Turn back to Genesis chapter
6. Genesis chapter 6. I titled this message, Marvelous
Grace. Marvelous Grace. Noah found grace in the eyes. He found favor. in the eyes of
the Lord. Over in chapter 5, in verse 30,
Lamech, Noah's father, lived after he beget Noah 595 years
and beget sons and daughters. Where are they? He had a lot of sons and daughters,
but one is mentioned. One is mentioned. One found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. Let us look at some verses here
tonight. There is no way to bring out
all that's in these verses. You can't live long enough. A
man cannot live long enough to bring out all that's in this
book, let alone a chapter. Now we've been going through
Genesis here. The first two chapters we saw
creation. Now that God made everything
and looked at all that he made and it was good. And then we
looked at the fall of our first parents. That took one chapter. And now we come to this chapter
six. on the flood, and it'll take
up the next four chapters. And we're just going to look
at part of this first chapter tonight. Now, he says that men
began to multiply upon the face of the earth, and the ones he's
talking about here, I believe, are the descendants of Cain. They began to multiply. The descendants
of Cain began to cover the face of the earth and multiply, and
the sons of God," that's not angels, that's the sons of Seth,
as those who are born from the lineage of Seth, they began to
look upon the daughters of Cain. Cain, you know, was cursed. Cain
murdered Abel and was cast out. And the sons of Seth who followed
after true They kept to the worship of God. They began to look at the daughters
of Cain. There's the lust of the flesh. They began to desire them. They began to marry and choose
whom they would. No doubt they left good counsel.
And they made bad marriages. bad marriages. They saw the daughters
of Cain, that they were fair and said they were beautiful,
and they married them. I thought today as I read that,
I thought there's a lot of ugly people that live in pretty bodies. A lot of ugly people live in
pretty bodies. And they began to lead the true
worship of God. They began to go after their
flesh and their desires, the desires of the mind, as it says
over in Ephesians chapter 2. They pursued the right way, the
way they were taught. They pursued the right way and
they went the way of all flesh. That's what happened. You know,
the scriptures warn They warn us about being unequally yoked
with unbelievers. And this is what happened. A
good apple never makes a bad apple good. When I was a boy
growing up on the farm, we would grow a lot of potatoes and we
would put them in a cellar. Before we ever had the cellar,
we put them in this house that was on the farm. And some of
them would begin to rot. And Dad would make me and James
go in there and separate those rotten potatoes. If you've ever
smelled rotten potatoes, man, it would make you sick. And he
would have us to go in there and we'd have to wipe off the
ones that it even touched. The ones that even touched the
rotten ones. You'd have to clean it off because it was going to
contaminate it and it would rot. I never saw a rotten potato become
good because it was in a pile of good potatoes. Never, never. And this is what happened. They
connected up with the daughters of Cain, which were taught, they
were taught, well, like Cain, to offer the sacrifices of works.
They offered works. They worshipped God. As God prescribed,
they offered their works. They went their own way. And
that's what happened. That's what happened. And when
this happened, God said, My spirit shall not always strive with
man. And this speaks of God's long suffering with sinners.
And here's what He's saying. There comes a time when the door
of mercy will be shut. My spirit will not always strive
with man. There comes a time when the door
of mercy will be shut, just like the door of the ark when it was
finished. And it was time for judgment.
That door was shut and no one, no one was let in. No one after
that was brought in. No one. And you know, I was thinking
about this today, you know when the flood came and the flood
started coming up, the water started coming up from the deep
and the rain coming down, you know those who heard Noah started
running to the boat. You know they did. Too late. Long suffering was over with. The door of mercy had been shut. I have no doubt. I have no doubt
there was people hanging on the side of that ark, trying to hang
on and save their lives. But the wrath of God lasted too
long. It outlasted them. And it was shut. And that's why
he's saying, my spirit shall not always strive with man. Not always. Like Esau, who could
find no place of repentance, it says, though he sought it
bitterly with tears. He sold his birthright as the
firstborn, as the priest of the home, as the leader of the home
and the leader of worship. He sold that. It meant nothing
to him. And then one day, it came time
for reckoning, and he wanted it. And it says that he could
find no place of repentance. He could not change his father's
mind. He couldn't change his mind.
There was no place of repentance. The door was shut. Over with. Though he sought it, it said,
bitterly with tears. Yet God is longsuffering. He
is long-suffering. He says, man has a hundred and
twenty years. He said, man's days, his days
shall be a hundred and twenty years. Look at that in verse
3. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with
man, for that he also is flesh. Yet his days shall be a hundred
and twenty years. Never thought of this before.
