Take your Bibles now and turn
to Genesis 6. My text tonight is found in Genesis
6, verse 14. Verse 14 of Genesis 6, where the Lord tells Noah, He
said, Make thee an ark of gopher wood. Room shalt thou make in
the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this
is the fashion which thou shalt make it up. The length of the
ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of the ark fifty
cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt
thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it
above. And the door of the ark shalt
thou set in the side thereof, with lower, second, and third
stories shalt thou make it. And behold, I, even I, do bring
a flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein
is the breath of life from under heaven. and everything that is
in the earth shall die. But with thee will I establish
my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons,
and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee." In Hebrews 11, verse 7, it says
of Noah, by faith, Noah being warned of
God of things not seen yet. He didn't see these things, but
God warned. He moved with fear, prepared
an ark to the saving of his house by the witch. He condemned the
world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Now I believe that the ark, I've
been looking at this for years, that the ark of Noah is a beautiful
picture of our hope before God. Of our hope before God. And Christ
is our hope, we know that. And so we look in this ark and
we see it as a picture of Christ and His redemptive work. But
I want you to see something tonight that I haven't seen over the
years. And that is that this ark is also a picture of Christ
as He's presented in the Gospels. That's what I want you to see
in the ark tonight. Now, Christ is our hope. Faith
is of no benefit if it doesn't embrace Christ. Faith is just an idle wish. But
faith is of benefit when it embraces Christ. Joy is no benefit if
it does not rejoice in Christ. What benefit is it to be joyful
when in the end it's all going to go under the flood? There
was nothing to joy about. Having known the truth, there
was nothing to joy about. All the joy was in the ark. Assurances
of no benefit, if it does not rest in Christ, what good would
it do you to be... And I'm sure there were some
in this day that were just as sure What do they say? I'm as sure for heaven as if
I was already there. I'm not that sure. But there
was probably some in that day who were. But what is assurance
if it doesn't rest in Christ? What benefit is it? It's of no
benefit to you. What I want you to see tonight
is that faith has a purpose. And the purpose of faith is to
unite our minds and hearts to Christ. That's what it's about. That's what this faith is. Eternal
life, he says this twice, eternal life is to know Him and in knowing
Him to know the Father who sent Him. It's to know Him and to
know God. This is eternal life. This is
eternal life. In Ephesians chapter 1, if you
want to, you can turn over there. I'm going to refer to several
verses here in Ephesians chapter 1. But in verses 1 through 12,
the Apostle Paul lays out in great detail this hope, the hope
of every true believer. He lays it out in detail. And he starts by blessing the
Father who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. The Father did this. When did
He do it? Before the foundation of the
world. He did this. This is that hope that set out
before us, and he sets it in great detail. He sees that this
hope is the purpose of God that chose a people in Christ to be
blessed with all heavenly blessings, spiritual blessings, blessings
this world cannot see and cannot understand, things not seen yet. That's what Noah sought. that
God, in order to secure and accomplish His purpose, put them in Christ
as an eternal surety. And He puts us in Him by an unchangeable
union, an unbroken union, an eternal union with Christ. He
puts us in Him, unites us as one in Christ before the world
was. This was the purpose of God.
This is that hope that true believers have. that God has predestinated
us. See that there in chapter 1?
That God has predestinated those He chose in Christ to be sons,
were predestinated unto the adoptions of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself. That to the praise of the glory
of His grace we were accepted in the Beloved, accepted of God,
received of God. seen in Him as holy and without
blame before Him and loved. Redeemed through His blood, we
have forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace."
Now listen to what he says here now in verse 8. We're in. We're in. That's a big word.
