Now, as Brother Randy said, we're
going to be looking at Genesis chapter 8 concerning the subject
of Noah and the new creation. And this will conclude the preaching on these passages
concerning Noah and the ark and all that. But I want to read
Hebrews 11. As I said last week, I'm really preaching through
Hebrews 11. Look at Hebrews 11 and verse 7. But each time I
go into one of these passages, I want to go back to the Old
Testament to show some of the realities of gospel salvation,
salvation by grace, that appear in the history of these individuals
that are mentioned. We talked about Abel. Abel brought
the blood of the Lamb, and that Lamb, that blood of the Lamb,
the sacrificial systems established, the way to worship God, it's
a picture of Christ. No sinner can come to God, be
accepted of God, be justified by God, no sinner can worship
God acceptably but through the blood of Christ. His righteousness
imputed. That's what that's all about.
That's what Abel testified. He was righteous, not by his
works, If Abel could have been justified by his works, then
Cain would have been just as justified as Abel, and he wasn't.
So this is all a picture of God's grace in Christ. In Enoch, who
walked with God, he pleased God. Verse six, without faith it's
impossible to please God. Faith there is not, the emphasis
there is not on the act of believing, even though that's included.
The emphasis there is those three things that we've been kind of
focusing in on here. That faith has a foundation. What is that foundation? The
Word of God. What God says. The promise of
God. And then faith has an object.
What is God promised? Well, He promised salvation for
sinners through Christ, based on His blood and righteousness.
No other way. So if you believe any other promise
concerning salvation, it's false. This is by faith. Look at verse
7. By faith, Noah. By looking to
Christ. That's what that means. By resting
in Christ. By depending upon Him. And of course, this faith is
God-given. It's not natural to man. You
understand that. Nobody by nature believes. That's
why Christ said you must be born again. or you cannot see or hear
or enter the kingdom of God. And so this faith is God-given
faith. The first thing we read about
Noah, what do we know about Noah? Number one, Noah found grace. It's the first thing said about
him. You go through that back in Genesis
6 and you see all of God's commentary on the wickedness of the evil,
fallen, cursed world. Man's depravity, our fallen stain
in Adam, ruined by the fall. And then all of a sudden in verse
8, Noah found grace. And that says nothing about Noah's
goodness. Noah wasn't a better man than
the rest. God chose Noah from the foundation
of the world and gave him to Christ. And Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. We'll look at verse 7 of Hebrews,
by faith, Noah being warned of God. There's the foundation.
There's the promise. There's the threat of things
not seen as yet. This is God's Word. I'm going
to destroy this world with a flood. And that's what Genesis 6 and
Genesis 7 is about. The flood that God brought down
upon sinful humanity as the just punishment against sin. But God
spared Noah. Why did he spare Noah? You know
there's only one scriptural answer to that question. It's stated
in Matthew chapter 11 actually. And that's where when Christ
was talking about the destruction of the cities of Bethsaida and
Chorazin and all of that. And he said, I thank thee, O
Father, that you have hid these things from the wise and the
prudent and revealed them unto babes. And he makes this statement,
for so, Father, it seemeth good in thy sight. And that's it. It seemed good in God's sight.
Noah wasn't good. How do you know Noah wasn't good?
Because Noah found what? Grace. And grace is for who? Sinners. If you're good, you
don't need grace. You understand that? You say,
well, I'm a good person. You may be in the eyes of men,
but I'm talking about the eyes of God now, how God sees me. And if I'm a good person, then
I don't need God's grace. I don't need God's mercy. I don't
need salvation. But I am a sinner. And the only
way I'm going to be saved, just like Noah, Noah found grace.
I must find grace. Now grace reigns through what? Righteousness. There must be
a just ground upon which God bestows grace upon his people.
