Well, good evening. I'm sorry,
I took a drink of water, got myself choked and can't quit.
If you would open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for. evidence of things not seen,
for by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith
we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God,
so the things which are seen were not made of things which
do appear. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous,
God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death,
and was not found because God had translated him. For before
his translation, he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith, it is impossible
to please him. For he that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being warned of
God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear. prepared an
ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the
world and became the heir of righteousness, which is by faith. We'll end our reading there.
All right, Sean. Okay, if you would turn in your hymnal
to song number 269, Under His Wings. you Under His wings I am safely abiding,
though the night deepens and tempests are wild. Still I can trust Him, I know
He will keep me. He has redeemed me and I am His
child. Under his wings, under his wings,
Who from his love can sever? Under his wings, my soul shall
abide, Safely abide forever. Under his wings, what a refuge
in sorrow, How the heart yearningly turns to his rest. Often when earth has no balm
for my healing, There I find comfort and there I am blessed. Under his wings, under his wings,
Who from his love can sever? Under His wings my soul shall
abide, safely abide forever. Under His wings, oh, what precious
enjoyment! There will I hide till life's
trials are over. Sheltered, protected, no evil
can harm me. Resting in Jesus, I'm safe evermore. Under His wings, under His wings,
Who from His love can sever? Under His wings, my soul shall
abide, Safely abide forever. Okay, and if you would now turn
to song number 208, Are You Washed in the Blood? Have you been to Jesus for the
cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in His
grace this hour? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood,
in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of
a lamb? Are you walking daily by the
Savior's side? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you to rest each moment to
the Crucified? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood? In the soul-cleansing blood of
the Lamb? Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? When the bridegroom cometh, will
your robes be white? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Will your soul be ready for the
mansion's bride and be washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood,
in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Lay aside the garments that are
stained with sin. Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? There's a fountain flowing for
the soul unclean, O be washed in the blood of the Lamb. Are you washed in the blood,
in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? All right, if you wouldn't, let's
open our Bibles to Genesis chapter six. Genesis the sixth chapter. We'll begin our reading in verse
five. And 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. And he
repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and he
grieved him at his heart. 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 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 begat three sons, Shem,
Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was 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 God said unto Noah, the end
of all flesh is come before me for the earth is filled with
violence through them. And behold, I will destroy them
with the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood.
Room shalt thou make in the ark and thou shalt pitch it within
and without with pitch. And we'll end our reading there.
Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, we've met here this
evening to hear word from thee and attempt to worship your matchless
name. And Father, I beg of you that
by your spirit you would enable us to do that, that you'd enable
us to worship you in spirit and in truth through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Father, I pray that you would
enable us to hear word from thee, that you'd give us a word from
you that you enable us to hear it and to believe it, to rest
in it, to rejoice in Christ our Savior. Father, how can we ever
begin to thank you for such a Savior, for such a salvation that's found
in your son? How can we thank you for sending
the good news, this gospel of your son to us? given us an ear
to hear it, you gave us faith to believe it. Father, how can
we begin to thank you? But we do thank you and pray
that you would always make us faithful to this gospel, to the
cause of Christ our Savior, that we might serve our generation
faithfully by pointing them always and only to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let him be our only focus, our
only goal, our only desire. Father, we pray for the sick
of our number, our friends who are hurting. There's so many
of them. Father, we pray you'd undertake
in their behalf. We continue to pray for Novi. We pray for Barb and Joyce and
we pray for others. So many fathers sick and COVID
and just various sicknesses and ailments. Father, we pray for
them. We pray for the Thompson family at this difficult time
of loss that you'd comfort their hearts with your presence. All
these things we ask in that name, which is above every name, the
name of Christ, our savior. Amen. All right. Now, a few weeks ago
in our study here in Genesis, we looked at Noah as a type of
Christ. And tonight I want us to look
at Noah as a type of the believer and Noah is a type of the believer
in this way. It's how the Lord saved Noah.
However it is that God saved Noah is how he's going to save
all of his people. And I'll tell you right from
the get go that Noah was saved by faith. It wasn't by his works
in his boat building. Noah was saved by faith in Christ.
