaven and earth shall
fade away and be destroyed with fervent heat, this book of all
books will endure forever. We bless you, Father, for the
written Word which tells us of the incarnate Word, even our
Lord Jesus. We're so thankful that we have
on record that which concerns our Master, of His life, of His
very person, of His work of redemption that honored every demand of
your justice, of His redemption by His blood that bought all
of your people. And we thank you, Father, that
he brought in everlasting righteousness for all of those in whose stead
he died. And we rejoice to know that he
who laid down his life took it again, and he ascended back to
glory, where he is now seated as he has been for 2,000 years,
and he governs the nations. We look forward to that day when
He shall come again, and He shall receive us unto Himself, that
where He is, there we may be also. Lord, it is so encouraging
to us to know that our Savior governs all things, that all
things are under His dominion, all things in heaven, all things
on earth, and all things under the earth fulfill your will,
being directed by the divine providence and the wisdom of
our great Redeemer. We thank you, Father, that the
issues of life and death and all of the issues that pertain
to your people are in the sovereign hands of our great We bow to
Him and we worship Him, we adore Him. We thank You, Spirit of
God, for the gift of faith to believe Him, to rest our souls
in His care. We thank You for the gift of
repentance that we have been brought to turn away from our
religious but dead works, and we have been led to turn away
from all idols, from all false ideas of God. We're brought to
believe You, Lord, as You're revealed in the Scriptures, and
to embrace the Lord Jesus, who is the only Savior of sinners.
Lord, we do ask that you would be pleased to grant a measure
of healing to these that we have mentioned. Lord, we certainly
lift up to you Sister Evelyn. She is such a dear soul to all
of us, having been a vital part of this congregation for many
years. And of late, she's fallen upon
weak health, and now she's taken a fall and broken her hip. And Lord, we pray that as the
bones have been set back, that You would grant healing. We ask
that You would encourage her. Bless Kathy as she is there to
assist her. And Lord, we do pray that Evelyn
will experience the goodness of God and the grace of God as
you minister to her through the word of the gospel that she has
loved for many, many years. And so we're thankful that you
will never leave your children nor forsake us. We ask likewise
for Brother Gary. and also for Joyce. Lord, specifically
for Gary that You would grant healing. We wait with some degree
of anxiousness as the doctor removes the bandages tomorrow
to see how his vision is. And we ask, O Lord, if it would
be according to Your will, if it would please You that You
would give a restoration of vision to brother Gary. We're so thankful
for him and for Joyce. We thank you that you have taught
them the gospel of your free and sovereign grace, and you
have taught them that you do indeed govern and rule in all
things, even in issues concerning our health. And we may and indeed
we do go through seasons in which this body is in need of corrective
surgery and certainly as we get older we experience the natural
afflictions of the flesh. But we know that the inner man,
the spiritual man, the grace of God given to us
in Christ Jesus. This is ever new. And we're thankful
that we, though our bodies may ache and suffer physical infirmities,
yet there is a blessed wholeness and a blessed healthiness to
us spiritually. And we rejoice in that. We're
thankful that you have made us to be citizens of heaven, and
we look forward someday to entering into that joyful and happy land
where every eye looks upon the Lamb of God, and every ear is
attentive to His Word, and every heart beats for the very glory
of our Savior. As we go back tonight, Lord,
to Genesis, and resume our study of that devastating flood that
You sent, Lord, may we be warned, and also may we be made to rejoice
in the ark of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless these who are here this
evening, Lord, feed your sheep. Bless those who are watching
by way of the Internet. We're so thankful for this avenue
that you have given to us to set forth the Word of Truth.
