I want to read for you the seventh
chapter of the book of Genesis. And the Lord said unto Noah,
Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen
righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt
take to thee by sevens the male and his female. and of the beasts
that are not clean by two, the male and his female, of fowls
also of the air by sevens, the male and the female, to keep
seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For yet seven days,
and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty
nights, and every living substance that I have made will I destroy
from off the face of the And Noah did according to all that
God commanded him. And Noah was six hundred years
old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. And Noah
went in and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with
him into the ark because of the waters of the flood, of clean
beasts and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls and of
everything that creepeth upon the earth. There went in two
and two under Noah into the ark. the male and the female, as God
had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven
days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the 600th
year of Noah's life, in the second month and the 17th day of the
month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep
broken up and the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain
was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. The same day
entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Jephthah, the sons of Noah,
and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with him into
the ark. They and every beast after his
kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every
fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they went
in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh were in
as the bread of life. And they that went in, went in
male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him, and
the Lord shut him in. And the flood was forty days
upon the earth, and the waters increased and bared up the ark,
and it was lifted up above the earth. And the waters prevailed
and were increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark went upon
the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly
upon the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven
were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the
water prevail, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died
that moved upon the earth, both of the fowl and of the cattle
and of the beasts, and of every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the
breath of life of all that was in dry land died. And every living
substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground,
both man and cattle and creeping things and the fowl of heaven.
And they were destroyed from the earth. And Noah only remained
alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters
prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days." Now, the Ark
of Noah. very clearly to me, pictures
the gospel of Christ set before a condemned world. Very clearly
pictures this. He talks about this over in Isaiah
when he talks about that time of trouble that falls upon man
for just a moment, he said, for just a moment. And then he calls
him back into peace and he says, these are as the waters of Noah
unto me. It very clearly pictures the
gospel of Christ set before a condemned world, the gospel that presents
a body into which God will gather all things he has purposed to
save into this ark. This ark pictures the gospel
of Christ to which chosen sinners are called and compelled to enter
in. There was an open door set forth
on that ark. I don't think Noah said, No,
you can't go. God didn't mention you going.
I don't think he said that. That door was open. That door
was open. No more went in than what God
said would go in from the beginning. But the door was open. The door
was open. It says, The gospel of Christ
to which chosen sinners are called and compelled to enter in a body
prepared by God's design and for His glory. to deliver us
both from this present world, this present evil world, and
from that wrath which is to come. And while others struggled with
an overwhelming scourge of waters, eight souls were led into an
ark of grace and found peace and assurance and preservation
of life inside this ark. And they that entered into the
ark who passed through that deluge saw when the waters abated that
the world they come to know was no longer here. They didn't see
this world the same after the flood as they viewed this world
before it. It was a different world. They
had different eyes. They had a different mind. They
were of different mind toward these things. The world that
then was, was no more. In Genesis 7, verse 23, it says,
And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the
face of the ground, both man and cattle, creeping things,
and the fowls of heaven. They were destroyed from the
earth, and Noah only remained alive the day that went with
him into the ark. On the other side, eight souls
in an ark. My subject tonight is this, a
lively hope or dying sinners. Now, that is what was set before
this world. One hope. One ark. You think about that. One ark. God has set a time,
determined, will not be moved from it, will not second-guess
Himself, will not be persuaded otherwise. He has set a day. to judge this world, and he judged
it. And yet he provided an ark to
preserve all that he intended to preserve. In the book of Acts,
in chapter 17, when Paul preached there on Mars Hill, when he got
done with his message, he told the people there, after telling
them who this living God is, he said, God, God has set a day
in which he will judge this world in righteousness by that man.