That refers back to everything he just said. We're in. And actually, if you want to
look at this chapter, you'll find out that there's no periods
until you get way down in it. This is all one statement. But
Paul said, wherein, in these basic fundamental truths, God
hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made
known unto us the mystery of His will, His everlasting will
and testament to His children, His eternal will in all things
to show His glory. His will as to the judgment and
end of this world. His will to redeem a people out
of it for the glory of His name. The mystery of His will concerning
Jews and Gentiles. The mystery of His will in the
preaching of the gospel and the ministry of the Holy Spirit of
God. And of this God, Paul said, who
worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. See
that up there in verse 11? This God who has purposed these
things and done these things has done all these things and
does everything that He does along with them after the counsel
of His own will. This is that mystery that He
brings the believer to see that everything He does is a revelation
of His will. We're going to wake up tomorrow
And we're going to see the revelation of God's will going on in this
world, going on in our own heart. And he said this to them in verse
12, that we should be to the praise of His glory who first
trusted in Christ. He tells us that it's because
of the purpose of God that these things... Christ didn't just
come. He said, I come not to do my
own will, but the will of Him that sent me. We've been studying
that over in the book of John. And I'm finding that this is
the first time in my life I ever did a study in Genesis and a
study in John at the same time. And it's amazing to me how these
two things go together. It's just amazing how these two
things go together. And here in Ephesians 1, he's
talking about that eternal purpose of God who first trusted in Christ,
trusted all these predestinations, all these things, trusted in
His Son. Give them to His Son. Verse 12. Now watch this, verse 13. In
whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth. the
gospel of your salvation, and whom also, after that you believed,
you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the
earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession unto the praise of His glory." Faith has a purpose. And this purpose is to hear,
and in hearing to receive knowledge, and to receive knowledge in revelation
is to unite us in our hearts and minds to Christ. We come
to embrace Him, to love Him, to walk with Him, to see ourselves
in Him, to find assurance and rest in Him, confidence in Him. Faith has a purpose. And that
purpose is, as Paul prays in these next several verses, that
the Father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His
calling and something about the riches of the glory of His inheritance
in the saints. to know in yourselves by experience
something of the working of His mighty power which He demonstrated
in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at
His own right hand above every power that is and every name
that is named and put everything under His foot and gave Him to
be head over all things to the church which is His body, the
fullness of Him that filleth all in all. Well, what on earth
does all of that have to do with Noah building an ark? Well, this
is where I missed it, right at the beginning, and that's usually
where we miss things, isn't it? He told Noah, he said, let me
get it just exactly right, I'm going to make thee an ark of
gopher wood. And all these years that I've
been reading that passage and every message I've ever heard
on it, most of them just ignore that altogether. But the ones
who do talk about it, talk about it as though it was a species
of tree. Ain't that what you always thought? That's exactly
what I always thought. In other words, I might substitute
in there where the Lord told him to make thee an ark of an
oak tree or make thee an ark of a sycamore tree or a hickory
tree. But that's not what he's talking
about. I looked up that word. I wanted to see what species
it was. Maybe it was the same wood that they made the Shittam
wood, like they made the Ark of the Covenant from. And so
I looked it up. You know what it means? Axe. Axe. And I looked at that and
it still didn't make sense. An axe tree. And I thought, well,
what in the world is that? That word that's used, that word
gopher, it's only used one time in Scripture, right here. It's
taken from a word that means cut off. Now here's what the
Lord's telling you. You're not going to make a raft.
You're not going to go out and gather up some timbers, whatever
size they are and whatever width they are and whatever diameter
they are, and find whatever scraps you can find and bind them together
and make you a raft. You're going to take this wood
and you're going to take your axe and you're going to shape
this wood. You're going to hew this wood,
and you're going to make the pieces exactly as I tell you
how to do it. And you're going to make an arc.
You're going to make an arc. And you've got 120 years. And
for 120 years, that preacher of righteousness cut down those
timbers every day, set him up on his little saw horses or axes
or whatever what they did with them and took whatever tools
they had, he uses the word axe here, perhaps they had some draw
knives or ancient tools of some kind, but froze and a wood mallet
or whatever he had and he cut that timber, exactly. according
to that pattern that God told him to make. And he hewed that
wood, and he talked to his children, and he talked to anybody that
the Lord would open a door for him to talk to, and they said,
what are you doing, Noah? I'm cutting this piece. What
are you cutting it for? Well, it's going to rain. God
gave me instruction to build an ark. An ark? An ark for what? An ark to escape this wrath of
God that He's going to pour out all flesh, He told me. had come
up before Him, an end to all flesh. And He said, He looked
upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had
corrupted His way upon the earth. And behold, I, even I, do bring
a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein
is the breath of life from under heaven. And everything that's
in the earth is going to die. And He gave me instruction. made a covenant with me. And
He gave me the pattern of these things. And I'm to take my life
and shape these things and put them together with my sons. And we're going to put this thing
together. And when we get it together, we'll understand what
it's all about when I get it together. And so He took those
things. The ark which God instructed
Noah to build was not a raft but a ship with floors and walls
and a window and a door and rooms. Rooms shalt thou build in the
arkies." This thing had detail about it. I know they've got
it looking like a big barge, the pictures I looked at in my
Bible. I don't even know how they arrived at these things,
but they got it looking like a big barge. We don't know that.
I have no idea. Well, that thing could look like
a ship for all we know. It might have had a beam and
a keel and all this. I don't know what it looked like.