And we pray that you will bless every facet of our ministry for
the glory of your dear Son and for the spiritual good of those
who sit under the Gospel of your free grace to sinners through
Christ Jesus, our Lord. In His name I ask these things. Amen. Well, let's go back to
the book of Genesis, if you will, and we'll start in Genesis chapter
6. And if you want me to give you
a title for the message tonight, it would be Remembrance sacrifices
and covenant. Remembrance, sacrifices, and
covenant. We know that many years ago God
sent a flood into this world in the days of Noah. That flood
stands as a lasting rebuke to those who would suggest that
God never pours out His judgment on anyone. In chapter 6 and verse
17, we read these words, God said to Noah, and behold I, Genesis
6, 17, and behold I, even I do bring the flood of waters upon
the earth. And here's the purpose, to destroy
all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven. And everything that is in the
earth, God said, shall die. Everything that is in the earth,
the Lord said, shall die. What a remarkable historical
event this worldwide flood was. God had seen that every imagination
of man's hearts were only evil continually. God had seen that
his thoughts were wicked. From the youngest to the oldest,
men and women and boys and girls lived only to care for the flesh. In fact, our Lord Jesus in the
New Testament, He said that as it was in the days of Noah, so
shall it also be in the days when the Son of Man shall come
back. They were eating and drinking
and marrying and giving in marriage, and not that there's anything
wrong with eating and drinking or marrying and giving in marriage.
There's nothing wrong with those things, but that was the sum
total in God's view of all that men were doing. In other words,
all of their attention was devoted to taking care of this body. There was no thought for the
glory of God. There was no consideration to
eternity. There was no consideration given
to the soul. Man has a body, but we are a
soul. We are a soul. And rather than
giving any attention to the everlasting welfare of the soul, the people
in Noah's day, just like it will be in the days when our Lord
Jesus Christ comes back, they were totally taken up with fleshly
things. And God saw that all were wicked. All were vile. and God purposed
to send destruction. He said 120 years, that's it. It's as though God drew a line
in the sand. He said this is the boundary.
People won't live beyond this, except for those who are in the
ark. God would unleash His vengeance
upon an ungodly and wicked people. What an instance of the awful,
unbearable wrath of God. The universal flood of waters
washed away billions of the inhabitants of the earth. Everybody and everything
that lived and breathed air that wasn't inside the ark, they died. Could you possibly imagine, and
I know you cannot, The way things looked when Noah and his wife
and his three sons and his daughters-in-law, when they went into the ark,
everything was green, everything was beautiful, moderate temperatures
ruled throughout the world. There were no great mountains,
there were no deep valleys, there was no North Pole, there was
no South Pole. Everything was just beautiful,
lush. You just can't imagine how glorious
it was. Oh, how this whole world was
full of life. Beautiful, magnificent. And they entered into the ark.
And then a little over a year, a year and less than a month.
Let's call it a year and two or three weeks. after they had
gone through the flood and lived as no one in his family lived
in the ark. And then when God told them to
go out of the ark, they went out of the ark. It didn't look
anything like it did when they went in. There were great mountains and
deep valleys. There was death, destruction,
devastation. Everything had been drowned. All the trees, all the vegetation
ruined, but beginning to grow back, but still it was just a
horrible look. Bones of men, women, children,
animals. Death everywhere. The effects
of death. The effects of destruction. The
effects of the flood. You can't possibly imagine how
horrible it was. What a great difference it was.
They were on Mount Ariat and they went out of the yard and
said, we've never experienced cold like this. We've never felt
like this before. We've got to put something around
us to keep us warm. And then, of course, God divided
the seasons of the year. They experienced things that
they had never experienced before. Oh, how the judgment of God had
absolutely drastically changed the whole picture of the world. And the reason He sent all these
floodwaters and release the canopy of water from above and the waters
that were beneath. The reason he released all of
that by his own word was because of sin. Oh, what an instance of the wrath
and judgment of God. And of all the judgments that
you read of throughout the Word of God, none comes anywhere near
being as devastating as this one except at the cross. If you want
to see what God's estimate is of wickedness, of ungodliness,
of man's sin. You read in his word of his only
begotten son, the very darling of his heart, that one who pleased
him in every way. You read of him hanging on a
Roman cross, naked, men having beaten him cruelly, savagely
whipping him and then nailing him to the Roman tree. But then
read of what God did to him. Oh, how he bruised his soul.
He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Well, who wounded him? Who bruised
him? That one who sent the flood of
waters back many years before that, right here in Genesis.