By that man whom he hath ordained, he is going to judge this world
in perfect righteousness. Whereunto he is given assurance
unto all men, in that he took that same man by which he had
judged this world, and raised him from the dead. And this is
what I see in this ark. I see this one man. I see this
one body set before all men wherein God would preserve life. And it's for sinners. That's what I want you to see
tonight. I want you to look at this ark. This was an ark designed
for sinners. And for the life of me, I read
four or five books today, and they all wanted to make something
out of this first verse here where it says, For thee have
I seen righteous before me in this generation. Well, yes, he
was righteous. God chose him in Christ that
he might be righteous. All God's elect are righteously
chosen in Christ. That's why He chose them and
put them in Christ before the world was, that we might be holy
and without blame before Him in love. Yes, He was righteous,
but not by His own righteousness. And they went on and on and on
trying to say how that they singled Him out because He was a more
moral man and more He was a man who kept himself unspotted from
that generation and walked a walk not equal to theirs. I've got
no problem with his walk. I know that he walked differently
than these men. I know that his mind was a mind
of Christ. I know that this man heard the
Gospel and that God came to him and gave him instruction to build
this ark. That he was a preacher of God,
a preacher of righteousness. We're told that in the New Testament.
I know that. But that's not why God saved
him. God saved him in one sense before
the world began, when he put him in Christ, when he appointed
for him a surety, and when he did all these things. He saved
him then. He saved him when he appeared
to him and told him that he was going to judge this world. But
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Where did he find
it? He didn't find it in him, he found it in the eyes of the
Lord. That's where he found that grace. And I can't find any basis. I see this when we get into Moses. All of Israel talk about their
morality and they talk about their walk of life and all of
these things warranting some kind of a favor with God. And religion today talks about
it, but I cannot from the life of me. I've read this book from
cover to cover. I can't find any basis for that
or any reason why people should think that. Have you ever seen
anything in here that would lead you to believe that by something
you do, God is going to show you favor? I've read this thing
cover to cover. It's just not in here. I can't
find any basis in the Word of God for any man to find a hope
in his own righteousness. Number one, the Word of God which
tells us this, it says that by one man sin entered into the
world and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, the evidence being that all had sinned. Where is the
righteousness in the man that has sinned? He's sinned. He's
not righteous. You see what I'm saying? He's
not righteous. The Word of God tells us this. There's none righteous. Now,
if there's none righteous, why do we think we have a hope in
our righteousness? And I could just go on and on
and on with the examples from the Word of God. He says this,
Paul did, he said that all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. You can't hope in a righteousness
and be a sinner unless that righteousness is not yours. Yet Israel, after
all of that, Israel perished in ignorance going about to establish
their own righteousness. Why? Because they were ignorant
of the righteousness of God. Every picture of the gospel of
Christ and his work of redemption is very clearly designed for
sinners. When you talk about the tabernacle,
there are sacrifices, there is a priesthood, that whole thing
is designed for sinners. Righteous men don't need a sacrifice.
Righteous men don't need a high priest. Only sinners need those things.
A righteous man didn't need an ark. He wasn't going to destroy
the righteous man, but he said the righteous man over in the
Psalms had disappeared from the earth. He's not there anymore.
He's not there. In every picture of the gospel
of Christ, this work of redemption designed for sinners. The Pharisees
asked the Lord's disciples. I saw him over there, and he
was sitting down supper or lunch or whatever the occasion was.
And he was sitting there and there was some publicans there,
questionable men there, maybe some drunkards, whatever. He
was sitting there. They called them publicans and
sinners. Why does your master eat with publicans and sinners?
Why does he defile himself? That's what they were asking.
And the Lord picked up on the conversation. And he answered. And he said, David, behold, need
not a physician, but they that are sick. A well man don't need
a doctor. I've been one since I've been
here. But I'll go when I get sick. I'll go see one. He said, you're going to learn
what this means. And this is what this world don't know. He
said, you're going to learn what this means. He said, I will have
mercy and not sacrifice. You're going to learn what that
means. For I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance." The ark was a vessel given of God's design to die
in sinners. They were dying. They were just
as dead as everybody else. Just as dead as everybody else.