And that is pictured in the arc, which we'll look at in the, in
the coming weeks. But the faith that Noah had,
you know, we think about these giants of the past, the fathers,
you know, the faith Noah's name is mentioned in Hebrews chapter
11. We think of Noah somehow being so different from us, but
he wasn't, he wasn't different from us at all. The faith that
Noah had is the same faith every believer has today. It's the
very same faith. And I grant you, you may not
have done something as dramatic as build a giant boat that's
going to save you and your family from a flood that's going to,
in every species of animals, you know, that's going to be,
everybody's going to be destroyed in the earth except for the people
and animals that are in this ark that you built. You haven't
done anything like that, I'm sure. But do you know, if you
trust Christ as all of your salvation, you have the very same faith
that Noah had. See, salvation is by grace through
faith. And it's not by our works, in
any form, in any fashion, at any time. We're not saved by
our works and we don't keep our salvation by our works. It's
by faith. So if you believe on Christ,
you're just as saved as no one is. Even though you've never
done something as spectacular as building this ark. And I'm
talking spiritually, about this boat building spiritually. You've
never, none of us ever built a boat like that. But I'm not
talking about a physical boat, I'm talking about a spiritual
one. One that would save your soul. Our souls are not saved
and kept safe by our boat building. By our works building us a boat
good enough, you know, to take us to glory. No. Salvation is
by faith. It's by faith in Christ, by God's
grace. And I want to give you seven
marks of Noah's faith. How God saved Noah. And if God
has saved you and he's given you faith in Christ, you'll recognize
these seven things in your faith. Number one, Noah was totally
depraved. Look here at verse five, Genesis
six. And 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. And he repented the Lord that
he'd made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart.
And the Lord said, I will destroy man who might have created from
the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping things
and the files of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made
them. Now the scripture here says that God saw that the wickedness
of man was great on the earth. That word man there means all
mankind, all the sons of Adam, including Noah, including Noah. When Adam fell, all of Adam's
descendants died spiritually. That includes Noah. That includes
you and me. When Adam fell, All of us, Noah
included, you and me included, we all lost the capacity to do,
to say, to think, to act on anything holy. Because all we can do is
sin. The only thing we can think up
is sin. It's still true today, 2022,
that every imagination of the thoughts of our heart are only
evil continually. I mean, we can't even desire
anything holy by nature because our nature is pure sin. So everything we produce is sin
because it comes, all comes from a heart of sin. One of the writers
I read on this said that the stream is corrupt because the
fountain's corrupt. Well, the fountain is our heart
and the stream is our works and our thoughts and our actions
and our deeds. That's the stream. The stream
is corrupt. Everything we do is corrupt because
the fountain is corrupt. It's all thought up and all originated
from a nature that's corrupt. And wherever there's sin, I mean,
we don't, I know we can't categorize sin exactly. Say this sin is
worse than this sin. But yet this is, I think this
is still true. Wherever there's sin, it will always get worse.
It never gets better. You know, people in Noah's day
didn't see, you know, we're getting further and further and further
away from God here. Our society is getting worse
and worse and worse. You know, we better straighten
up. We better try to get back to God. Nobody's doing that. You know what happened? People's
actions kept getting more and more and more vile. Sin just
kept getting more and more and more open. Man just kept finding
new ways to sin. They weren't more sinful, because
once you're totally depraved, you can't get more sinful than
that, can you? But they just kept finding new ways to display
their sin nature. And man's nature has not improved.
We like to think we're much more civilized now. But man's nature
hasn't improved from then till now. Men just are still, I mean,
this is how sinful men are. This is roughly 6,000 years ago. Men are still finding new ways
to display their sin nature, still. I mean, we haven't, after
6,000 years, we still haven't exhausted all the new ways that
we can find to display our sin. And I point all that out for
this reason. so that we see the only way we
could be saved is by grace, through faith in Christ. He's got to
be our representative. He's got to be our substitute
to do for us what we can't do for ourselves. That was Noah.
The only way Noah could be saved is by grace. And the same thing
is true of you and me. It's got to be by faith in Christ.
It's not by any of our works. And I'll show you here how Noah
was no better than anybody else. If Noah was going to be saved
from the flood, from dying in the flood, what had to happen?