That's the one who did it. But you see, the difference was
all of these people, they died because they personally deserved
it. But our Lord Jesus had no sin
of His own. He laid down His life voluntarily. Because all of the sins, all
of the transgressions, all of the iniquities of all of His
people, of all of the ages, He bore upon Himself. Isaiah 53
verse 6, they all met upon His head. All of our iniquities. and divine judgment went after
him. And God pulled out his sword
of vengeance, and he thrusted into the heart of the Son of
God. And he felt pain like he had
never felt before, which caused him to cry out, My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Oh, what is happening at the
cross? What is happening during those
three hours of darkness? I'll tell you, God's sacrifice
for sin was enduring all of the wrath of God that our sins deserved. And at last, He had drank the
cup of damnation dry. And he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave
up the ghost. And judgment was ended. It was over. It was over. You see the judgment here, and
this is a tremendous example, illustration. A tremendous event
showing the wrath and the vengeance of God. But God will yet show
wrath and vengeance more times. But our Lord Jesus, when He had
suffered the wrath of God, He suffered it once for all. And He hath perfected forever
those that are sanctified. He died for our sins according
to the scriptures. And he was buried and he rose
again the third day according to the scriptures. God had put into Christ Jesus,
had joined to him all the precious souls of all of his elect children. of all the ages. He is the ark of our salvation. Surely all of you know and we've
studied it before and you've Sunday school teachers have taught
it in your Sunday school class, this ark that God told Noah to
build, giving him all of the instructions, all the specifications,
the exact size. After all, Noah wasn't a ship
builder. This is not a ship. He was not
a boat builder. This was not a boat. This is
a great rectangular ark. It has no rudder. It has no means
to be steered. God will steer it. God will have
it go where He would have it wind up. And I would say this
to the people of God, sometimes in your life. Do you feel like
you're a ship or an ark without a rudder? You see, Noah had no
control over this. You mustn't think that Noah in
any way, shape, or form had anything to do with the guidance of the
ark. Nothing whatsoever. And I'm sure
that sometimes we wonder, does my life, am I just out here floating
adrift? Am I just adrift on the ocean
of life? Like a vessel without a rudder? No, you're not adrift. Because
the very one who is steering the ark, which had within it
Noah, a man who found grace in the eyes of God, a man to whom
God gave grace before the world began, God was steering that
ark to the destination He had already ordained that they'd
wind up. And I'm telling you, He's steering
your ark too. He's directing you to the end
that He Himself has ordained, and your end is to be with the
Savior in glory. You're not without direction
in your life. You're not merely adrift on the
ocean of life. You're not left to the whims
and the will of others. You're in the hands of God. And
He is taking you across the ocean of life to a safe haven A safe
haven! You see, the ark landed on Mount
Ariat. And it was to them a safe haven. And all of the people of God,
the Lord having put us in the ark of our salvation, Christ
Jesus, we're safe within the vessel. And He is steering us all along
the way. I remind you that Noah and his
family and all of the animals that God directed him to take
into the ark, they all endured the full extent of the waters
of judgment. But it fell on the ark. and they
were in the ark. And you and I, who are the Lord's
people, were joined to Christ Jesus in old eternity so that
when He went to the cross of Calvary, we were in Him. And when all the blood waters
of God's wrath fell on Him, coming up, as it were, like these waters
from beneath and from above. The Scripture says He was like
in deep waters. In fact, Psalm 42 verse 7 says,
Deep calleth unto deep, at the noise of thy waterspouts. All
thy waves and thy billows, they are gone over me. Our Lord Jesus
knew, He knew trouble all through His public ministry, deep after
deep, one trouble after another, and then finally, He went into
this deep, the waters of God's judgment. And though He endured
all of that, we were in Him and not one drop of water will ever
fall on us, not one drop of wrath. That's why Paul says, there is
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. Well, God had called them into
the ark. He had said to them in chapter
seven, in verse one, he said to Noah, come thou and all thy
house into the ark. And they go in. You get down
to verse seven, chapter seven. Noah went in, his sons, his wife,
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 into the ark, the male and
the female, as God had commanded Noah. The same hand that brought
all of the animals to Adam to be named, now brings all of these
animals to Noah to take them into the ark. The same hand of
God. And as it says further in chapter
7 verse 16, the Lord shut him in. Oh, how safe. are those who are
shut in to Jesus Christ by the sovereign grace of God. And the
waters prevailed and kept increasing. And there was this little vessel. You can't imagine this either.