I guarantee you Noah's mind was no different than my mind, no
different than yours, no different than anybody else's. He was born
of his father Adam, just like every other man and every other
woman. This was a vessel designed for sinners, a vessel to save
them from the wrath of God and the evil of this world. And when
we talk about evil, and I want you to understand this, we're
talking about the evil of this world. I'm not so much talking
about the state of this world's outward morality. I'm talking
about the evil that's in man by nature. It can camouflage
itself to where you can't see it. It just depends on the day. If the day is very religious,
then the sinner will be very religious. But he's just as big
a sinner, if not bigger. Those scribes and Pharisees and
among those Gentiles, those drunkards and things, they had everything
in the world to talk about them. Rome was one of the filthiest,
immoral governments that's ever been on this earth. And here
they were, and he was down there among them. Paul was out there
preaching to them. But here's these religious men
over here, and they're all religious. And Paul said, there's no difference
between them and us. Don't you know the folks got
upset? But Paul wasn't talking about their outward morality.
Paul was talking about the heart, what's in here. And that's what
the Lord was talking about. What God saw in man back there
in Genesis 6, 5, is that the wickedness of man, that is mankind,
was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart, now listen, was only evil continually. That's what it says. Only evil
continually. I don't care what his thought.
If he had a religious thought, it was evil. a thought to go commit adultery,
it was evil. It didn't matter what it was,
because his heart was evil, and it polluted everything that came
out of it. In Matthew chapter 15 and verse
19, if you are taking note, the Lord said to his disciples, Out
of the heart proceed evil thoughts. Evil thoughts. Have a thought, it ain't up to
snuff, is how we like to say it. He said it's evil. I'm telling
you with God, it's either good or it's evil. It ain't pretty
good. That rich young ruler come to
Christ and he said, good master, and the Lord just stopped him
in his tracks. He said, let's start right here. Why callest
thou me good? You call it me good because you
heard by some good things that I did. how I'd healed the sick
or fed the hungry. That's what you're calling good.
He said there's none good but God. Now, am I God good? If not, don't call me good master.
Good master. And then in Romans chapter 3,
verse 9, Paul asks this question. Did I quote that Scripture? Let
me finish this Scripture here in Matthew 15, 19. The Lord said,
Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, theft, false witness, and blasphemies. And that these
were the things that defile the man. It's what comes out of his
heart that defiles him. And then if you'll turn with
me to Romans chapter 3, I want you to see something here. You're
well aware of these Scriptures, I know. But I want you to see and to
think about something here that maybe you've never thought about
before. We're in Romans chapter 3 and verse 9. Now, Paul has
spent an entire chapter in chapter 1 talking about the Gentiles
to whom he was sent to be a missionary, to these Romans. And he talks
about how God's light came to him in the light of creation
and conscience and all those things. You're well aware of
what that chapter teaches. In chapter 2, he talks about
the Jews. He said, you are as guilty as
they are because your light is more than theirs, and yet you
do the same things they do. Then he comes down here to verse
9 and he asks this question. He says, what then? Are we better
than they? God gave us some Scriptures and
gave us some light and did some miracles among us and sent some
preachers among us and sent some teachers and prophets among us. He has done all these things.
Does that make us better than the Gentiles? Are we any better
than they? And for all our religious practices
and sacrifices and all these things, our prayers and holy
days and all these things that we observe, special dress, we
pray in the marketplaces, we do all these things, we wash
our hands before we eat, all these things that they did, all
these customs. He said, are we better off than they are? No. No. And no wise. Not in any wise. No matter how you want to do
it, in no wise, for we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles,
that they are all under sin. They are under the curse of it. He said, your sins have separated
between you and your God. We are under the curse of sin.
We are under the influence of it. Paul said, when you would
do good, evil was present with you. We're bound by the nature of
it. We can't get out from that nature. Well, I can't break free
from my nature. The most ridiculous thing in
the world to me ever since I've come to know a little bit of
something about the truth of God is this thing of free will.
