And start reading in verse 5. I mentioned this a little this
morning. Genesis 6, 5. And God saw that
the wickedness of man was great in the earth. And that every
imagination and the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And not only in the margin it
says, not only the imagination but the purposes and desires
were only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that
he had made men 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 repenteth me that I have
made them." But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. These
are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect
in his generations. And Noah walked with God. Noah found grace. You know the
times in which Noah lived and the conditions which were very
very horrible. I mean there wasn't, everybody
on the earth had corrupted themselves, everybody. Every soul on the earth had corrupted
themselves. Every purpose they had, every
desire they had was only evil. They couldn't think a good thought,
they couldn't do a good deed. The whole earth was corrupted. And in light of that it vividly
reveals the character of Noah. It says there in verse 9 that
Noah was a perfect man in his generation and that he walked
with God. Walked with God. And I know this,
when you read here what happened, when God doesn't restrain sin,
the consequences are awful. The more God raises His hand
off of this world, the wickeder it gets, the more sinful it gets. And God, if He don't hold a man
back and don't restrain a man and don't restrain a nation,
there's nothing that He will not do. And I tell you, and that's
why it's said, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be
also in the days of the Son of Man. God will see one of these
days, He'll consider, and I say that speaking in the language
that He uses. He'll look down one of these
days, and just using human terms, because we know God don't look,
He uses those things to accommodate our thoughts, But anyway, one
of these days he's going to look and this whole earth is going
to be corrupt. And you know what will happen then? He'll take
all his children out of here. He'll roll this thing up like
a scroll. He'll destroy it and every man
will face him in judgment. There won't be another flood
this time. There won't be nothing but fire and destruction. But
as it was in the days of Noah, that's the way it's going to
be when our Lord Jesus Christ comes. And I don't know how far
it's got to go before it gets like it is in the days of Noah.
God restrains. He uses... God even uses false
religion to restrain people. He uses morality to restrain
people. He uses lots of things to restrain
people. But wherever He doesn't restrain
people, they'll go to their very limits in sin. But yet, though
we read how things were in the days of Noah, man's heart was
only evil continually. Man was, oh, he was horrible,
horrible. Look what it said in verse 11.
The earth was also 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. And yet we read in verse 8, and
all of this is going on, yet Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Do you reckon Noah was any different
than anybody else? He was just as corrupt as anybody
else was. God gave you a grace. He said,
this is one of mine. This is my land. This is my child. And Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And that's the first thing that
we are told about Noah. The first thing we're told about
Noah is Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. If a man walks
with God, it's because of grace. Noah walked with God. And if
all a man walks with God, it's because of the grace of God.
If he's perfect in his generation, it's because of the grace of
God. You know this movie Noah come out and they've just been
debating and arguing about that and everybody says the reason
God used Noah because God, Noah was a perfect man. God looked
at him, seen what a good fellow he was, said I'll save him, send
all the rest. But I tell you the reason why he was walking
with God, he was perfect in his generation was because God gave
him grace. Nobody ever walked with God.
Nobody can be considered perfect. Except by the grace of God. It
wasn't the grace of God and the graces of Noah which preserved
Noah from the flood. And this is the first mention
of the word grace in the word of God. First mention of grace.
And where is the first mention of grace? Here is a man who lived
in a world of wickedness. A world of corruptness. A world
that was so lost and so despicable and so spiritually dark. And
here's a man who walked with God. He had to go against the
ideas of his age. He had to go against all the
opinions of his age. He had to go against the conduct
of everybody in his age. And oh beloved, and you're talking
about a testimony to the grace of God. This man lived a hundred
and twenty years in that generation before God ever done anything
about it. And oh, it is said in Genesis
6, 9 that Noah was a just man. Now I'll tell you something,
he's the first man that's called just. How in the world does a
man become just? There's only one way in the world
a man becomes just. Being justified freely by his
grace. being then justified by His blood,
we shall be saved from wrath by Him. And so, beloved, our
Lord Jesus Christ, since He was the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, He was washed and cleansed in the blood of Christ
as far as God was concerned. He was justified by what Christ
would do on the cross. He was justified of all guilt,
all sin, before God Almighty. And then, beloved, he believed
what God said, and that's faith. Faith, the instrumental cause
of justification is faith. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God. And the Scriptures tell us in
three different places, the just, the just, the just, shall live
by faith, not by law, not by works, Not by anything that they
ever do. If they live, they live by faith.