Here's the whole world, all of the earth, covered with water. And the only life that exists
is in one little vessel. And I say little, it was big
for its size, of course, to hold the inhabitants that God had
ordained to go in. But it's the only vessel in the
entire world. And there's that little vessel,
that little ark. And God never took his eye off
of it. Don't you know Noah was always
under the watchful eye of his Lord? Just like you are. Just like I am. He is all of God's universe.
with all the stars, all the planets, all the galaxies, billions and billions of stars,
stars that men never laid eyes on. No one of the psalmist said,
what is man? that thou art mindful of him,
or the son of man that thou visitest him." We're like nothing. We're in God's great universe. We're nothing. We're nothing
to this world, but we mean something to him. The scripture says, the Lord
says, you're the apple of my eye. The apple of my eye. were his children. And so we read in chapter 8 and
verse 1, and God remembered Noah. God remembered Noah. It's the
first usage of any form of the word remember in the scriptures. Here's divine remembrance. Not that God could ever forget
Noah. God doesn't forget. God's memory
is not like ours. The Lord said to Israel, you
thought that I was such in one as thyself. We have nothing and
no one that we can relate to who is like the Lord. But this
is put here for our benefit. It's the only kind of language
we can understand. And God remembered Noah. This
is a heart remembrance of Noah. The Scripture says that the foundation
of the Lord standeth sure, the Lord knoweth them that are His. If God had not remembered Noah,
he would have had to cease to be God. To forget Noah would be un-God-like. He would have been unfaithful
to the promise that He made which was overheard by Adam and Eve
in Genesis 3.15 concerning the seed of the woman. He would have
been unfaithful to His own covenant of grace made in old eternity
with the Trinity, with all members of the Trinity. Had God forgotten Noah, had God
not remembered Noah, then he would have forever shut the door
of salvation that he had purposed in eternity past and promised
to our fallen parents back in the third chapter. Had God not
remembered Noah, Noah would have suffered a great loss. His life,
his soul, But God would have suffered infinitely more. He
would have lost His glory. He would have lost His honor.
You see, if one sheep of that great flock given by the Father
to the shepherd, if one sheep should perish, if one sheep should
be plucked out of His hands, the shepherd would lose the glory. That can't ever happen. The Lord
remembered Noah and he remembers you. He hadn't forgot about you. Zion said in Isaiah 49, Zion
said, the Lord hath forsaken me. My Lord hath forgotten me. That's what Zion says. Oh, how
foolish Zion can talk. Zion's us. And the Lord says,
can a woman forget her sucking child? That she should not have
compassion upon the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget. But God says, yet I'll never
forget you. Behold, I've graven you upon
the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before
me. Oh, see the hands of your great
Redeemer, scarred with nails. Where'd you get those wounds
in the house of my friends? Wounded for us. God remembered
Noah. Here's the second thing I want
to point out to you. God accepted his sacrifices. Well, they went into the ark,
stayed in there a little over a year, and then God said, time
to leave. Go back, go to chapter 8. Look
at chapter 8, verse 20. As soon as they went forth, Chapter
8 and verse 20 of Genesis. Noah building an ark unto the
Lord. What was the first thing he did when he came off that
ark? What was he going to do? I'd build a house. That's only
reasonable. Gotta build a house. Can't find
a real estate agent. None existed. There were no houses
left upon the earth. Everything had been wiped off
the face of the earth. Gotta have somewhere to live.