My will is not free. My will is bound by my nature. And if God doesn't give me another
nature, my will will stay bound just as it always has been. And
that's what he taught in the Scriptures, isn't it? When a
strong man holds his palace, he holds it in power and authority,
he holds it. And he's going to keep on holding
it until one stronger than he comes in and takes him down and
sets up his authority. That's what happens when the
gospel comes in power. But under them, we're bound by
the nature of it. He said we are by nature the
children of wrath, even as others. And then in his next several
verses here in Romans chapter 3, he shows us two things that
I want to call to your attention about sin. First of all, he shows
us and talks about the effect of it. Now, we are talking about
the sin of Adam. How one man, sin entered into
the world, and death by sin, and then that death, that spiritual
death, passed upon all men. Now, here are the effects of
it. As it is written, and he refers back to the Psalms, there
is none righteous, no, not one. That's the effect of sin. Find
a man with no sin, you'll have a righteous man. But you can't
be righteous and a sinner by your own righteousness. It can't
be done. There's none righteous. None
righteous. And just to be sure you understand
what he's saying, he says, no, not one. Not one. There is none that understandeth,
verse 11. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good. No, not one. This is the result
of sin. This is the effect of sin in
us and over our minds and over our hearts. And then secondly,
in these next verses, 13 through 19, Paul describes what makes
us this way. What makes us this way? He describes
what we are by nature. Now, listen to this. And he picks
this up from the Psalms. He is testifying here of what
David said back in the Psalms. He said, their throat is an open
grave, an open sepulchre. With their tongues they have
used deceit. The poison of the ass is under
their lips. whose mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction
and misery are in their way, and the way of peace they have
not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes." Now, I tell you, if you've even read the story
about the ark, only eight souls in the whole world walked through
the door. What does that tell you about
the fear of God before man's eyes? This man preached 120 years.
to anybody that had listened to him and assembled that ark. And nobody heard him. Eight souls
of his own house listened to him, heard him walk through the
door. No fear of God before their eyes.
In Psalm chapter 39 and verse 5, it says this, David said,
Verily every man at his best state, I mean when you're king
of the hill, in your prime, in the height of your morality,
when you're feeling good about yourself, feeling good about
what you did, when you made that best offering you ever contributed,
when you went down there to hospital the one or two times in your
life that you went down there to visit somebody and really
felt moved to do it and you went down there and you had some words
to say and you did. Man at his best state. is altogether
vanity. That's what he said. Now, that's
what sin does. That's what sin does. What constitutes
an evil world is the evil men who live in it. What constitutes
an evil world is the power and influence of Satan who takes
advantage of two things. He takes advantage, first of
all, of the character of God. God is absolutely holy, absolutely
just, and Satan knows it. He knows it firsthand. He knows
it. And he also takes advantage of
our character, the character of fallen men. Satan knows firsthand
of the perfections of the character of God and the ignorance and
wickedness of man, and he uses men by deluding them with false
hopes and promises. You see, the best way to keep
a man from getting on the ark is to make him think he does
not need to. I'd say that covers about 99% of who didn't get on
the ark. They didn't think they had a
need. It's never rained. Huh? It's never rained. But it's
going to rain. No way it's never has. Read over
in Peter what men say. All things continue like they
were from the beginning. That's what I mean. What are
they saying right now? the environment and how we can
fix it and maintain it and keep everything the same. It's just
going to move along. It ain't going to move along.
God's going to burn it up just like he covered it with water.
Satan knows how to delude, and the best way to do it is to make
you think you don't need it. He wants to make you believe
that he's not as evil as this book testifies that he is. I
talk to men about, personally, ask me questions and things and
get in a conversation with them that led finally to where you
just have to tell them what the book says they are. That's what
I'm trying to do tonight, tell you what we are. We're sinners.
We're sinners. And I want you to understand
what that means, to be a sinner. Non-righteous. Nobody seeking
after God. God hadn't sought you, you wouldn't
seek Him. I wouldn't be here tonight if
He hadn't sought me first. If He hadn't chosen me, I'd have
never chosen Him. Sinners. Satan loves to delude
sinners and to make them believe that he's not as evil. And I
was talking to this man, and he said, well, I wouldn't say
I was a sinner. Now, he said, I ain't always
done the right thing. Yeah, you're a sinner. You're
a sinner. Ah, we're not that bad. No, you're
worse. You're worse. Satan appears as
an angel of light, converting and making for himself ministers
of righteousness, self-righteousness, whose ends shall be according
to the works. They're called his ministers, and they transform
themselves, as Scripture said, into the apostles of Christ.