If a man is justified by God, he walks by faith, lives by faith,
and he'll die in faith. And oh, beloved, in Noah, Noah
is among the fifteen that are mentioned in Hebrews 11. And
the faith by which Noah was justified before God was evidenced by him
being moved with fear. And he was perfect in his generation. He and his family kept themselves
from the awful evil that was around them, and they were without
blemish, they were uncontaminated by the world, and the scripture
says, and Noah walked with God. Walked with God. Now, I'll tell
you, Noah's faith is described in Hebrews 11. Let's look at
this man's faith. He's justified, he's perfect,
he walks with God. He's in a generation of people
that would, I mean it's a very, very wicked dark generation. And I'll tell you this, it's
getting darker and darker and darker and darker. The longer
we live, the darker it gets. And I heard Brother Mahan say
one time that The more light you get, and God gives you light
from His Word, the more light you get, the greater the circumference
of darkness around you. And I tell you what, we are surrounded
by darkness. But oh, look what it says here
about Noah in verse 7, Hebrews 7. Noah's faith, he's a just
man, perfect man, found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That's
why he walked with God. That's why he was just. But now
look what it says here, by faith. And seven things here tells us,
we have seven things told us about Noah's faith. By faith
Noah being warned of God. The first thing we find out about
Noah's faith here is that his ground and his foundation was
God's Word. He was being warned of God. That's
the first thing. He said God warned him. God talked
to him. God spoke to him. And faith cometh
by hearing, and I tell you something beloved, God's word, that's what
we believe. No matter what else the world's
doing, no matter what else the world believes. God spoke to
Noah, God warned Noah, and Noah heard the word of God and said,
I'm going to believe it. Nobody else believes it, no,
I'm going to. Noah, you're a fool, I'm going
to still believe God's word. And I tell you what, the old
Martin Luther said, feelings come and feelings go and feelings
are deceiving. The Word of God does not else
worth believing. And look with me over in Luke,
you keep through verse 10, look with me in Luke chapter 5 just
a moment. You know when Paul was on that
ship on his way to Rome and they had that great storm for week
after week and day after day after day. And those men were
just about to throw a whole ball of prisoners overboard and everything
overboard and try to save themselves. And Paul stood up and he says,
God appeared to me tonight and he spake to me. And he says,
this is what he told them, now they hadn't eaten, hadn't seen
the sun, hadn't seen the moon, hadn't seen the stars in 14 days. And that ship was just tossed
here and tossed under, I mean 14 days of darkness and rain
and wind and storms. And Paul stood up and says, Sirs,
men and brethren, be of good cheer. This man has lost his
mind. He says, God told me that every
soul on this ship is going to be saved. And sirs, I believe
God. And you know what happened? Every
soul on that ship was saved. And look what he said here down
in Luke chapter 5. In verse 4 and 5, Our Lord was
preaching here on Simon Peter's boat, and now when he had left
off speaking, he said unto Simon, Losh out into the deep, and let
down your nets for a draft. And Simon answered, he said unto
him, Master, we've toiled all night, and have taken nothing. Listen to this, nevertheless
at thy word I'll let down the net. ever the message of the word,
I'll let it down. Oh, you see the word. And that's
what the first thing about Noah's faith was, he believed God. He
believed God. Oh, he believed God. Then look
what else back over here in Hebrews 11. Look at the sphere of Noah's
faith. Look at the area in which it
lived and best faith of it. And the scripture says, Noah
being warned of God, listen to this, of things not seen as yet. His faith laid hold of things
he had never even seen. He believed things that he had
never seen before. Never seen before. Ain't that
what it says? That's the definition of faith
in verse 1. Now faith is the substance, the
confidence of things hoped for. And faith gives evidence to the
things that we ain't never seen, that we ain't never laid eyes
on. And that's what we're talking
about in the study. Biblical religion, true Christianity,
true religion, God-honored religion, religion that God reveals to
a man, gives to a man, and works in a man. It's a thinking man's
religion. You cannot have a revelation
of God, a revelation of Christ, and a revelation of yourself
without thinking. It causes you to think about
God. Now Noah, he's been warned of God. He believed God. And
then he said, God told me things that ain't never happened yet.