We'll talk about that in just a minute. So Noah moved with
fear, that's the evidence. Faith has a foundation, the word
of God. Faith has an object, that's Christ and him crucified
and risen from the dead. And moved with fear, reverence
and respect, that's the evidence of faith. That fear there is
reverence and respect for the glory of God. And how do you
know? He prepared an ark to the saving of his house by which
he condemned the world You see, righteousness by promise in the
coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to Noah, received
by God-given faith, pronounces God's condemnation of anyone
outside of Christ. That's it. And Noah preached
this. It was like 120 years from the
time God gave the first revelation of the fact that judgment was
coming through the flood till the flood actually came. And
through that time, Noah built the ark, but he also preached
righteousness, 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 5. Gospel righteousness. Not human righteousness. There
is no human righteousness. There's none righteous, no, not
one. Now, the flood came. Noah built the ark, you remember
that. And the flood came. And as Randy read there in Genesis
chapter 7 verse 24, look back at it. The waters prevailed upon
the earth 150 days. The flood. And here's the point, look at
verse 1 of chapter 8. The first thing that is said
here in this chapter just shines out to me. And God remembered
Noah. That's covenant language. Did
you know that? God remembered Noah. That's one of those things
that we see God coming down on our human level and portraying
himself in those terms. It's not that God ever forgot
Noah. He never did, did he? God never
forgets his people. In fact, I'll be honest with
you, God never forgets anything. He's God. If you want to chew
on a reality that'll flip your mind back and forth, think about
the immutability of God. He doesn't change. I cannot enter
into that myself because everything about me and you and all our
world's changing. But God doesn't change. You say,
well, how do you know that? Because the Bible says that.
He said, I'm the Lord, I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. But this is covenant language.
You remember when the Hebrew children were in bondage in Egypt? You remember that? Over in the
book of Exodus? It's spoken here in Exodus chapter
2 and verse 24. Let me just read it to you. God
heard their groaning. Remember they were under hard
taskmasters. God heard their groaning and God remembered His
covenant with Abraham and Isaac and with Jacob. And you know
what He did? He delivered them out through
Moses. Why? Because of a covenant that He
had made almost 400 years before with a man named Abraham. We're
going to be looking at Abraham next week. Lord willing. But that's why God delivered
them. And he tells them in the book of Deuteronomy, it's not
because you were better or more powerful than other nations. It's simply because God chose
in His sovereign prerogative to do it. God chose whom He will. Do you
know that our salvation, if we're saved, is the product of an everlasting
covenant of grace made before the foundation of the world.
Not conditioned on us as sinful men and women. Because if the
conditions were upon us, you know what would happen? It would
fail. You don't believe that? You haven't
been convinced of sin yet. Now there are conditions to salvation. I can sum it up in one word that
I use quite often from this pulpit, the word righteousness. That's
the condition. Righteousness is the condition. Perfect satisfaction
to God's justice. Why is that the condition? Because
justice has to be satisfied. Why? Because the wages of sin
is death. But all the conditions of the
covenant of salvation, the covenant of redemption, the covenant of
grace, were put upon one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why He's called the surety
of the covenant. Think about that. All the sins
of God's chosen people were imputed, charged to Christ. The debt of
sin put upon Him. And He came in time, and what
did He do? He paid the debt. He redeemed
us. He shed His blood unto death.
All of it conditioned on Christ. So here's Noah. He found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. Grace is based upon justice satisfied. And you know how that's pictured
in the Old Testament? How it's pictured through the
sacrifice of clean animals. Look back at Genesis 7, verse
1. The Lord God said unto Noah,
Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen
righteous before me in this generation. Now remember, that ark is a picture
of Christ. In other words, if you're in
Christ, having his righteousness imputed to you, washed in his
blood, it's like being inside the ark. You're shielded from
the wrath of God. Christ is our ark. And then he says in verse 2 of
Genesis 7, look at this. Of every clean beast thou shalt
take to thee by sevens the male and his female, and of beasts
that are not clean by two the male and his female. Verse 3,
of fowls, that's birds, also of the air, by sevens, the male
and the female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the
earth. Now you know the story of Noah, that he was commanded
that God would bring all the animals, two by two, male and
female. Why male and female? Isn't it
obvious? To perpetuate the species. Keep them alive. That's why it's
male and female. Do you understand that? If it's
not male and female, if it's male and male, what do you have?