What does an apostle do? We're built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets. When a man pretends to be a prophet,
he interprets Scripture. He lays foundations. He establishes
churches. He takes authority to himself
that has not been given to him. That is what you have going on
today. These big organizations, they all have a head honcho,
a head monkey, and that head monkey up there is pretending
to be an apostle. The Pope of the Catholic Church
is pretending to be an apostle. They transform themselves into
the apostles of Christ. An evil world is a world filled
with a false sense of security and peace with God. It is where
ignorant men are taken captive by Satan at his will. You can
read about that over in 2 Timothy 2, verse 26. Taken captive. He said, you true preachers,
Paul said. He is talking to young Timothy.
He said, you be gentle and you be patient. You be soft spoken. And you talk to these men being
aware of who you are and what you are and where God dug you
out of, that pit. You remember. You may be a preacher,
but you're a preacher by grace. And everything that you've gotten,
you've gotten from Him. And so when you talk to this
man, you talk to him with that knowledge in your heart. And
you be humble before him. And God may recover that man.
who has slipped and fallen into the snare of the devil, who takes
you captive at his will. Now, that's how easy we are.
Sin. Sin. And I'll tell you this,
when that ark was fully assembled and set in plain view of God's
elect, eight chosen sinners walked through the door. Eight chosen
sinners whose minds and hearts were the same all these other
men but for the grace of God. Their hearts and minds were full
of evil thoughts and lusts and pride and full of ignorance and
weakness and doubt. But the Spirit of Christ had
gone out in the ministry of Noah, preached to the spirits in prison
and opened the eyes of their understanding and opened their
ears to hear how God could be just and still justify guilty
sinners. Opened their eyes to see the
grace of God and His good providence that led them there. that led
that preacher Noah there to speak to them and to present this ark
before them, presented them with the truth and persuaded them
of the willingness and sufficiency of God to save their soul. They
received the testimony of God concerning the evil in man, and
they justified God in his judgment of men. Standing before that
ark was a full knowledge that God was going to drown all of
these wives of Shem, Ham, and Jephthah. and their mothers and
their fathers and their sisters and their brothers, all their
families were about to perish in the flood. And you didn't
hear any of them whining about it. They walked on that ark.
They justified God in His judgment of them and every other man.
They justified God. They justified God in His election
of them and passing by them. They justified God. They weren't
upset. They weren't jumping up and down.
I'm going to get on the ark. I'm married to a believer. You
need to save my daddy. No, you didn't hear any of them
saying any of that. That's foolishness. That's man's foolishness. A man who talks like that and
acts like that don't know God. That's just how it is. This man,
this saved man that's heard the truth, he justifies God. Listen
to this over in Psalm 51. In verse 3, David said, I acknowledge
my transgressions. I acknowledge it freely, openly,
and my sin is ever before me. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest and clear when thou judgest.
Behold, he said, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my
mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in
the inward parts and in the hidden part. Thou shalt make me to know
wisdom." He confessed what he was, and he justified God. Eight enlightened sinners walked
up the ramp and through the door of the ark and took their place,
prepared for them by the wisdom and grace of God, and God shut
them in. I read it to you while ago. God
shut them in. There they sit, eight frightened
souls now made aware of who and what they were. Eight frightened
souls that huddled together in the ark. Now they are experiencing
that vacuum of heart and mind before God. That sin that I have
been reading to you about and talking to you about and telling
you about for weeks and weeks and weeks and months, that sin,
they come in and they sit down on that ark And now they know
that God is going to save them. He put them in this ark and He
shuts the door. And now, now the door is shut. This is their only hope. They
let go of the world. The tools are outside. Everything
is outside. The people are outside. The world
is outside. The door is shut. And they huddle
here in this little group. And the rain is fixing to fall.
Thunder may have been roaring already. The earth is probably
shaking where those great fountains were about to bust loose. And here they sit and begin to
look inside for a little bit of evidence. And couldn't find
none. Couldn't find none. Begin to
think, boy, you know, I remember that profession I made. Boy,
I was sure when I made it. They're hunting for evidence
now. They can't find any. They can't
find any. They're hunting for it. They're
filled with doubts and fears and all these things. But I tell
you, this ark is designed for such. It's designed for such. This ark is designed for sinners.