He had to find grace in the eyes of the Lord. That tells me Noah
was a sinner. He needed grace. He had to be
given faith. And the same thing is true of you and me. If we're
going to be saved, it's got to be by grace. We've got to find
grace in the eyes of the Lord. That brings me to my second point.
Noah was saved by grace alone. Verse eight says, but Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now this is something we should
remember. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He didn't
deserve it. He didn't earn it. He found it. And you would think
that you know what the word found means, but I looked it up and
this is what the Hebrew word means. It means to find. Noah found something that he
didn't have. He found something that he needed.
He found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The word found there
means to meet. Noah met something he had never
met before. Grace. And I'll tell you what
that means. He met someone he never met before. He met Christ. He met grace in the eyes of the
Lord. And thirdly, this word found
means to be found in. It's not just like Noah found
something. Noah was found in something.
Noah found out that he was in the grace of God. Because God
put him in Christ in the covenant of grace before time began. Noah found that he was in Christ. That's how he found grace. He
was in Christ. Now Noah found grace. He didn't
earn it, he found it. He didn't deserve it because
he wasn't as sinful as everybody else. No one can say, well, yeah,
I'm sinful, but I'm not as sinful as those guys. No, he didn't
say that. A believer will look at the worst of our
society and say, I'm just as bad as them. I'm just as evil. I'm just as rotten, I'm just
as vile as them. That's what a believer will say.
We can't say that we're not. If we need grace, we have to
say that, don't we? Noah couldn't say I'm less sinful
than somebody else. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Noah was a sinful man. That's
the only way he could be saved. He didn't have any good righteous
works to offer God. He had to be saved by grace.
Noah was a totally depraved child of wrath, even as others, so
if he's gonna be saved, it's got to be by grace. And the same
thing's true about you and me. This is some of the finest people
that I know. I get here early and I see y'all
come in and just I'm happy to see you. You're some of the finest
people I know. But I wish I could paint our
sin, our nature, as dark as it really is. I wish I could. Because when we see that about
ourselves, then and only then will we be a candidate for grace. Only then. And this is the first
time that the word grace is used in scripture. The old timers
talk about the law of first mention. And what they mean by that is
when you find a word in Scripture, the first time it's used, whatever
it means there, generally, that's what it means all the way through
Scripture. Well, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. What
is it about this grace that Noah found that's true all the way
through Scripture, every time you see the word grace? Well,
first, this grace that Noah found came from God's goodness, didn't
it? It didn't come from Noah's goodness because Noah didn't
have any. We just see how he's totally depraved. So God's grace,
grace that's going to save, grace that's going to deliver has to
come from God's goodness, not man's merit. The second thing
about this grace is God's grace saves. God's grace doesn't try
to save. God's grace doesn't offer salvation. God's grace saves. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord and he was delivered when everybody else died. He
and Noah and his family were the only human beings delivered
from this flood because God's grace delivers. God's grace gives
life. Everybody else died, Noah lived.
Noah had life because of God's grace. The grace that Noah found
is eternal, Covenant grace. God determined to give it to
him and eternity passed. And when it came time, Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord because God had already determined
to give it to him. Noah found that he was in the
grace of God because God put him in Christ before time began.
It's eternal grace. This is grace that saves. God's
grace saves from beginning to end. It does it all. It's electing,
redeeming, justifying, sanctifying, calling, regenerating, keeping,
glorifying grace. Grace. And I don't want to get
too far ahead of myself, but I'm interested in each of the
electing grace. I need God to redeeming grace. I need him to
pay the price. Justifying grace. Sanctifying
grace. I need Him to make me holy. Make
me without sin. I need calling grace. I need
God to call me by the gospel because by nature I can't hear. I can't believe. God's got to
call me irresistibly so that I can't refuse to come. So I
can't not come. I need regenerating grace. God
to give me life. Spiritual life. I need glorifying
grace to take me from here to there. And there's keeping grace. Let's not forget how much we
need keeping grace. We'll just use Noah as an example.
What happened to poor old Noah after he got off the ark? He
made him a vineyard and got drunk. And I'm not picking at Noah.