I've never seen it happen. Nobody else ain't never seen
it happen. But I still believe. Oh my! And that's why it says
we walk by faith and not by sight. And when Noah started building
that ark, you know they had to cut down trees, they had to make
salt into boards, and they had to do all kinds of... I mean
it took years and years and years and years. The wood had to cure
out, the wood had to be boned up. I mean it took years to do
that. And you know when Noah started
at it, you know said, What in the world is that fool doing?
He's a fanatic. He's over there building a bowl. He's wasting his time. He talks
about rain. What in the world is rain? Nobody
had ever seen rain. Nobody had ever seen a raindrop.
Nobody had ever heard of rain. Nobody had ever felt rain. Never
rained the first time since over hundreds of years. And Noah says,
don't rain one of these days. He said, why didn't the world
rain? And all beloved and thanksgiving, they said, well, everything is
just like it always has been. What are you all upset about,
Noah? What would make Noah out of the
way again? The testimony of God. Faith is the eye of the Spirit. Faith visualizes the unseen.
And if God says it's going to rain, I don't know what rain
is, but it'll do it. And I'm going to build this heart
just like God told me. That's what I'm going to do. Oh, my. If we got just a little
bit more fanatical about our relationship with Christ, maybe
folks would say to us, well, what kind of bunch of idiots
are they up there? Oh, I tell you, that's why they
said to Noah, listen, this guy is crazy. He's a nut. What's he doing? Building a boat.
He's an ocean around him. We're out in the desert. Oh,
my. And then look at the character
of Noah's faith. By faith, being warned of God
of things not seen as yet, it said he moved with fear. Move
with fear. Oh boy, I'm moving with fear.
I move with fear today. Oh, I move with fear. Faith not
only looks at all the rest, the rest that we have in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Faith not only relies upon the
precious promises that God gave us in Christ. But it also believes
all the solemn threatenings that's in God's Word. I mean, you can't
believe the promise without also believing the threat. You can't
believe salvation in Christ without believing damnation outside of
Christ. And that's what, when you go
through Hebrews, you're hedged up on one side with all these
blessed promises, and you're hedged up on the other side with
all these warnings. And that's why God gives us these
promises to keep us hopeful, keep us believing, keep us rejoicing
in Christ. And He gives us all these warnings
and all these things to warn us about our falling and our
plague and going off the ramp so that we won't presume on all
them promises. I'm still moved with fear. Do
you still move with fear? I moved with fear last night.
I moved with fear on my way up here this morning. Oh my, I have to get up here
and deal with the Word of God and the miserable wretched I
am? Oh, move with fear. The fear of God will make you
move. It will make you understand that this world is coming to
an end. Make you understand that you need Christ more than anything.
Make you understand that you better believe God and you need
to believe God. And when God says it, believe
it. And all they ought to argue about
over this thing in Northwest is it ain't right for God to
damn the whole world and save eight people. It's right whatever
God does. If He wanted to save one and
damn the rest of them, that's His business. If He wanted to
save a high 80,000, that's God's business. I'm just glad I'm one
of them that He saved. Oh, listen, he moved with fear.