What they thought had no bearing whatsoever, once they come in
and God shuts the door, that was it. That was it. And those sins and doubts and
all them things that creep up on you and try to take away that
assurance and rest from you don't amount to a hill of beans when
you're sitting inside that ark. Because the strength is in the
ark. It isn't in your mind. It's in the ark. That's where
we go wrong. That's where we lose our assurance
and lose our way is when we start to trust in this flesh. There
isn't any assurance in this flesh. There isn't any assurance in
this mind. Paul tried to tell us that in Romans 7. He said,
I'll tell you exactly where you're at. He said, when you would do
good, evil is present. And what you would do, you don't
do. And what you wouldn't dare do, that's the very thing you
do. He said, I know where you're at. You think Noah was any different? And the wrath of God beginning
to fall down on this world, and the earth trembling, and that
ark shaking on them blocks, and that thunder roaring up there
that they'd never heard before, and the sky got dark, and there
was no light coming through the window. Darkness was upon the
face of the deep, and that old ark began to rise up. You think
they weren't trembling? I'll tell you what Paul said
about this. Now, we're trying to view this ark as the gospel
presented to fallen, condemned sinners. That's what I'm trying
to do, and I'm setting it before you tonight. This is a vessel
for sinners, to save sinners. And these sinners came in, and
they were still sinners when they went in. But they were sinners
saved by grace, and there's a difference. These sinners outside had no
grace. They had no mercy. Everything mattered about what
they thought. These men are sitting inside the house. Now, the assurance
will come. The assurance will come. But
it ain't there right yet. It ain't there right yet. Oh,
I can remember the phone calls. Old Jesse would call me and talk
to me for hours on end. Yeah, but preacher, he said,
you don't know my heart. I said, yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Oh, but you don't know the thoughts
in my mind. He said, I'm trying to read and
trying to find hope and can't find none. I can't find none. I said, there ain't none. You're
looking in an empty box. All the hope's in the ark. All
the hope's in Christ. It ain't in you. You see, God
didn't press all them things on him. He opened the door. He
said, come in. You and your house, come on in.
That's where we need to go. That's where we need to find
hope in that ark. In that ark. Eight frightened souls made aware
of who and what they were. Eight frightened souls huddled
together in that ark. Now they were experiencing something
of this saving grace. Not finding any evidence in themselves
to give any comfort. Not finding any reason in themselves
for God to save them. Not finding any affection in
themselves to offer up to God or to give them a little peace
of heart and mind. Couldn't find that love. But being showed up by the power
of God's Holy Spirit, they come into the ark being convinced
that by Him, there was nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to go. The assurance will come in time.
But it ain't up front, is it? No, it ain't. Eight frightened
sinners sit huddled together in the ark experiencing the grace
of God. that led them inside, showed
them who they were, convinced them of who they were. Paul talks
about this over in Philippians. He said believers are people
that work out their own salvation. Now listen, in fear and trembling. Isn't that what he's saying?
He uses those two words over and over and over to that church
of Corinth. You read them in there. He first
starts talking about it over in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 when
he's talking about preaching the gospel. He said, I was with
you in weakness and fear and trembling. I was out there with
you. He talks about it over in 2 Corinthians
chapter 7. He talks about being over there
and talking about Titus coming and preaching to him over there
in 2 Corinthians chapter 7. And Titus, he said, when he come
before you, he said, you heard him in fear and trembling. He
talks about it over there when he told those Thessalonians that
he knew something about their election of God, because that
gospel came in power, and they trembled before him. I tell you,
hearing the cries of a deluded world who were now in the presence
of an absolute God, just sitting there imagining the horror of
deceived men and women suddenly awakened to the unrestrained
wrath of God. overwhelmed with a sense of grace
and mercy inside the ark and a reality of the justice and
judgment of God outside. There they sat. There they sat. Genesis chapter 7 verse 17 says,
And the flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters
increased and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the
earth. And the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon
the earth, and the ark went upon the face of the water. And I
believe, I'm getting a picture here just like I got back there
in Genesis 1, verse 2, when he said, and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. That cloud was solid black. We can't even imagine a storm
like came in the days of Noah. You can't even imagine such a
thing. There was no sunshine. That sky was black. All the way
around the globe, the rain was coming down. Waters, the big
fountains was bursting loose from underneath and that ark
came up. I mean, they had a, what was it called here? Then
several years back out in the Atlantic, they had this thing
they called the perfect storm. Couldn't hold a candle to what
Noah went through. Broke them ships in half and
killed all those men out there. What they called the perfect
storm. This was the perfect storm right here. And it took that
ark and it slammed it. You know, religion presents that
ark just floating up and gliding around on water. This was a storm.
