when you go through the Old Testament,
and I'll say especially in the book of Genesis, there are times
when phrases and terms are used and people will speculate on
what these mean, and I've always tried to do so when I read and
study, to do so prayerfully. Lord, teach me so that I can
teach His people. And I hope that I have some insight
on this. It's not new light. You know,
people talk about, well, I've got, there is new light to us
individually, but anybody who preaches the truth is not gonna
come up with anything new. As one preacher said, if it's
new, it's not true. And if it's true, it's not new.
So these things are not exclusive to me. And plus, anything that
we, speak about in interpretation of the scripture, the first thing
we need to understand, is that consistent with the rest of the
scriptures? Is that consistent, especially
with the gospel? I've heard some people in the
last 10, 15 years come up with some new things that I believe
challenge and confuse and even deny the gospel. And I know they're
not true, because nothing is going to challenge or confuse
or deny the true gospel of how God saves sinners. And I look
at this phrase in verse eight of, this is the crux of the message
this morning, the lesson. But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. That's really a summation of
the lives of God's elect. They find grace in the eyes of
the Lord, and it's sovereign grace and it's free grace. And
it's all wrapped up and centered around and based upon the glorious
person and the finished work of Christ. So let's go back and
let's read some of the context here. It says in verse one of
chapter six, and it came to pass when men began to multiply on
the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them. that the
sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair,
and they took them wives of all which they chose. Now you've
probably heard all kinds of different things about this. A lot of people
claim that the sons of God there are angels that came to earth
and intermarried with human beings. And that's not, I don't believe
that's so. That's such a far-fetched speculation that I can't even
imagine it. Angels are created beings. They
have their nature, angelic nature, and man has his human nature,
and they don't intermingle. Now, I believe in angels. I believe
God has his ministering angels. Some people believe we have guardian
angels. That's okay with me. I know God
protects us, doesn't he? He shields his people, and he
works in our lives providentially. through the spirit and his word
and in our fellowship, and I believe he uses angels. But the sons
of God here are not angels. The sons of God here, I believe,
refers to the line of a man named Seth. And if you notice, after
Cain killed Abel and God sent him away, cursed Cain, Over in
Genesis chapter four, and we're not gonna read all this, it starts
in verse 16, and you have what we could call the wicked line
of Cain. And you know, Cain knew his wife,
verse 17. She conceived and bare a son
named Enoch. That's not the same Enoch who
walked with God, obviously. And he built a city and called
the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. So Cain
went out and he built a monument to his son, a monument to man. That's why in the book of Genesis
oftentimes cities are kind of representative of pockets of
evil. The next city that we come to
is Babel, the Tower of Babel and all of that. But then he
goes into the line of Cain. There's a man named Lamech there.
Look at verse 19 of chapter four. Lamech took unto him two wives.
There's polygamy started. Now, polygamy was never condoned
in the Old Testament, folks. When David and Solomon married
all those wives, they were going against the revealed will of
God. I mean, it was all in the sovereign will of God. We know
God overruling evil to bring good out of evil, and he did
that. But the law of marriage has already been established.
One man, one woman, leaving and cleaving. That's what the law
of marriage is. And so here we see this Lamech
and Lamech he became a real character. He became a man of vengeance,
a man of power, killing people. And that's the wicked line of
Cain. Now that's not to say that as people developed and multiplied
through the line of Cain that there was absolutely nobody in
Cain's lineage that was ever saved by the grace of God. I'm
not going to say that. But what we have here is a is
the sovereign work of God in separating the line of Cain from
the line of Seth. And if you look at verse 25 of
chapter 4, it says, Adam knew his wife again. She bare a son
called his name Seth. And for God said she hath appointed
me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. And it says,
and to Seth, to him also, there was born a son, and he called
his name Enos. And look at it, it says, then
began men to call upon the name of the Lord. Now how, men and
women only call upon the name of the Lord by the grace of God. And so you see a separation,
the line of Seth, and mainly, and certainly we wouldn't say
that everybody who was born in the lineage of Seth was saved
by the grace of God, but the main issue of the line of Seth,
and you can look at it in the genealogy that's recorded in
chapter five, that this is the genealogy through whom God would
bring the Messiah. And that line was to be kept
pure. But what happened? It says in
Genesis 6-2, the sons of God, which I believe is referring
to the line of Seth. And again, not that every individual
in that line was saved, but I believe that was how God preserved the
gospel. And the sons of God saw that
the daughters of men, that's the line of Cain, I believe,
that they were fair and they took them wives of all which
they chose. In other words, there was an intermingling of the lines
there. If you don't agree with me, you
can throw that out the window. But I believe that's what it's
talking about. Because the line of Seth produced Noah. And as you go down through Noah's
line, and I think, you know, you'll see that that's where
the line was preserved through whom the seed of woman would
come, the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's what I believe it means.