All times I've read this. I'm reading this today. This
represents the long-suffering of God. God said, My spirit shall
not always strive with man. And man's year is going to be
120 years. Noah preached for 120 years from
that point before the flood came. God gave 120 years. He gave a space of repentance
there, and not one of them repented. Not one. Because repentance,
like faith, is also a work of grace. It's also a work of grace. Noah priested them for 120 years,
and they wanted nothing to do with it. They thought he was
a fanatic. No doubt they thought he was
a fanatic. And 120 years went by, and God
did just as He said He would. He brought that flood. Now it
says that man, in verse 5, as man began to multiply, so did
sin. So did sin. You multiply men,
you multiply sin. Man did not evolute. I heard
someone say this one time and I've never forgotten it. He did
not evolute, he devoluted. He didn't get any better. He
devoluted what he did. Time doesn't make us better.
What time does is reveal how much worse men are. That's what
it reveals. And notice what God saw in a
description He gives of humanity. You know, things are as God sees
them. That's the way things are. It's
the way God sees them. It's the way God declares them
to be. That's the way it is. It says that wickedness was great
in the earth. Wickedness. You see, God looks
on the heart. Every imagination He goes beyond
just the actions here. He goes to the heart. He goes
to the thought. He goes to the seed of the action.
He said every imagination, just the very seed, the very thought
of an action is evil. And that continually, he says,
no rest. Man goes to bed and he thinks
of an invention and how he can fulfill the lust of his flesh.
He tries to think of ways that he can get what he wants. It's
continual. He said his thoughts are evil.
That's the way God sees it. And that's the way it is. That's
the way it is. We can fool each other. Men and
women can fool each other. We cannot fool God. God says,
I know the very thoughts of men's heart and it's evil. And he said
it's that way continually. And all flesh, over in verse
12 says, has corrupted itself. The worship of God had become
corrupted. They still worship, but it was
corrupt worship. It was a corrupt worship. That's
what had happened. And that's a result also of these
corrupt marriages. When the sons of Seth married
the daughters of Cain, they didn't go back to true worship. They
followed them into a corrupt worship. That's the way it happens. That's the way it happens. And
violence, you know the scripture says, as in the days of Noah,
so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man.
I'm telling you, violence, have we lived in a more violent day?
This violence, people angry, I tell you, it's not, you go
down the road, I had a lady not too long ago
flip me off at the light just because she sat there too long
and then she started to move and I started to go around her
because she was sitting there and angry. She just flipped me off and gave
me the gas and took off down the road and caused all kinds
of problems. Anger. Anger. Violence, he said, filled the
earth. Men began to fight over territories. They began to fight
over their rights. They began to fight over this
and over that and began to murder one another. It was violent.
It was a violent time. Violent. This is a description
of all humanity. This is a description of humanity. This is what God sees when He
looks down on the human race. He said this is the human race. This is what has happened as
a result of the fall of Adam and Eve. This is what's happened.
This is what's become of the human race. This is the very
nature of humanity. It's only the sovereign constraint
of God that it's not a lot worse than what it is. I heard Henry
say one time, and I've said this several times, mentioned it,
don't confuse sovereign constraint for personal holiness. God constrains
men. He constrains men and women. The Scripture says there is none
good, no, not one. And I wrote out by that verse,
even me. Even me. Then there's something here in verse
6 and 7 that is the first time it's mentioned in the Word of
God. It repented the Lord. The first time repentance is
mentioned in the Word of God, it has to do with God. He said,
it repented me. In verse 6, it repented the Lord
that He had made man 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
it repenteth me that I have made them." This is the first time
this is mentioned in the Bible. What is repentance? What is it? Well, it is an absolute, complete
turning from one way to another. It is an absolute change of mind. Now listen, we know We know that
God changes not. I am the Lord. I change not. That's why you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. We know that God is immutable.
He absolutely does not change. But He speaks in language that
you and I can understand. He's speaking in language that
we can understand. We know what that means. We know
what repentance means. A believer knows what it means.