No perpetuation of the species. It's fruitless love. That's a
picture of fallen man. Or female and female. Male and
female. And that's the way it is with
the human race. That's the love that God has ordained. A man
and a woman. Not a man and a man or a woman
and a woman. That's fruitless. That's selfish,
see. That's to satisfy self and self
alone and not each other, not even God. But why did he say
seven of the clean animals? Tell you exactly why. For sacrifice. That species had to be perpetuated
too. But there had to be sacrifices
because that was God's ordained way of worship. Of a sinner approaching
Him. Look over at Genesis 8 and verse
20. After Noah got off the ark, what's
the first thing he did? Noah built an altar unto the
Lord and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl
and offered burnt offerings on the altar. That's a picture of
Christ. So that's why there were seven
of sevens of the clean animal. Scholars argue that means seven
seventies, well it doesn't matter. Two by two of every other animal,
but of the clean animals because God commanded sacrifice, which
pictured the Lord Jesus Christ, that spotless lamb. who went
to the cross for our sins imputed to Him and died on that cross
to pay that debt to God's justice and ensure and secure the salvation
of His people where they could stand before God in His righteousness
imputed. That's what all that's about. The gospel is the preaching of
the terms of that covenant of grace and the fulfillment of
all those terms by Christ. You see, false gospels say, you
must do. The true gospel says, it is done. It's finished. Somebody said,
well, does that mean we're not supposed to do anything? No,
but not to finish the work, not to be righteous, not to be saved. God is a covenant-keeping God.
He remembered Noah. Look back at that, Genesis 8.
He's faithful, he'll bring his children into the new creation,
the new heavens and the new earth, just like he's bringing Noah
here into the new creation. The world essentially created
new after the flood. The new creation that believers
will enter after Christ comes again, after this world is burned
up, is a world creation wherein dwells righteousness. And unbelievers
may scoff at God's judgment, therefore they have no interest
in the promise of salvation, but we, like Noah, we know better. We know the reality. We know
what God says. And if we're saved, it's because
God remembered His covenant that He made with His Son, where He
chose me and gave me to Christ before the foundation of the
world and placed all the conditions of this sinner's salvation upon
the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why Christ had to come
and redeem His people. That's why He had to be born
of a virgin. That's why He had to be God in
human flesh. That's why He had to obey the
law. That's why He had to go to the cross. That's why He had
to be buried and raised again the third day. That's why He
ascended unto the Father in heaven, ever living to make intercession
for His people. This is why the Spirit of God
has to come and regenerate us. Because in Christ there's life.
Look back at verse 1 of chapter 8, God remembered Noah, every
living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark,
and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and waters assuaged,
the waters subsided. You know that word wind is an
interesting word, it's the same word as spirit. The breath of
life. I believe that's a picture of
Christ who died for our sins and imputed to Him under the
flood of God's judgment. He lay in the grave with the
judgment waters closed over His head and then God the Father
remembered His covenant with Christ and with us in Christ
and sent His Spirit to raise Christ up from the dead. That's what it means to be put
to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit. Or manifested
in the flesh and justified in the Spirit He was declared to
be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness
by the resurrection from the dead. Righteousness established. And it's from Him that the wind
of the Holy Spirit comes into our lives in the gospel and passes
over us in creating us anew in the new birth. You must be born
again. How did Noah know that God caused
a wind to pass over the earth? How did he know that? The waters
subsided. And that's how we know that the
Holy Spirit has come into our life. When we see God's wrath
subside, just as satisfied, it's gone in Christ, there is therefore
now no condemnation in Christ. We believe in Him. And you know
how the book of Ephesians puts it in chapter 2 verses 8 through
10? For by grace are you saved through
faith, that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus. That's the church, the new creation.
Unto good works, not because of good works, not based on good
works, but unto good works which God hath before ordained that
we should walk in them. Look here, he says in verse 2,
the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were
stopped, the rain from heaven was restrained, waters returned
from off the earth continually. See, it's going down. And after
the end of the 150 days, the waters were abated, and the ark
rested in the seventh month on the seventeenth day of the month
upon the mountains of Ararat. The ark came to rest. I think
about our Lord. After He finished His work, remember
what He did when He finished His work of paying for our sins?