Look at the evidence of Noah's faith. Oh, by faith, Noah being
warned of God. The first thing about his faith
is he believed God. Second thing about his faith,
it laid hold of things that have not even seen as yet. We ain't
seen the judgment. We ain't seen eternity. We ain't
seen a resurrection yet. We go out to the graveyard where
we've buried people and that body's still there. But we by
faith understand that that's all that's there. The person's
not going to be with Christ. But we've never seen that. We've
never seen that. All we've seen was somebody we
loved and somebody we cared. We put them in a box and put
them in the ground. We've never seen a resurrection.
We've never seen somebody that we love go on to be with Christ. But yet we believe those things. We've got hope for those blessed
things. And oh, we move with fear. We
move with fear because of our children and our grandchildren.
We move with fear because our time is short. We move with fear
because time is running out on all of us. We move with fear
because of our own sin. We move with fear because of
our faith and our inability. Oh God, help us to move with
fear. And then look at the evidence
of Noah's faith. What he said here. And he moved
with fear, prepared an ark. Prepared an ark. Oh my. He prepared an ark. Oh my. One place he said he was a preacher
of righteousness for a hundred and twenty years. He prepared
an ark. How did they know that Abraham,
I mean that Noah had faith? He could have just went out and
said, you know, God said it's going to rain. Went on about his business. God's
gonna judge his world. Went on about his business. But
God told him to build an ark. That he'd give him instructions
for. And you know what he did? He went to work. He went to work
on an ark. He prepared an ark. And I mean
he prepared it. And how do I justify Noah, you
know, Noah, his faith? was justified by preparing that
ark. They said, boy, that fella may
be crazy as a bed bug, but I tell you one thing, he is building
an ark. And I say, look over here at James with me. James
is right after Hebrews. James chapter 2. Look at it with
me, just a minute. Oh my, how do we justify our
claim of faith? I claim faith. You can't claim
faith. Most of you in here claim faith.
Some of you don't. You don't claim no faith whatsoever.
But some of you claim faith. How in the world would we know
that you have faith? How does the world, how does
anybody else know that you have faith? Look what he says down
here in verse 17. He even stole. If faith has not worked, it's
dead. Being alone. Now, if no one went out there
and just preached to him, hadn't prepared that ark, says, you
know, God's really, you know, He's, I know He's, I know He's
told us to prepare an ark, but I just don't believe, I believe
He's too merciful, I believe He's too loving, I believe He's
too gracious, I just don't think He's gonna destroy all of us.
But oh my, he went to preparing that ark and look what it says
down in verse 14 here of chapter 2. What does it profit my brethren?
Though a man says he has faith, and hath not words, can faith save him? Well yes,
faith can save you. Our Lord said that. But how do
you know a man has faith? Noah prepared an ark. Faith evidences
itself, expresses itself. And that which costs the person
who has is something. It cost Noah something. His faith
cost him something. It cost him labor. It cost him
friends. It cost him family members. It
cost him a lot. I mean, it cost him a great labor. Somebody had to pay for that
wood. Somebody had to pay for those fellas to work on that
ark. People worked on that ark and perished. And faith, as evidence
of that, has to express itself. It's got to cost us perception
of something. What has it cost me and you to express our faith? Would you express your faith
at the expense of some friend you have? Would you express your
faith at the loss of a family member? Would you express your
faith at the loss of money? David says, I don't want that which cost me
nothing. And that cost Noah something.
It cost him. It cost Abraham something. Everybody
who had faith in the scriptures, that it cost them something.
They didn't just walk in the church twirling their thumbs.