I need keeping grace much more than that. Keeping grace. Don't you love grace? God's grace that saves His people
from their sin leaves no doubt they will be saved from their
sin. I love this statement here. God's going to destroy the earth.
He saw it. It just grieved Him in His heart.
It grieved Him that He made man. But, but, Noah found grace in
the eyes of the Lord. That little word, but, is the
hinge of the whole gospel. On this side, man's sin, man's
despair, the wrath from God that we deserve for our sin. But,
but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. We're all children
of wrath even as others, but God. Oh, but God. For His rich mercy we're with
you. Oh, but God. Oh, how we deserve to be destroyed. How we deserve to be condemned.
And all of God's people found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And if the Lord saved us and
given us faith in Christ, we'll say the exact same thing about
ourselves. I was on my way straight to hell,
just running from God as far as I could, had no idea who God
was, how God saved sinners, didn't love Him, wasn't interested in
Him. But God, He wouldn't let me go. He sent the gospel to
me. I didn't much like it the first several times I heard it,
but God didn't let me go. And eventually, He gave me an
ear to hear it, and a heart to love it, a heart to believe Christ.
And I believed Him. And I'd quit believing Him every
single day, but God won't let me. It's all but God, isn't it?
But God. If left to myself, I'd be condemned.
But God. Because of His work for me and
in me in Christ Jesus, I'm going to awaken Christ's likeness one
day. Oh, but God. I love that, but God. Noah was
saved by grace. And here's the third thing, Noah
was justified by faith. Verse nine says, these are the
generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect
in his generations. And Noah walked with God. Now
the Holy Spirit here calls Noah a just man. Sounds to me like
Noah was an honest man. He was an honest, upright, law-abiding
citizen. Noah, sounds to me like, tried
to to live doing the right thing. Would not surprise me to find
out that that's true. And that should be true of every
believer, shouldn't it? I mean, we ought to be honest,
law-abiding citizens, honest, upright, moral people. The way
we conduct ourselves before men's important. But when Noah, when
it talks here about Noah being just, that's not what the scripture
means. The word means he was justified. He was vindicated
by God. Not before men, he was vindicated
by God. It means he was righteous in
his nature. Now we just saw how Noah is totally depraved just
like us, just like everybody else in his day. So if Noah was
justified, he has to be justified by the Lord Jesus Christ. He
has to be. He has to be justified by Christ
obeying the law for him. He has to be justified by Christ
putting away his sin by the blood of his sacrifice. There has to
be, because that's the only way any of us can be justified. You
know, justified doesn't mean just as if I'd never seen it.
Justified means I have no sin. God says you're justified. He
sees you have no sin. Well, the only way that's possible
is by the doing and dying of Christ. He had to come as my
representative and obey the law for me. He had to die to put
all my sin away. That's the only way anybody can
be justified. And that justification that Christ
accomplished for his people is received by faith. Don't make
faith a work that, you know, now I did, I believed, I did
this, so I'm justified. Christ accomplished the justification
of his people, made them without sin. And that's received by faith,
by God given faith. I know we've seen, I mean, I
know it can be hard for a person to honestly say, I'm justified,
I have no sin. I know we've seen, all we see
about ourselves, or well, I was gonna say all we see about ourselves
is sin, but we see far too much goodness in it. But we see we've
seen, we can't deny that. But a believer's justified because
the sacrifice of Christ put our sin away, made it to not exist. So Christ is the merit of our
justification. He's the one that earned it.
And the instrument that receives it, the hand that reaches out
and receives it, is God-given faith in Christ. And if God has
saved you, you see that in yourself. Your only claim to being righteous
is in the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's accomplished for you.
All right, here's the fourth thing. Noah's faith was based
upon the word of God. Everybody knows, I mean, I'd
say almost everybody in the world knows Noah built an ark. I mean,
you talk about the name Noah, most people are gonna know Noah
built an ark. You know why Noah built an ark? He believed what
God said. Look here at verse 13. And God
said unto Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for
the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold, I'll
destroy them with the earth, make thee an ark of gopher wood.