You know what it means by experience? You know what it means. So when
he says it repents me, he's saying this, I will not, I absolutely
will not tolerate sin. God cannot look upon sin with
indifference. He cannot just let sin go on
without sooner or later punishing it, taking care of it, checking
it. So he said, I'm going to destroy
man. I'm going to bring him into judgment for his sin. Sin must
be dealt with. It has to be dealt with. And
it'll be dealt with either in my substitute or it'll be dealt
with in me. God must deal with sin. And that's
why he said, it repents me that I've made man and I'm going to
destroy him for his sins. Now, right in the midst of this,
description of sin, of wickedness, of coming judgment, that God's
going to bring a flood right in the midst of this. Another
word is mentioned for the first time in the Word of God, and
that's grace. That's grace. I tell you, I'm
sure glad he didn't stop at verse 7. I'm glad he didn't stop there. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah
found unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor with God. Everyone whom God saves finds
the same thing. When the greatness of wickedness
is revealed, when God reveals the very wretchedness of man,
that's when He reveals grace. That's when He revealed His grace. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Grace preserved this man in that
wicked generation. God by His grace kept Noah from
being like the rest of that wicked generation. It was grace that
kept Noah on the right way. It was grace that kept Noah in
the right worship. It was grace that kept Noah.
Noah didn't keep himself and he didn't keep himself in grace.
We don't keep ourselves in grace. Grace keeps us. It keeps us. It was grace that kept Noah.
Grace would not let him go. This is beyond imagination. The
Lord is going to destroy man whom He has created. And man
has covered the face of the earth. I figure there's probably close
to a billion people. I was reading somewhere, and
I tried to find where I read it, and I didn't go back and
try to do the math, but it was something like 1600 years after
the fall of Adam The flood came at this time. Millions upon millions
of people. Millions upon millions. This
is mind-boggling to me. One man. I don't know anything about his
wife and his family. They were taken on the ark with
him. But it only mentions Noah. Noah found grace out of millions
and millions and millions of people. One man found grace. One man. Oh, I'm telling you,
if God has given you grace, if He has shown grace to you, I
don't know of anything that would be more humbling. Look how many
have been passed by. And they say, whoop, put your
name right there. Put your name right there. Mike
found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Put your name right there. Man. Noah found grace. I'll tell you this, Noah found
grace not because he was a just man. I read that today. I read someone today, reading
someone, Noah found grace because he was a just man. No, no, no. He didn't find grace because
he was a just man and because he walked with God. No, he walked
with God and he was a just man because he found grace in the
house of the Lord. God made him that way. Noah was justified
by the grace of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, just
like you and I. Grace is first. Grace is first. And it says he was perfect in
his generation. Does this mean that he did not
sin? No, if that was so, you wouldn't need to talk about grace.
We don't need to talk about grace if he didn't sin. If Noah found
grace, that tells me this. He was ungodly and needed grace. That tells me he was a sinner
and needed grace. They wouldn't be talking about
it. Noah found grace. God made him
godly. He made him godly. It means this. He was upright. He was sincere. And he was conscious. This caught my attention today.
I was reading this somewhere. I don't remember where. It said
he was conscious. One of the old writers said he
was conscious of God's presence. He didn't just go around talking
about God as if He was somebody in a far-off country. He was
conscious every day of God's presence. And it says that Noah
walked with God just like his great-granddaddy Enoch. It says
Enoch walked with God and he was not because God took him.
And the reason God took Enoch at that time and not Noah was
because Enoch finished his course. When you finish your course,
God will take you. Paul said, I have finished my
course. Now I'm ready to depart. Noah walked with God, but God
had not finished with him yet. He's going to build an ark. He's
going to build something that's going to represent the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what he's going to do.
But he was a perfect man. He was upright. He was sincere.
And he was conscious of God's presence. And he walked. In the
midst of that generation. And he's the only one that speaks
that he found grace. Everyone else is perverted. In their religion, in their worship,
had to be. Had to be. But you know what the Scripture
tells us over in Titus? Over in Titus chapter 2, it says
the grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness. The grace of God that Noah had
found in the eyes of the Lord taught him, taught him daily,
daily to deny ungodliness. It taught him to deny their evil
practices. It taught him to deny their evil
worship. It taught him to stay on the right way. The grace of
God taught him that. Boy, if you stay on the right
way and you stay true to the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the grace of God taught you that. No one was a sinner like us, or it would never have been mentioned
that he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Grace is for the
guilty. Anybody guilty? Grace is for
the guilty. Noah walked with God, Noah believed
God, Noah worshiped God as God had prescribed, and Noah obeyed
God. He told him to build an ark,
and it says he did. God said a flood is coming. It
never even rained. They didn't know what a flood
was. He said, I'm going to destroy man with the earth. I'm going
to bring a flood. I want you to build an ark. And
I'm going to tell you just exactly how to build it. And Noah did
as the Lord said. Never seen these things? Not
at all. The sun shined every day. But
he believed God. Evidence of grace. Faith is an
evidence of grace. Now, Noah, who found grace in the
eyes of the Lord, was chosen by God in that generation to
be his, to be his. You're mine. I'm going to keep
you. You're mine. I'm not going to
let you go. I'm not going to let you go to that generation.