I mean, their faith was evident every day that they lived. Noah,
every day he got up, he went to work on an ark. He went to
work solid. He went to work fitting boards
together. He went to work building inside
of it. He went to work and I'll tell
you it cost him something. It cost him ridicule, shame. Oh my, it cost him something. I know my... Oh boy, mine ain't
cost me nothing yet. And look at the effect of Noah's
faith. Look at the effect of it again. He prepared an ark
to the saving of his house. God always honors. Faith is nothing that can honor
God more than to believe him. The thing that honors God more
than anything else that you can do on this earth is to believe
God. And God always honors those who have faith in Him. Abraham
believed God. God gave his seed, a land. Rahab believed God. God saved
her whole family. You remember when our Lord Jesus
Christ, He was sitting in that house and these fellas, four
men, climbed up on the roof because they couldn't get in, took the
towel off, and let that man down in a row. And our Lord Jesus
Christ said, and it says that He saw their faith. He didn't
see the fellas' faith in being laid down. He seen their faith,
those who let Him down. And because of the Syrophoenician
woman's faith, who came, and she said, my daughter is grievously
affected with the daughter, and the Lord just ignored her, and
ignored her, and ignored her. And finally he said, it's not
fit to take a children's dog and give it to bred to dogs. And our Lord Jesus, she said,
yes Lord, that's true. But even the dogs get to come
from the master's table, and he said, oh, that baby's great.
Go your way, your daughter will be well when you get to the house.
Now believe God, the nobleman, his son was sick, and our Lord
was on his way to his house, and that nobleman said, no, no,
no, you don't need to go to my house. I'm not going to let you
come to my house. You know what, all you need to
do is just say the word, and he'll be healed. He said, I've
not found so great a faith in all of Israel. And our Lord went
about his business at where a fellow went home, and there was his
service setting up even. I'll tell you, beloved, Noah
prepared an ark to the saving of his house. What would it take
for God to save our house? That's what David said, what
is my house? And house means your generation,
your family, your immediate family, sons and daughters, grandchildren. That's your house. And then look at the witness
of Noah's faith. Look at the witness of it. And by faith he prepared an ark
to the saving of his house by which he condemned the world.
You know what true faith does? Every time a man honors God,
believes God, lives for the glory of God, lives by the grace of
God, walks by the grace of God, just by the grace of God, his
very faith condemns the world and everybody around him. When he walked up and started
building that ark, it just condemned everybody around him. Why did he do it? Because he
bore a faithful witness to God. And his faith, he condemned the
world. Do you know what a condemnation
our children and our families are under because of our faith? It'd been better for them to
never even know that they're condemned by it. Every time they're
in our homes, and every time we're in their homes, and we
mention the Lord Jesus, condemned. It's an awful thing. Think about
it. That our faith condemns the world around us. Oh, faith is the opposite of
sin. Let me say a couple of things
here. Sin is more than an act. Most people think that sin is
an act. It's something you do with your
hands. Something you do with your feet. But sin, the reason
you do what you do with your hands, the reason you do what
you do with your feet, sin is an attitude. It's a nature. And
it's a defiance against God. It's a rebellion against God.
Sin is a man exercising his self-will, his self-assertion, his self-independency. That's what sin is. It's more
than an attitude against God, against right, against truth,
against righteousness. It's a manifestation of self-will
and self-independency. And faith is the same way. Faith
is more than just an isolated act. Well, I believe in God now.
I'm fixed up for eternity. I've accepted Jesus. I've joined
the church. And I go to church and I've said... Faith is not an isolated act. Faith, beloved, it's a nature
that God gives us. It's an attitude. And what it
is, faith submits to God's rule. It submits to His will. Faith
is coming to the end of yourself. Absolutely to the end of yourself
and entirely dependent upon God and Christ for everything. Faith is the difference between
wickedness and righteousness. You see, we walk by faith. The
world walks by sight. We live for God's glory. They
live for self-gratification. We live for eternity. They live
for time. Our walking by faith necessarily
condemns the world. Necessarily condemns the world.
And oh, you think about it. You think about it. Oh, our faith condemns the world.
And oh what condemnation that men faced. Do you know what? When our Lord Jesus Christ was
on this world, and the way they treated Him, can you imagine
what's going to happen to those men the way they treated Christ? And our Lord Himself says that
they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced. We looked
upon Him whom we pierced, and we took our part in the death
of Christ, by Him bearing our sin, but also Believe in Him. Trust in Him. Look unto Him. But all my... One of these days,
He said, those people that crucified me, pierced me, ridiculed me,
spat on me, mocked me, He said, they all shall one day see Me. And you know what a shock it's
going to be, if even one of these old disciples said to him, I'm
not going to believe unless I see that, put my finger in them nail
prints in my hand. I said, I'm not going to believe.