God told Noah, I'm going to destroy this world with a flood. Now
you build an ark and you, I'll put you in it and you'll be saved
from being destroyed in the flood. And Noah believed God with the
same kind of faith by which Abraham believed God. When Abraham and
Sarah were too old to have a son, God came to Abraham and said,
Abraham, you're gonna have a son through Sarah. This one through
Hagar, he's not the son. You're gonna have a son through
Sarah. When they're too old to have any children, when it's
physically impossible for them to have any children, Abraham
believed he's gonna have a son. You know why I believed? Why
did Abraham believe the impossible? Because he believed God. Noah
believed the impossible, that God's gonna cause a flood here,
Because he believes what God said. There's absolutely no physical
evidence to be found that this is true, that God's gonna send
a flood, that it's gonna rain. But all Noah needed was the word
of God. And that's true of every believer. This word is the foundation of
everything that we believe, everything. Spiritually, we don't believe
anything unless it's plainly revealed in the word of God.
I know we'll quote some old preachers and some old commentaries and
stuff, but sometimes I just want to say, well, you know, I respect
this fella, but now give me a verse of scripture for that. Spiritually,
we don't believe anything unless it's spelled out in the word
of God. A believer doesn't believe something because we see it happen. A believer believes what we can't
see, what we can't see with the natural eye, what cannot be explained
by human intellect. The believer believes in unseen
things because we believe the word of God. We believe and we
preach what we believe and what we preach about the salvation
of our souls because God says it and not one other reason. We believe that God elected a
people. God chose a people to say before
he created anything, not because there's any good in them, but
because there's goodness in God. We believe that. You know why
we believe that? Because God says so in his word.
We believe that no one can be saved by their religious works.
You know why we believe that? Because the word of God says
so. We believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ came to save his people from their sin. And that's exactly
what he did. He saved his people from their
sin. And no matter what happens, they'll
be saved. No matter what happens, not one of them will perish.
God will see to it. Now I can't begin to think of
all the intricate actions of men in history and the turning
of the world. And I just know this, God's gonna
make it happen. He's going to cross the path
of his people with the gospel and they're going to hear and
they're going to believe they cannot perish. If Christ died for them,
they can't perish. It's impossible. They'll be brought
to faith in Christ. I have no evidence for that other
than this. The word of God says so. We believe that the blood
of Christ is all it takes to blot out our sin. How can that be? Scripture describes
our sin as a black, dark stain. How can red blood wash a black
stain white as snow? I don't know, but I believe it
because God says so. Are you washed in the blood?
If you are, you're white as snow. I believe that because the word
of God says so. I believe this. Anyone, I don't care who they
are, anyone who trusts the Lord Jesus Christ, not the Jesus of
their imagination, the Christ of this book, anyone, I don't
care who they are, young, old, I don't care who they are, if
they trust Christ as all of their salvation, they are saved. You know why I believe that?
The Word of God says so. We believe that salvation is
off the Lord. Not by man's works, not by man's
decision, not by man's want to, it's salvations of the Lord.
You know why we believe that? The Word of God says so. It took
Noah spending a few days in the belly of a whale getting vomited
out on dry ground before he finally saw salvations of the Lord. We
believe that the only reason we love God is because He first
loved us. I love Him, don't you? I love
Him. Oh, I love Him. but it's only
because he first loved us. I choose God. I mean, for what
it's worth, I choose salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. I choose
him. I choose to be saved by Christ rather than from any input
from me. I do choose that for what it's
worth, but the only reason I choose that is because he chose me first.
And I just believe that because the word of God says so. That
just doesn't make sense to me. It's because the word of God
says so. We believe that we only come to Christ because the Holy
Spirit draws us through the preaching of the gospel. It's not our decision. It's a, yes, I choose Christ.
I mean, I do, but salvation, not in my decision. It's in the
drawing power of the Holy Spirit who draws me to Christ so that
I can't go anywhere else. The only reason we believe that
the only reason that we would preach the gospel and not have
an altar call, not try to pull people down the aisle. Um, I
utterly despise going to a funeral and somebody just playing on
people's emotions and trying to get them to make a decision.
The only reason we'd be confident enough to preach the word of
God and not have an altar call, not try to pull people down the
aisle, not try to force a decision on people like you're a used
car salesman, is you believe the word of God. God's going
to call out his sheep. And he don't need me to pull
them. The spirit will draw them. You just wait. Just wait. And
if God has saved you, you just believe the word. You believe
the word of God. You believe everything it says.