It was a deluge. Man, that ark spent more time
underwater than it did on top. It was buried in those waves.
The wrath of God poured out on that ship, swung it this way
and that, and those men huddled inside in fear. I guarantee you
they did. His disciples on that little
ship on Galilee, they was out there They didn't know what to
do. Save us lest we perish. They
were just in a little old storm. Oh, but this storm, this was
a sure enough storm. This was a deluge and that ark
was tossed and slammed and twisted and shoved under the waves. Oh,
they were in fear. But you know the longer they
was on that ark, the more assurance they got. This thing didn't go
down. This thing float. This thing,
there ain't no leaks. The water ain't coming in. This
thing's sealed. Oh, God knew what He was doing
when He designed this thing. Everything that comes on it just
bounces off. Just bounces off. That's Christ. That's that ark. God put you
in it. Water's beat upon its body and
with a fierceness I believe that no mariner has ever known. Till
at last that great vessel landed on the mountains of Ararat. It says this. It says, Noah removed
the covering of the ark. And peaked out. Can you picture that? This man
been sitting in that ark. Now I know a lot of things happened.
He put the raven out. He put the dove out. Now I'm
kind of skipping over all that. But when this ark set down on
Mount Ararat after that flood, and this man's beginning to get
a little bit of assurance now. The waters have abated. The dove
went out, didn't return. Ark settles down on the side
of that mountain. Can you picture him pushing that covering up
a little bit, peeking out? And the ground was dry. And he
looked out. I don't have any idea what he
looked at, but I'll tell you this. It didn't look the same
as it did when he walked in the ark. And I tell you this, I viewed
this world before conversion. I viewed this world outside of
Christ. And then I've experienced these
things, haven't you? I tell you, he rocked and reeled
me and twisted me and slammed me up and down. I know something
about this thing called sin. And I can talk to you about it. I can go where you are because
I've been there. And that's where He's going to
take you. You're going to go there first because you've got no need
of grace until you learn something about sin. That's why I spend
most of my message talking about it. It's necessary. It's necessary. When He convinces you of your
sin, then He'll convince you of righteousness and of that
satisfied judgment. Oh, no, I can just picture Noah
peeking up out of whatever it was, that covering. He lifted
it aside and peeked out. And the skies was blue. They
were blue. The wind, nice gentle wind blowing
out there, dried everything up. There was dry ground outside.
Very set up on the side of that mountain. I tell you this, faith
is an experiential journey from death to life, from darkness
to light, from ignorance to wisdom, from judgment to justification.
It's the Father himself, Paul said, making us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light, delivering us from
the power of darkness and translating us into the kingdom of His dear
Son. It's a journey that begins in fear and ends in joy. That's
where it takes you. But you're going to fear first.
You read about this ark over in Hebrews 11. It says, Noah
being warned of God, moved with fear. Is that what it says? You'll
move with fear. I'll tell you, when you believe
in a God who can take this earth and ground it in water or burn
it up with fire, who is sovereign, almighty, omnipotent God, you'll
move with fear. Move with fear. But it ends in
joy. It's a journey that begins in
weakness. But it ends in covenant assurance. God put His bow in
the sky. And faith converts. What does
it convert? It converts the mind. I don't
think like I used to think. Do you? I don't think like I
used to think. The mind no longer thinks and
reasons with the world. It perceives the world as dead.