About that time the Lord Jesus Christ stood in front of them
and said, here Thomas, don't be doubtless but believe him.
And he fell down before them and said, my Lord and my God,
if that's what a believer again doubted, Imagine what it's like
for those fellas who did it with malice, and hatred, and despicableness,
and envy. Oh, whenever they see the Lord
Jesus Christ the next time, can you imagine what it'll be like
for those men? And then look at Noah's reward
of faith, and I'm done. By faith, Noah being warned of
God, he believed God. His faith of things not seen
as yet. The fear of his faith was looking
at these visible things that he couldn't even see. And then
he moved with fear. Then he prepared an ark to the
saving of his house. Then that same faith by which
he'd done that condemned the world. And look what else now,
look at the reward of his faith. And he became heir of the righteousness
which is my faith. What did he inherit? Righteousness. What's his inheritance? Righteousness. Faith brings a present blessing.
Righteousness, acceptance, approval of God, peace and joy in believing.
But look with me in Romans chapter 8. Oh, you know what the grand
reward of faith is going to be? Look what he said here in Romans
8. The grand reward of faith is
not received in this life. Oh no, the grand reward of faith
is not received in this life. Look what he said in Romans 8.16.
The Spirit is self. bears witness with our spirit
that we are the children of God. The Spirit bears witness with
you, the Spirit of God, every time you hear good preaching,
and every time you read the Scriptures, and when you pray, and when you
think of God, and think of Christ, and meditate on the things, and
go on about your life, do you say, yes, the Spirit bears witness
with me that I'm one of God's child. I'm a child of God. And look what he said here, if
your children, Spirit lets you know you're one of his children,
then your heirs, who's your heir of? God! What are you going to
inherit? God? What are you going to get when you get to
be an American God? And oh, listen, join ours with
Christ. Oh, bless His name. How much
does Christ have? He has all of it. And oh, listen, if so be that
we suffer with Him, listen to this, that we may be also glorified
together, whatever we went through with Him here, We're going to
share it with you there. Oh my! Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And that's all the results of
Noah finding grace in the eyes of the Lord. If God hadn't given
him grace, he wouldn't have been a just man. He wouldn't have
been perfect in his generations. He wouldn't have walked with
God. He wouldn't have believed God. He wouldn't have moved with
fear. He wouldn't have prepared an ark. He wouldn't have done
anything. He'd have perished with the rest
of them. But there was eight souls saved. Because Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. Amen. Oh, our Savior. Blessed, blessed
God in heaven. Oh, thank you for the grace of
God. Thank you for the grace of God. Who would we be without
your grace? We couldn't believe you. We couldn't
walk with you. We couldn't trust you. Oh, we'd
be so miserable. We'd be corrupt like all the
rest of this earth and corrupt in this. The Lord, You gave us
grace. Gave us grace. Oh, thank You
for the grace of God. Thank You for the Lord Jesus
Christ. Thank You for our acceptance in the Beloved. Oh, thank You,
thank You, thank You. Blessed be Your holy name. Amen. Amen. Let's stand together and sing
a couple of verses of this. 209. No? Yes. That's what I want. Marvelous grace of our loving
Lord Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt Yonder on Calvary's
mountain forth There where the blood of the
Lamb was shed. Praise, praise God's praise.
Praise, praise the Lord. Praise, praise His name. Praise,
praise It's harder than all I've seen. Number three. Dark is the state
that we cannot hide. What can a veil wash in? Brighter than snow you may be
today. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace
that will pardon and clean within. Grace that is greater than all
I've seen. The last word in this next verse
is believe. Marvelous, infinite, mindless
grace. Relieve me, storm, of all my
fears. Will you see His face? Will you
in this moment His grace believe? Grace, grace. Where is it now?