Well, preacher, that's just reasonable. Yeah, it's reasonable, but there's
something more important than that. That's the worship of God. Noah built an altar. First usage
of the word altar in the Scriptures. Up to this time, they met between
the flaming swords, as stated there at the end of Genesis chapter
3. Noah built an altar unto the
Lord. He's the priest of his family. They're going to go to God in
worship. You can't go to God in worship without blood, without
sacrifices. He took of every clean beast,
of every clean fowl, and he offered burnt offerings, burnt offerings
on the altar. You know what a burnt offering
was? It differed from a Passover offering, the offering of the
Passover lamb. See, Passover lamb and other
offerings as well, they killed them, and then a portion of it
was reserved to be eaten, but not a burnt offering. A burnt
offering, here's what happened to that. It was burnt. All of
it. It's all for God. Completely
for God. That's the kind of sacrifice
Christ Jesus was. He was the burnt offering. Like
Abraham said to Isaac in Genesis 22, God will provide himself
an offering. Because the Lord had said to
him, offer Isaac as a burnt offering. That means you reserve nothing.
It's all for me, God said. And here are the offerings upon
the altar. And they all testify this. We need propitiation. We need atonement. We're sinners. We deserve to die. Look at the
evidences of death out here. We deserve to be among them.
And now we come to God, but we come to God by means of the death
of animals that are innocent of any transgressions against
God. Picture the death of our Lord
Jesus. God accepted the sacrifice. Look
at verse 21. The Lord smelled a sweet savor.
A sweet savor. Ephesians chapter 5 verses 1
and 2 certainly is a good passage of scripture that goes along
with this. The sacrifice by our Lord Jesus
was a sweet savor to God. A sweet savor. And the Lord said
in his heart, It's an interesting language. God said it in His
heart. As though we're to understand
by this, I believe, as Moses wrote this, we're to understand
the Lord didn't say it to Noah, but He said it in His own heart. His heart that is full of love
for all of His Noahs. His heart that is full of grace
for all of His Noahs. He said, 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
anymore everything living as I have done. And then he says
this, and while the earth remaineth, seedtime and the harvest, cold
and heat, He'd never known cold before.
Everything was moderate temperature. He didn't know anything about
snow and cold. Didn't know anything about that.
Cold and heat, summer and winter. Didn't know anything about the
extreme heat of summer or the extreme cold of winter. It was
moderate temperature, just perfect, absolutely perfect climate. cold
and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.
Pay no attention. Pay no attention to those who
would fill you with fear over global warming that's going to
destroy the seasons. Pay absolutely no attention to
those foolish people. Our God has set into motion,
our God, has set into motion and he has put in his word that
as long as this earth remains, be summer and winter, fall and
spring, this ain't just gonna continue. Man in his foolishness
thinks that he can destroy the earth. He can't destroy the earth. God will do that one of these
days with fervent hate. Don't let people fill you with
fear. What California has recently,
the governor of California, I forget how many years out, he's going
to do away with all gasoline engines and that sort of thing,
polluting the air. life will be sustained. I read
an article the other day. This guy said that we need to
all be vegetarians and stop eating cows because of their flatulence. It is causing global warming. Isn't it amazing how stupid people
can be? You go down into chapter nine,
the Lord says, look at chapter nine, verse three, every moving
thing that liveth shall be meat for you. Well, you tell me not
to eat cattle? Not eat pigs? The Lord said,
the Lord, I'll just take his word for it and I'll let these
educated fools who have no idea of the scriptures They get bogged
down on these other things while they refuse to even acknowledge
that God exists. Why in the world would people
want to listen to people who deny the Godhead and believe
all the other nonsense of these people? That just doesn't make
sense to me. The seasons will continue. Just
be at ease. And don't be afraid. There are
people today that want to keep you in fear. We know that. I know our president, whatever
you think about him, that's your business. But he was right about
this. He said he wasn't afraid of the
virus. Oh, then the world just explodes. Wait a minute. The scripture
tells the people of God, don't be afraid. Afraid of the virus? I'm not afraid of the virus.
I get in my car, I'm not afraid to drive down 13th Street, it's
kind of dangerous, but I do it because I need to go places. You're going to live in fear? Have we forgot about divine providence? Have we forgot about the government
of God over all things? Have we forgotten who God is?