Noah got on that ark and knew that the world died. Because
he about died inside the ark. Thought he was going to. being
slammed. I can't even imagine a three,
four hundred foot vessel in a deluge like that. What? I mean, the
ship I was on in the Navy was an aircraft carrier. That thing
is three football fields long and a football field wide and
we had to catwalk 90 feet off the water, roll back, look like
the lid on a sardine can from a storm. I can't even imagine
what this little 300 foot ship did, little wooden boat out there
in the middle of this deluge. I can't imagine what kind of
pounding and beating this thing had. But he came out of that
thing, here he is, and they're all alive and they're all well.
No water in the ship. I don't think he viewed that
world as alive outside. He may have looked out there
at that ground and if he didn't see it there, he did if he journeyed
very far, there wasn't nothing around but corpses. Dead animals,
dead birds, dead men. They've been in there about a
year. Been in that ark. That water
preserves that type of thing. You know they were just laying
everywhere. There were bodies and birds and animals and stuff
laying everywhere. This world is dead. When God
takes you to this thing and convinces you of sin and His judgment,
you quit viewing this world with potential. This world is dead. I don't need their reasoning.
I see the end of their reasoning out there piled up in the rotten
corpses out there on the ground. There's no reason to look out
there for reasoning. You don't reason like you used
to. It doesn't look to the world for evidence and reason and assurance. Everything it needs is found
in the ark. And the heart's converted. from
a love of darkness to the love of light. They see the goodness
of God in the ark, and the willingness of God to save, and the wisdom
of God to reconcile, and the sufficiency of God to redeem.
The more of his promises they experience, the stronger their
faith becomes. They grew in grace and knowledge
of him. And faith converts the will,
and with this I close. Faith converts the will. Believing
God makes us willing. Makes us willing. Now, just listen
to me. The world is not willing because their mind is enmity
against God and their hearts are full of sin. When God enlightens
the mind, he renews the heart. When he enlightens the mind and
renews the heart, we are made willing in the day of his power.
We are made willing. What makes a man unwilling is
his ignorance and his darkness and the rebellion of his heart.
God reconciles him. He reconciles him and he makes
him willing. Our Lord said, you shall know
the truth and the truth will set you free. It will set you
free. I believe that's when I experienced
my freedom, when I learned the truth. The truth. And faith converts the ways.
Faith sees the glory of God in Christ. We discover that He Himself
is the way. He's the way. The ark was the
way. It was the way. You either got
on board or you died in the flood. But this ark was for sinners.
That's what I wanted you to see. And their weakness. You know
they had the same thoughts we have. They had the same faith
we have. Faith in Christ. They heard the
same gospel. That's what Paul said about those
old Jews back there. They heard the gospel the same
as we did. But it didn't profit them because it wasn't mixed
with faith in them. They heard the same thing back
there in Noah. They had the same hope we got. Same hope. That
hope in Christ. They entered in that ark. That
was all their hope. I don't want to say it in a way
that would lead you astray, but what they thought or didn't think
didn't have any bearing on the safety and assurance of that
ark. That ark saved them. God designed it. That pitch,
they pitched it within and without. That word everywhere else in
Scripture is interpreted atonement. It was sealed up by the atonement
of God. Held back that wrath. Sat out
there at sea. Floated around the wave beach.
But nothing come through that ark. Pitched with the atonement
of Christ. And they sat inside that ark.
Even though they were fearing. We fear, don't you? Man, I have
times when I set my study. I think God hasn't called you
to preach. He hasn't even saved you. You don't even know God.
You wouldn't have thoughts like this. You wouldn't be dull like
this. You wouldn't be uncaring like
this. You wouldn't be putting this off like this. You'd be
praying more. You'd have no bearing on that
ark. Christ is the ark. I can rest
in Him. Rest in Him. And resting in Him,
we get that assurance, don't we? The longer you're in Him
and the more you see what He can do, the stronger you get.
Paul said that love of God then is shed abroad in your heart
through that experience and patience.