You don't pick and choose. You believe it, all of it. It
may cross what you used to think before. If you were raised in
false religion or you were left to your own, you had your own
imagination of God. These things are preset in your
mind. And then God reveals Christ to you and you hear something
different in the word of God. You're just going to shuck what
you used to think and you're going to believe the word. You
may not understand how it could be so, you just do, because the
Word of God says so. That's what saving faith is.
Saving faith is simply believing the Word of God. The Word says,
thus saith the Lord. Faith says, I believe that. I
believe it. And isn't that a blessing? I
want you to think about what a blessing that this is. We don't
have to be smart enough to figure this thing out. Aren't you glad? There's a few people in this
room. You are geniuses. You'd figure it out. I wouldn't.
I wouldn't. Aren't you glad you haven't figured
it out? Just believe the word of God. He spelled it out here
plainly for you, and he's put in here everything we need to
know in order to know Christ and trust him. You know, I mean,
this is a massive, massive, massive, I mean, this book is, it's so
simple. Landry, you understand it, don't
you? You read the... Only God's word could be that
way. Isn't that something? I mean, I just, I was thinking
about that today. It just utterly thrills my soul. All we have to do is open this
book and read it and say what it says, and God's gonna save
his people. God's gonna feed and comfort his sheep. I've seen
folks in depths of despair that I really, I don't know. I don't
know the depths of it. And I've seen the word of God
comfort their heart. And it doesn't take it away,
but only God can do. Aren't you thrilled to have this
word? Preaching is the most complicated
thing in this world. But Eric, aren't you glad it's
that simple? Just the word. Knowing God is the most complicated
thing that a human being can imagine. Yeah, it's as simple
as believing this one. Aren't you thankful? All right,
here's the fifth thing. Noah's faith acted. Look over
at verse 22, Genesis 6. Thus did Noah, according to all
that God commanded him, so did he. The Lord told Noah he's going
to destroy the world with a flood because man sinned. He said,
Noah, you found grace in my eyes. I'm gonna give you these instructions
to build an ark. And you build this ark and you
get in it and you'll be saved. It's gonna be the only place
of refuge from my wrath on the face of the whole earth. Now
you think about Noah at this time. Nobody had ever seen it
rain before. The earth was watered with a
mist, a dew that came up from the earth. Nobody had ever seen
it rain before. Nobody even knew water could fall from the sky.
They didn't know that. There was no great body of water
in the area where Noah lived. There are no shipyards. We went
to the beach on vacation last year. You know one thing I noticed
around that place? There are shipyards. There's
big places to put boats. There's big places to store boats.
We don't have that here. You know why? There's no ocean
here. Shipyards are built down by the ocean. There wasn't an
ocean there. No shipyards. because there wasn't
any place around Noah where you could float a boat. Yet, Noah
got busy building a boat on dry land with no water in sight,
simply because God told him to. The writer to the Hebrews said,
Noah moved with fear. He moved with reverence and built
an ark because he believed God. And that's a very good picture
of saving faith. Saving faith believes God and
acts on it, and acts on it. Saving faith is not a dead, lifeless,
academic thing. Like, I believe what I see in
this book like I believe in what I see in an anatomy book or science
book or something. It's not just, yeah, I see that.
Faith acts. You know how I know Noah believed
God? He had faith. He acted. He built
an ark. Now, none of us have ever seen
the Lord Jesus in the flesh. We haven't seen heaven or hell.
We haven't seen the Lamb's book of life. We've not, like the
Apostle Paul, have been taken into paradise and come back and
tell you, it's not possible for me to tell you what I saw. We
haven't seen that. We haven't seen the sacrifice of Christ.
I've not seen him sacrifice and his blood dripping down his body
to the ground. I've not seen him cry out, it's
finished. I've not seen the judgment seat
of Christ. You can't see election. Grace,
mercy, and peace, those are things that are unseen. Yet saving faith
believes all those things and hangs my soul upon them. See,
it's not just believing that they're so, it's hanging your
soul on it. Faith acts. Faith acts because
of the person that we believe. You say, well, how does faith
act? Well, it acts in this way. It casts all the responsibility
of my salvation on Christ, and I believe He's the Savior. I believe He's able to save me.