And look back at Genesis 6, look at verse 3. It said, The Lord
said, my spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he
also is flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. In other words,
God striving there, the spirit striving, that refers to God's
forbearance. Why doesn't God just immediately
bring his wrath down on every evil person or every evil, God's
forbearing for a purpose? God is, his issue there is the
time of his long-suffering, the scripture says. If you look over
in Romans 9.22, I'll just read it to you, I've got it in your
lesson. What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make
his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels
of wrath, fitted to destruction? And of course, we know that those
who are vessels of wrath, that's the non-elect. That's those whom
God did not choose unto salvation. Why doesn't he immediately destroy
them? He's got a purpose. It's in his wisdom to be long-suffering
and forbear for a time. And he's determined that in 120
years, he's going to destroy this world and all the people
on this earth. And we're going to learn later
that during that 120 years, that's the time that Noah was building
the ark and that's the time Noah preached. And I believe he preached
the gospel. So God's showing his longsuffering.
And then in verse four it says, there were giants in the earth
in those days. Now, these aren't, I don't believe
that's talking about basketball players. All right? In fact, I believe, I don't believe
it's really talking about their physical stature that much. Maybe
it was. But it says, look at it again,
there were giants in the earth in those days and also after
that when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and
they bared children to them, the same became mighty men which
were of old, men of renown. And I believe what he's describing
there is men who rose up and became powerful, they may have
been conquerors, remember like Cain's son Lamech, And they became
well-known and famous. And I believe what that's, as
I said here, the word giants in verse four comes from a word
that signifies to fall. And these are fallen men, violent,
oppressive, fallen men, powerful men who were feared among people
and even admired among people. In fact, they become heroes.
Isn't that the way the world is? You take the physically strong,
the physically beautiful, the physically smart are the ones
who are admired, not the spiritually strong, not the spiritually smart. The spiritual things are put
to the background. They don't want to listen to
us. They want to listen to the movie stars and the millionaires
and all of that. See, that's how the world judges
the worth of a person. And so these were men who rose
up, who were admired and followed by people, but not in a godly
way, in an ungodly way. Men of renown, famous, say, oh,
we wanna hear what that movie star says, or who that movie
star's gonna vote for, or who that millionaire, you know. Well, we wanna hear from the
Lord. Don't we see the difference? And then in verse five it says,
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. The Bible tells us that God looked
down to see if anybody would follow him, would call on him,
and there was none. God's not taking a survey here. He's not trying to find that
information. He's just showing forth His judgments upon this
wicked world. And listen now, doesn't this
describe us too by nature? That's us. And also, it shows
that sin has always been a matter of the heart. What did he say
here? Every imagination of the thoughts
of the heart was only evil continued. That's the problem with sin.
Sin condemns where it's imputed, where it's charged. That's a
problem too. That has to be taken care of.
But our problem is in the heart. And so only God can change the
heart. That's what I'm going to talk
about in the message on the new birth. You must be born again. It means you must be given life
that you don't have by nature. You hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and sin. You've got to be given, in order
to believe the gospel, in order to be drawn to Christ, we have
to be given a brand new heart. I mean, it's a heart transplant. It's not a refurbishing of the
old heart. It's a new heart. But that's
the case. We're all sinners. We've all
come short of the glory of God. Sin's a problem with art and
that's why human religion cannot take care of the problem of sin.
It can clean the outside of the cup, Christ said, but it can't
clean the inside. That's an act of God. And then
it says in verse six, and it repented the Lord that he had
made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart. Now
here's one of those verses that people use to attribute change
to God. When we think of us repenting
or being brought to repentance, that is a change in us. A change
of heart, a change of mind. When we think of grieving, we
think about like being depressed, being sad. But there are verses
in the Bible, and I've got several listed here, that tell us that
God will not and cannot change. God is not a man that he should
repent. In other words, God never makes
a wrong decision or plans. Everything that God has purposed
will come about and it never changes. And you know, that's
part of our hope. Malachi 3.6, I am the Lord, I
change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are
not concerned. So how are we to look at verses
like this? It repented the Lord that he, how are we to interpret
them? You know, is it denying that
God is immutable? I don't believe so. Is there
a contradiction in the Bible? No. Might be in our minds, but
not in the Bible. So how do we interpret such things?
Well, often in the scriptures, The Bible attributes human qualities,
sinless human qualities to God. To bring these tough concepts
that we can't wrap our human finite minds around and bring
them some sense to us in a human way. For example, you know scriptures
talk about God's arm? Well God doesn't have an arm
like you and me. But what is God's arm? Well,
that's his power. Who hath believed our report?
To whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? That's God's power. And that's just a human way of
stating it to bring it down to our level so that we might have
some modicum of understanding. God's face. When you, if you ever go to Italy
and go into the Sistine Chapel and you look up and you see that
old guy with the beard up there, it's not God. That's not what
he looks like. Now we can talk about the face
of Jesus Christ because in his humanity, his sinless humanity,
he had a face. God doesn't have a face, he's
a spirit. God's invisible, the scripture tells us. But we attribute
human qualities to him in order to give us a sense of what he's
talking about. And I believe that's what's happening
here. God repenting and God grieving is just a human way of showing
us something of how much God hates sin. And how God must punish
sin. When we think about something
that we need to repent of, we think of something awful. Something
that grieves us, something so sad. God hates sin. The scripture tells us that.
We don't really have that much of an idea of how much he hates
sin, except, I'll tell you, the closest that we'll get is looking
to the cross. You wanna know how much God hates
sin? When it was charged to his son, he had to punish it in a
great way. That's how much God hates sin.
So, verse seven, it says, and the Lord said, I will destroy
man whom I've created from the face of the earth, both man and
beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for
it repenteth me that I've made them, but, verse eight, but Noah
found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Here's God's eyes. God
knows everything, doesn't he? But Noah. Now, this is not the
first revelation of God's grace in the Bible. We can talk about
the revelation of his grace back in Genesis 3.15, the seed of
woman, promise. We can talk about the revelation
of his grace from Genesis 3.21 to the end of the chapter. He
slew animals and made coats of skin. That's the blood of Christ,
the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. That's grace. We can talk
about Seth and here men began to call upon the name of the
Lord in Genesis. It's grace, it's all grace. What does that
mean? It means we don't earn it, we
don't deserve it. What about Noah? Well, here's the first
time in the Bible the word grace is used, literally. Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. And that means God's free, unmerited
favor and blessing of salvation in and by the Lord Jesus Christ,
who Noah knew as the promised seed, the promised Messiah. You
see, grace is not different for Noah than it is for us. It's
always grace. Grace is something that God works
out of his sovereign will in his mercy through the blood of
Christ, based on the blood of Christ. And it's the same for
Noah. And so Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now
here's the whole world wicked. Man has not improved since the
fall. He may have improved scientifically,
militarily, his everyday life. We know, look at the improvements
that we enjoy. but there has been absolutely
no improvement spiritually. In fact, it's digressed, gotten
worse spiritually, if that's possible. But Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. You know what Noah's name means?
It means rest. What does all this tell us about
Noah? Well, it tells us that by nature, Noah was no different
than the rest of sinful humanity. How do you know that? Because
if he was different, he wouldn't have needed grace. Why do we
need grace? It's because we're sinners. God
didn't save Noah, didn't reveal himself to Noah, didn't justify
Noah because Noah was a better person than the rest of the society. Now the Bible doesn't tell us
anything about Noah before verse eight. That's the first mention
of his name. Somebody said, well, he had to
be a more religious person. Or he had to be a better, you
know, better in a lot of ways. I mean, you think about it. We
could say, humanly speaking, that the person who's a responsible
citizen is better, in our eyes, and humanly speaking, not in
God's, is better than the thief or the murderer or the drug pusher. We could say that. Maybe you
could say that about Noah. I don't know. He didn't tell
us. But I know this. Noah was just as much a sinner
in the eyes of God as anybody who lived during that day. How
do you know? Because his only hope was grace.
And that comes through the blood of Christ. The Bible doesn't say here that
God found grace in the eyes of Noah. No, Noah found grace in
the eyes of the Lord. So Noah did not deserve any of
the blessings that God gave him. Neither do we. Noah didn't earn
any of the blessings that God gave him. Neither do we. But Noah was brought by God,
by God's sovereign grace, to know the Lord. That's amazing. And as I say, the name Noah means
comfort or rest. So it's kind of like showing
us in the midst of pending judgment against all mankind for sin,
there was hope, there was comfort, and rest in the grace of God.
So what does it tell us about Noah? Look at verse nine. These
are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man. What does
that mean? It means he was justified. It
means he was right with God. Means he had a mediator, a substitute,
a surety. That's right, in God's sight,
he was justified. He was forgiven of all of his
sins and he was declared righteous in God's eyes by the grace of
God through the righteousness of the promised Messiah. He's
justified. By deeds of law shall no flesh
except Noah No flesh be justified in God's
sight. Now doesn't that apply to Noah?