Who our Father is? Oh boy. God blessed Noah. God blessed
us. And I'll tell you what, here's
the third thing. God made a covenant with Noah. In chapter 9, he made
a covenant with Him. Notice this, I'll read a few
verses here, chapter 9 verse 4. After he says verse 3, that
every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as
the green herb have I given you all things. But he says, flesh
with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you
not eat? And that reminds you of Leviticus
17, 11, the life of the flesh is in the blood. I've given you
the blood for an atonement. It's a blood that puts away sin. And here's what God is saying,
from now on, you will live by means of the death of other
things, which is a picture that we will live due to the death
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we feed on him. He says this, verse 5, And surely
your blood of your lives will I require, at the hand of every
beast will I require it, and at the hand of man, at the hand
of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image
of God made he man. Now, wait a minute. Back in Genesis
chapter 4, Cain killed Abel. And God said, I'll get him, everybody
else leave him alone. But now God gives government
and laws concerning murder to men. And he says, whoever sheds
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed also. That's capital
punishment. And God said, and you be fruitful
and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein.
So then God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him saying,
behold, I established my covenant with you and with your seed.
And this is a picture of the covenant of grace. God said,
with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of
the cattle, of every beast of the earth with you, from all
that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth, and I will
establish my covenant with you, a legal binding agreement. This is a voluntary agreement
that God entered into with Noah, or a voluntary binding arrangement
that God entered into with Noah. He says, neither shall all flesh
be cut off anymore by the waters of a flood. Neither shall there
be anymore a flood to destroy the earth. There'll be local
floods, but not a worldwide flood. And God said, this is a token
of the covenant which I make between me and you. Who made
the covenant? God did. It wasn't Noah's idea, it's God's
idea. And here's the token of it. Verse 13, I do set my bow in
the cloud. It shall be for a token of a
covenant between me and the earth. Don't you love to see a rainbow?
It's the token of the covenant. It's the token of the covenant
of grace. It's a bow. It's a bow, but it's
not aimed as though shooting an arrow toward us. It's a bow
bent up toward God without a string and without an arrow. The arrow
has been unleashed. The arrow has been sent, spent. The arrow has been shot. It's
not a dangerous bow, it's a promising bow. You see, the arrow that
was in the bow of God's justice found its mark in the heart of
the Son of God. And ever since, He took the blow
for us. There's no arrow coming our way. No. There's not even a string
on that bow. That bow is beautiful. It's beautiful. And when you see it, You just
remember, that's God's promise that He'll never again destroy
the earth by water. Rainbow. Now, of course, all
of us appreciate the rainbow. They're beautiful. So colorful. No painter could ever match the
brilliance and the beauty of God's rainbows. And it just reminds us of His
grace to us through the Lord Jesus. In order to have a rainbow,
of course, you gotta have a cloud. In fact, it says here, the Lord
says, down at verse 14, it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud. He brought a cloud. over the
head of the Son of God. And then He brought the light.
It shines through that water, the vapor and the cloud. And
it's beautiful. You ever feel like you're under
a cloud? When you're under a cloud as
a child of God, Just keep looking. There's a rainbow there somewhere.
Because the light of the majesty of Christ Jesus is there. Prompting
you of the grace of God. Look at verse 15, I will remember
my covenant which is between you and every living creature
of all flesh. The water shall no more become
a flood to destroy all flesh, and the boat shall be in the
cloud. And I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting
covenant between God and every living creature of flesh that
is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, this
is the token of the covenant which I have established between
me and all flesh that is upon the earth. And you get over into
the book of Revelation, you'll find the rainbow around the throne
of God. Because you see that covenant
of grace, no destruction to the people of God. That's God's glory. That's God's glory. Salvation
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, bless the Word that's gone
forth this evening. Strengthen us spiritually. Keep
us ever looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our
faith. May those of your people who are filled with anxiety tonight,
Maybe troubles have arisen in their lives, some particular
trial, some heavy burden that they bear. May they always remember
that our God, our God governs our lives. We are not just adrift
aimlessly upon the sea of life. You're directing us into our
desired haven. And though we have no control
over the direction in which we are sailing, Lord, You are pushing
us by Your mighty grace toward the distant shore when we shall
enter into glory and be with You forever and ever. We thank
You for the illustration of the ark knowing that Christ our Savior
is the ark of our salvation. In his name I ask these things.
Amen.