Faith acts by me not trying to add my works in order to help
Christ save me, make myself more saved, more savable. Saving faith
just rests in Christ. Saving faith acts by resting,
and I'll illustrate that in this way. Saving faith acts by resting. Noah was saved in the ark. Noah wasn't saved by treading
water sometimes, and sometimes being in the ark. Noah was delivered
from the flood 100% by being in the ark. The believer
is saved 100% by the Lord Jesus Christ. And
saving faith acts by resting. I don't go out and tread water
and try to do some work on my own, you know. I'll lighten the
load on the ark and tread water for a while. Saving faith acts
by resting in Christ alone. Then six, Noah's faith was confessed
publicly. Look at 2 Peter 2. 2 Peter 2. Verse five. And spare not the
old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, eighth generation,
a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the
world of the ungodly. Now here, Peter calls Noah a
preacher of righteousness. Here's how Noah confessed his
faith in Christ. Here's how he confessed his belief
in the word of God. Noah built a boat where everybody
could see him doing it. Can't you imagine the raised
eyebrows? Noah, what are you doing? I mean, people mocked
him. I mean, I can just, Noah, what
are you doing? But by building that ark, he
was a preacher of righteousness. Now he was a preacher of righteousness,
and I'm sure in this way, he told people the flood's coming.
He told people what God said. He told people there's deliverance
in this ark. He preached righteousness, but
he also did it by his actions in building that ark in dry ground. And Noah trusted the deliverance
of his life, not to his boat building, not his obedience,
but the boat that God told him to build. See, this thing wasn't
done in a corner. He was doing it very, very publicly.
And the point of all that is this. Saving faith in Christ
has to be confessed publicly. But God does something so wonderful
inside of us It's just got to leak out. It's just got to. The
best illustration I can think of is life. Life is the evidence
of itself. I mean, a baby when it's born,
if life is in that baby, life's going to be the evidence. It's
going to be evident in the baby crying and the baby moving and
the baby growing. Life is the evidence of itself.
You just see it. Genuine faith. Genuine faith
in Christ is seen in the life of the believer by our attitudes,
by our conduct. I know our conduct's not perfect,
but it's in the attitude. It's a life lived looking to
Christ. The Lord commands his people to confess him publicly
in believer's baptism. And faith acts, faith obeys. And you think what a joy that
it is. that the Lord commands his people.
I mean, his commandments are not grievous. What a commandment,
what a joy to be able to confess Christ and say, this is how God
saved me. This is my confession of my hope
of salvation that believers baptism is a picture of. It pictures
the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That's my salvation,
that's how God saved me. And a person I know can be saved
without being baptized. I believe that, I mean, I know
that's so. The thief on the cross only,
Noah's a pretty good evidence of that, isn't he? But I tell
you this, I wouldn't give a plug nickel for anybody's profession
of faith that refuses to be baptized. And you think, I only be baptized
once. I mean, I love the Lord. I like
to confess Him publicly all the time. You can. You can. You can live your life following
Him and worshiping Him. Come out here on a Wednesday
night when so much else is going on. That's a confession of your
faith in Christ. I need to hear Him. I need to
worship Him. I need to hear His word. Faith in Christ will be confessed. Here's the last thing. Noah was
saved in the ark. Now nobody was saved by looking
at the ark. A lot of people looked at that
boat Noah was building. and they drowned in the flood
because you had to be in the ark. Nobody was saved by trying
to hang on to the outside of the ark. You had to be in the
ark. Nobody was saved by knowing all
the engineering that went into that boat. There are books and
books and books and books written just for your information. Don't
read them. Let me just tell you that this is so about the engineering
of this ark and how all the animals could fit and what happened here.
Yeah, you missed the point. I just see that stuff. You missed
the point. The engineering of it doesn't
matter. How it all worked to get the animals fit in there,
I'm just telling you they did. Thank God said they did. Elephants and giraffes and lions
and tigers and bears and birds and ants, they all fit in there.