Yes, it does. How do you know? Because he found grace in the
eyes of the Lord. And grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That's what, that applies
to Noah. Noah's sins had already been
charged to Christ before the foundation of the world. Christ
was his surety. Noah was one of God's elect,
the election of grace. Noah's righteousness, was the
imputed righteousness of Christ. He was a just man. Then it says
he was perfect. The word is upright. It has the
idea of completeness. When it says Noah was perfect,
does it mean Noah was sinlessly perfect? Well, if he was, he
didn't need the grace. No, it means he was complete,
just like every true believer is complete in Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and you are what? Complete in him. In other words, everything that
God requires. Here's what that means. Now,
when we look at ourselves, we don't see completeness, do we?
We see a long way to go, don't we? And we know that we're not
yet glorified. But here's the point about perfection
and completeness in this realm. Everything that God requires
to save a sinner, like Noah, like us, we find complete and
full and finished in the person and work of Christ. He of God is made unto us wisdom,
I do a lot of foolish things, but the wisdom that God requires
of me is fully and completely in Christ. He's my righteousness,
He's my sanctification, He's my redemption. He is my all and
in all. And I believe that's what Paul
was talking about in 2 Corinthians 11 when he talked about the simplicity
of Christ. What I think it really means
is the singleness of Christ. And what that says is that we
are to realize under the preaching of the gospel by the power of
the Spirit that everything God requires to secure our salvation
unto final glory is found completely, perfectly, fully in the person
and work of Christ. And when preachers come along
like they did in 2 Corinthians and they tell you to look elsewhere,
look within, Look to the preacher, look to the church, look to the
denomination, look to your work. What are they doing? They're
corrupting that simplicity. Noah was resting in Christ. And so it says Noah was perfect
in his generation, completeness. And then look at verse nine,
it says, and Noah walked with God. Who else walked with God? Enoch, remember Enoch? What does
that mean? That means Noah was given faith
to walk with God. He was reconciled to God by the
merits of Christ. God is reconciled to his people
through the merits of Christ. His people are reconciled to
him through the merits of Christ. And so Noah had been given the
gifts of faith and repentance to believe God, to love God's
word and enjoy fellowship with God in Christ. That's what it
is to walk with God. walked by faith, looking to and
resting in Christ. Noah believed and obeyed God's
word. And that was proven by the fact
that he moved, as Hebrews 11 says,
Hebrews 11, seven, says Noah moved with fear. Now that's not
legal fear of punishment. Listen, I don't want to be punished.
I don't want to go to hell, but that's not our motive in serving
the Lord. Our motive is in realizing His
grace and His mercy. Our motive is to move with reverence
and respect. We know who God is. We know that
if God were to judge us based upon our best, we would all be
damned forever. And so we move with fear, with
respect and reverence, faith in God, worshiping God. And in that sense, Noah moved
and he prepared an ark to the saving of his house. And notice
it says here, now listen to this. This is Hebrews 11, seven. I've
got that printed in your lesson. Noah prepared an ark to the saving
of his house. And we're going to talk about
that next week and the ark being a type of Christ. That ark was the only way of
safety from the flood. There was no other way. You could
have climbed Mount Everest if it existed back then. And there
was no safety from that flood. The ark. One way. And of course, that's a picture
of Christ. He's the only way of salvation from the wrath of
God. But in doing that, it says, by the which he condemned the
world. Now what does that mean? That
means in building that ark as the one way of safety out of
the wrath of God in the flood, he was telling the whole world,
without this ark, outside this ark, you're condemned. He that
believeth not is condemned already. And when we preach the gospel,
we do the same things. I know preachers say, well, no,
we don't condemn anybody. Well, we're not the judge. God's
the judge, but when we preach the gospel, what are we preaching?
The only way of salvation and safety from the wrath of God.
Isn't that right? And what do we tell people? Outside
of Christ, condemnation. That's why we plead. You know,
Paul said, I beseech you. We know that only God's elect
are gonna hear and come, we know that, but we don't know who they
are, so we preach to everybody who will listen and beseech them,
get on this ark. Get in Christ, believe in him. And so, when Noah moved with
fear, and he built the ark, and it says he became heir of the
righteousness which is by faith, and I believe that's the righteousness
of God revealed in the gospel. I believe that's talking about
Christ, who's the end of the law for righteousness. How do
I, you know, Peter called, we'll look at this more next week,
but Peter called Noah a preacher of righteousness. Now what righteousness
do you think Peter preached? Was he just telling folks, now
you all need to stop this and do this and get to be better
people and reform? I don't believe he was saying
that. I believe he was preaching the righteousness of God in Christ. Now why do I believe that? I'll
tell you why. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ, our Lord. All right.