He says He sat down at the right hand of the Father. That's called
His rest in Hebrews chapter 4. And that's a Sabbath rest. Somebody
asked me, do you keep the Old Testament Sabbath or the New
Testament Sabbath? I told him, I said, we keep the
New Testament Sabbath. He said, oh, so you go to church
on Sunday. I said, yes, we go to church
on Sunday, but that's not the New Testament Sabbath. The New
Testament Sabbath is our rest in Christ, who is our Sabbath. Sunday is the Lord's Day. That's
when we meet to worship. Christ is our Sabbath. And just
like that ark came to rest, after Christ, Finish that great work. Christ is the end, the finishing,
the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to everyone that
believes. After he established that righteousness
on earth, he rested. That's something that no old
covenant priest could do because their work was continual. Sins
were never fully paid for. They were never paid for at all
under that. The blood of bulls and goats
could not wash away, take away, pay for sins. There were no chairs
in the tabernacle. But Christ sat down at the right
hand of the Father. And then he tells us, come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you
rest. You know what Noah's name means? Name Noah means rest. Noah was resting in Christ. He
rested in the ark. So the ark rests on the top of
a mountain up in the sky, the heavens, if you will. But it's
still surrounded by waters. Noah still waits for God to complete
what he began, because God's going to do that. And when God
saves us in Christ, it's the beginning of work He'll complete.
He which began that good work will finish it, being confident
of that. Look at verse 5. He says, And
the waters decreased continually until the tenth month, and the
tenth month, and on the first day of the month were the tops
of the mountains seen. The wrath of God upon this world
all over, that wrath abides upon all who live their lives and
die without Christ. That's what it is. Christ made
us end of sin forever, and we who are in Him cannot be condemned,
and if we cannot be condemned, God will not impute sin to us.
That's what that means. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? We have righteousness charged
to us. But while on this earth, we still have to deal with the
issue of sin, don't we? In ourselves. Sinners saved by
grace. It's a warfare. Verse 6 says, It came to pass
at the end of 40 days that Noah opened the window of the ark
which he had made. He sent forth a raven. which went forth to
and fro until the waters were dried up from off the earth."
You know what the raven represents? The opening of the window, that's
letting light in. Christ is our light. But you
know, the raven feeds upon what? Dead things. It eats carrion. Pictures the unregenerate feeding
on the dead. But then it says in verse 8,
he sent also forth a dove from him to see if the waters were
abated, subsided from off the face of the ground. The dove
found no rest for the sole of her foot. She returned unto him
into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole
earth. And he put forth his hand and took her and pulled her unto
him into the ark. The dove is the bird of peace, who finds no rest out in the
world, but has to come back to the ark Believers find no rest,
eternal spiritual rest, except in Christ. But look on verse
10, He stayed yet another seven days, again He sent forth the
dove out of the ark, and the dove came in to Him in the evening,
and low in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. What does the
olive leaf represent? It represents life. The olive oil represents the
life given by the Holy Spirit from Christ who is our life.
This body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because
of righteousness, because of Christ. So no one knew that the
waters were abated from all the earth. And he stayed yet another
seven days, sent forth the dove, and it returned not again unto
him anymore. All the water was gone. Well, he comes to the new creation
now. Verse 13, it came to pass in
the 600th and first year and the first month, the first day
of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth and
Noah removed the covering of the ark. He looked and behold,
the face of the ground was dry. The wrath of God subsided. That's what that represents.
And in the second month of the seventh and 20th day of the month
was the earth dry and God spake unto Noah. And he told Noah,
he says, now you go out from the ark, your sons and their
wives, bring forth all those animals. And he said, be fruitful,
multiply upon the earth. Verse 18 says, Noah went forth
and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. There's
a lot that could be said on over about Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Every beast Every creeping thing,
every fowl whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, and their kinds
went forth out of..." You know, we're all descendants of Noah,
aren't we? I believe that. But here's the
thing. Here's the ground of the new
creation right here. Verse 20, Noah builded an altar
unto the Lord. Worshipping God. What's the conclusion
of the whole matter? The preacher said in Ecclesiastes,
fear God. Keep His commandments. What are
His commandments? Well, His commandments are summed
up for the salvation of a sinner in the Gospel message of looking
to Christ. Resting in Him. Noah took the
clean beast. He didn't take just any animal.