Termites got in there and didn't eat dark. I mean, they just did
because that's what... That's not the point. Understanding
The physical engineering of it's not the point. You can understand
that perish in the flood. You had to be in the ark. And
you know what? You could have not the foggiest
idea how any of this is going to work and be saved from the
flood if you're in the ark. Childlike faith. Childlike faith
just says, well, my daddy says, get on that boat and I'll be
saved. All right, I'll go in. That's faith. See, salvation
is had by resting. in Christ. It's by being in Christ
and staying in Christ. Nobody survived that flood by
getting in the ark and then later on jumping out. No, they stayed
in. They rested in Christ. Now I
would imagine, scripture's pretty silent on this, but I would imagine
that there were a lot of tough days for Noah and his family
in that ark. Wouldn't you? You just imagine
when that thing first started. The storm started raging, the
rain falling, the fountains of the earth opened up, and everybody
you ever knew is dying. There you are. The storm is raging,
that boat gets lifted up and starts floating all over the
place, and you think, what's going on? What
kind of world are we in? After a while, that place smelled. I mean, even without the animals,
I mean, you know, if you're not going to wash regularly, the
place is going to start to smell. You know, maybe it was kind of
dark. Maybe it got uncomfortable. Maybe
Noah and his sons, maybe they were outdoorsmen. They spent
a lot of time walking and hunting and fishing and farming and things.
And now they're just confined to that boat and they just, oh,
I'd like to exercise. There's probably work to be done
on that ark. I mean, I don't know what it was all like, but
I do know this. It wasn't smooth sailing every
day. But you know one thing Noah never did on that ark? He never
had to swim. He never had to tread water.
He never had to hang on to a little piece of a lifeboat. He just
stayed in the ark and trusted that ark is going to carry him
through to dry ground someday when God makes it, because that's
what God said. He relied on the ark to keep him alive. That saving
faith is being in Christ. And I'll tell you, there's a
lot for the believer to do in the service of our God over the
course of our lifetime, on the course of our journey home. And
there's a lot of dark It's stormy days, a lot of tough days. It's
not smooth sailing very often. But you know one thing the believer
never has to do? We never have to establish our
own righteousness. And when those dark days come,
it feels like it's knocking the legs out from under you and the
boat's rocking and you feel, you never have to keep yourself
saved. You never have to act just right
in order to keep your righteousness. In that way, the believer rests
in Christ, relying on Christ to save me and to keep me saved,
to put me in Christ and keep me in there, to keep me from
jumping out. That's the believer's biography. That's the faith. That's the way God saves his
people. Everything that I do, I do resting in Christ and relying
on Christ alone. about anything I do, that's saving
faith. All right, let's bow together.
Our Father, we thank you for your word, how we thank you for
salvation that's in our Lord Jesus Christ, and how we thank
you for God-given faith, that we don't have to figure this
out, we don't have to conjure up faith on our own, but that
you give it to your people, and it's sufficient. It's sufficient
to save, it's sufficient to enable us to see Christ, Right now,
we see through a glass darkly, but by God's grace, we see. Our
faith seems weak, but by God's grace, it's faith that believes
to Christ and clings to him, and he's all we need. Father,
how we thank you. I pray you'd make your word effectual,
cause it to bring glory to your name, cause it to reach the hearts
of your people, to cause us to rejoice and rest in Christ our
Savior. It's in his precious name we
pray, amen. All right, Sean. Okay, if you
would, turn to song number 359 and stand as we sing. My faith looks up to thee. My faith looks up to Thee, Thou
Lamb of Calvary, Savior Divine. Now hear me when I pray, take
all my sin away. Oh, let me from this day be wholly
Thine. May Thy rich grace impart Strength
to my fainting heart, My zeal inspire As Thou hast died for
me, O may my love to thee, pure, warm, and changeless be, a living
fire. While life's dark maze I tread,
And griefs around me spread, Be Thou my guide. Bid darkness turn to day, Wipe
sorrows, tears away, Nor let me ever stray from thee aside. When end's life's transient dream,
When death's cold, sullen stream, Shall o'er me roll, Bless, Savior,
then in love, fear and distrust remove. O bear me safe above
a ransomed soul.