I'm not going to destroy you. You're mine. Election's all of
grace. It says over in Romans 11, there
is a remnant according to what? The election of grace. And Noah
was called by the grace of God. Chosen by the grace of God. Called
by the grace of God. Just like you were. You weren't
asking God to call you. I was not asking God to call
me. I wasn't looking for God to call me. Called by grace. Oh, we were
going the other way. We were going our own way. God
called by grace. And there are four or five things,
and I'll close here, that I want us to remember about the grace
of God. And I got this from Henry today.
I got this from a message I listened to today. And it was good. And I'm going to pass it on. First is this, grace is eternal. The grace of God that we receive
in time is eternal. It was given to us in Christ
before the world began. And then secondly, it's sovereign.
It is sovereign. God saves whom He will by His
grace. It's not God giving any man,
any woman a chance. as God being merciful. Yeah,
I'll be gracious to whom I'll be gracious, he said. And then
it's free. It's free. Don't pay for it. Don't bring
any money. Don't give a certain amount of
offering to get it. It's free. And it's always in Christ. Always in the Lord Jesus Christ.
But here's another one that I wrote down. It's always sufficient. It's always sufficient. No matter
what the hour brings, what the need is, it's always sufficient.
Now, we'll turn to a few Scriptures here before we close. Look at 2 Timothy 1.9. 2 Timothy
1.9. Paul says, let me start reading
verse 8, Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our
Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us
and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to
us. It was given to us when? When
was grace given to you? Well, it was given us in Christ
Jesus, that's where it was given, before
the world began. God took care of you in Christ,
this is beyond imagination, but He took care of you in Christ
before He created the first thing. David said, Thy thoughts to us
cannot be reckoned up in order. That God will think upon me.
That God will think upon you. You believe the gospel. Before the world began. And His
grace was put upon you then. In eternity. It's eternal. It's
eternal. It's sovereign. It's in Christ and it's free.
Now look over to 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians 2.13 But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning, before the world was, chosen
you to salvation. He chose you to be saved. He
chose you to be His through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. All before the world was, He
chose you. Loved you. Set His affections upon you.
Put you in His Son. Took care of you. Go over to
Galatians. Over in here in Galatians chapter
1. I think it's chapter 1. I wrote
the right one down. Paul says in verse 15, When it pleased God, here's the
sovereignty of it. Here's the sovereignty of it.
When it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by His grace. When it pleased God. He chose
me, loved me, separated me. Who separated me from my mother's
womb and called me by His grace. And one other one, Ephesians
chapter 1, verse 3 and 4. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. It is eternal. It is sovereign. It is free. It is always in Christ. And over in 2 Corinthians chapter
12 and verse 9, it is always sufficient. Always
sufficient. If you ever get to the place
where you feel like you're not going to make it, just remember
this. My grace, he said, is always
sufficient. Let me see if I wrote that down
right. 2 Corinthians 12. Paul said, Unless I should be
exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations,
There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of
Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For
this thing I besought the Lord thrice. I prayed about it three
times, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace
is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. And Paul said, Most gladly, therefore,
will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. But His grace, for whatever the hour, God said
through Paul here, He said, My grace is sufficient. It's enough. It's enough. We don't need signs
and wonders. We need grace. We need grace. Everything concerning us in Christ
is by grace. We start by grace and we will
end this race by grace. You know, Paul said in one place,
he said, I am what I am by the grace of God. And we are kept by the grace
of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he will not,
he will not let you go. You will not taste of the judgment
of God. but of the mercies of God. We
will arrive in glory by grace, and we will be displayed throughout
eternity as trophies of God's marvelous grace. In Ephesians
2, 7, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches
of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. I'm looking at trophies of God's
grace, trophies of his grace. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Marvelous, marvelous grace. Now, the next time, Lord willing,
we'll pick up on salvation revealed. He reveals to Noah. When Noah
found grace in his sight, you know what he revealed to Noah?
Salvation. The ark. Noah, you're going to
build this ark. And then God put him in the ark.
He said, Noah, come into the ark. We'll see salvation revealed
the next time, Lord willing. Next Wednesday.