Noah didn't have the choice of just taking any animal that he
wanted to take. A lot of people today are afraid
of snakes. Somebody asked me, did they have any snakes on them?
I suppose they did. I don't know. I don't care. I
don't like snakes. Noah couldn't just say, well,
I don't like snakes, so I'm going to get those snakes and I'm going
to burn them on the altar. No. He didn't have that choice,
you see. That's what's wrong with religion
today. People say, well, you've got
your choice. You can go here, you can go there. You better
go where Christ is preached as the Lamb of God, the spotless
Lamb. who died for the sins of his
people and brought forth righteousness." They said, well, we worship God
this way. You worship God. You don't have that choice. Noah
built an altar unto the Lord and took of every clean beast
and every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings to the Lord.
And it says in verse 21, look at this, the Lord smelled a sweet
savor. That means God accepted it. Because it was His way. It was
a picture of God's way of salvation through Christ. He said, in my
beloved Son am I well pleased. Then He made that covenant, which
is called the covenant with Noah. 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. God is also speaking
prophetically here. The physical wrath that fell
upon the earth in the flood, you hear this now, was not going
to make man any better than what he was before the flood. You see, the Bible says it's
the goodness of God that leadeth men to repentance, not the wrath. You say, well, we're to flee
from the wrath. Yes, we are. But the only way
you can really flee from the wrath of God is to see the goodness
of the Lord in Christ. And you're gonna see this in
the book of Genesis. By the time we get up to Abraham,
things didn't get better. And even old Noah showed himself
for what he was, a sinner, saved by grace. You see, this is not going back.
Only as we stand before God in Christ, and here he says, he
says in verse 22, while the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest,
that's the seasons that go along every year, cold and heat, summer,
winter, Day and night shall not cease. As long as this earth
goes along in its seasons, that's what he's saying, as long as
time goes on on this earth as we see it and as we measure it,
he said, I'm not going to destroy this earth again with a flood. He's going to destroy the earth.
This earth's going to burn up. He's going to destroy it, but
not with a flood. Now what is that all about? We'll look across
the page into Genesis 9 and look at verse, Genesis 9 and verse,
we'll look at verse 8. It says, God spoke unto Noah and
to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my
covenant with you and with your seed after you. And with every
living creature that is with you, that's even with the animals,
he says, of the fowl, 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. Neither shall
all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, neither
shall there be any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God
said this is the token of the covenant which I make between
me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual
generations. That is, as long as these generations
continue. And he says, I do set my bow
in the cloud. There's the rainbow. You ever seen a rainbow? You
have. Beautiful, aren't they? It shall be for a token of a
covenant between me and the earth. Every time you see that rainbow,
that's a reminder of God's covenant with Noah that he's not going
to destroy the earth with a flood, but there's more. He says in
verse 14, and it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over
the earth and that the bow shall be seen in the cloud and I will
remember my covenant which is between me and you and every
living creature of all flesh and the water shall no more become
a flood to destroy all flesh and the bow shall be in the cloud
And God says this, listen, I will look upon it that I may remember
the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature
of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said in the note,
this is the token of the covenant which I have established between
me and all flesh that is upon the earth. The covenant. What does that rainbow remind
you of? People have different views of that, you know. Some
say, well, it reminds me of the mercy of God. Well, it does me
too. God is a God of mercy. But don't
stop there. Because remember, before there
was a rainbow, there was a what? There was a flood. That's God's
wrath, God's justice. What that rainbow reminds us
of, or is to remind us of, is that God saves sinners by mercy
based on justice satisfied. That rainbow is a picture of
Christ. That's what it is. It's a reminder throughout each
generation that God saves sinners by His mercy through the Lord
Jesus Christ who satisfied God's wrath and justice against our
sins. And that's the foundation of
the new creation. The Lamb of God who taketh away
the sins of the world, the sins of His people all over the world. Noah and the new creation. And
that's what Noah, Noah's sacrifice, that's what Noah's Ark, that's
what Noah finding grace, that's what Noah preaching righteousness
is all about. By faith, Noah. being warned of God of things
not seen, moved with fear by looking to Christ and Him alone.