No idea what it looked like. I just know the general size
of it. But it had floors and walls and
a window and a door. He was to take his axe and cut
down the timber and hew it into certain shapes and sizes. Every
beam for a purpose, every board for its place, everything cut
and shaped to fit exactly where God gave Him instruction and
pattern to put it. Had to be a certain length, had
to be a certain width, a certain height, a window in the top,
a great door in the side rising up first, second, and third stories
high, pitched within and without, rooms within the ark to separate
one thing from another. And for the remainder of time,
Noah cut down trees and shaped those pieces until at last stood
a great vessel sufficient to save all that God had purposed
to save." Now, ain't that what preachers do? Take this book,
and we take these natural things out of this book, and by revelation,
God gives you the pattern of that gospel in your mind. He
gives you a revelation of what that thing is really saying. And you take that gospel revelation
and you view that thing until you see Christ in it. You see
Christ in it. And I preach those things to
men. I preach all kinds of particular things. The gospel is particular.
It's not general. It's particular. It's detailed.
It has an end and a purpose and a design of God. And that gospel
is presented. I can't present the whole thing.
It's impossible. But I can stand up here and I
can preach on justification one day, and I can preach on redemption
one day, and I can preach on reconciliation one day, and I
can preach on sanctification, and I can preach all these things.
But when all these things are done, they fit one thing. They fit this redemptive purpose
of God. And they all fit, and they make
one vessel. They make one vessel. And if
God is pleased to show it to you, at the end of that time,
you look at that vessel, and with confidence that you've been
persuaded of God that this thing is sufficient, you'll walk up
the ramp and go inside. Go inside. That's what he's talking
about. Build thee an ark of gopher wood. Cut it. Shape it. Hew it. It's a picture of Christ
and that redemptive work of God in him. It's a pattern and a
picture to me of the ministry of Christ. In 1 Corinthians chapter
3, Paul likened himself to a wise master builder. You can read
this when you have time, but he was a wise master builder
by the grace of God who laid the foundation that another would
build upon. And he said, if any should build
upon it, gold and silver and precious gems or hay, wood and
stubble, whatever it is you built on this foundation, God was going
to try it because the day was going to declare what it was.
And he said, what's not of God, what's not according to his design,
God is going to cut it away. He's going to hew it down. He's
going to move it aside. The day is going to expose it
for what it is. Yet thou thyself should be saved.
He said, Other foundation can no man lay than that which is
laid, which is Christ Jesus. And every man's work will be
manifested, for the day shall declare it. This building Paul
speaks of in 1 Corinthians 3 is the faith of God's elect. In
Ephesians 2, if you are taking notes, we are in Ephesians 2,
verse 20, He says again, we are built upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief
cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together.
I like that, fitly framed together. When God puts something, when
He shapes it, you know those big timbers that went in the
temple? They came from Lebanon. And God gave instruction as to
their size and their shape and all about them. And they were
shewed over in Lebanon, put on that ship and brought over. And
when they brought them over, right down in place, right down
in place. In whom all the building fitly
framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in
whom ye are also builted together for inhabitation of God through
the Spirit. The preacher of the gospel, in
accordance with, not on his own, not by his own power or by his
own intellect or by his own gifts, but the preacher of the gospel
in accordance with the Spirit of God and the gospel of Christ,
a symbol before this unbelieving world. Isn't that who he preached
at? This unbelieving world. The very
means by which God will save His elect. He built it, shaped
it, fashioned it together right before their eyes. They come
up every day to see what that crazy old man was building. What's
he talking about today? Oh, he's talking about the beam,
whatever that is. I don't know what a beam is.
Something about God's eternal design or something. Either it
don't make sense to me, Well, we'll come up tomorrow and see
what he's talking about tomorrow." And they come up and they listen
to him and they go away and laugh and talk and make fun of old
Noah. Noah's steady hewing them pieces. Hewing them pieces. Assembling that ark. And every
day he assembled it, Paul said he condemned the world. Every
day he put a piece in place. And it fit. And it was beginning
to take a shape. They didn't know what it was.
They didn't know what it was for. It never rained. What in
the world would you build a ship? It never rained. A mist come
up from the ground and watered the plants. This man talking
about a deluge, we don't even know what a deluge is. Piece
by piece, that's how the preacher presents the gospel. Over in
the Old Testament it said, precept upon precept, line upon line,
here a little and there a little. That's how it's presented. That's
how you learn it. That's how you receive it. And
by faith the Spirit of God takes those pieces and fashions them
together in your mind. So you can see what sanctification
is. You can see what glorification
is. You can see what that resurrection
is. You can see what those things...
This world don't see that. They don't see that. They've
not been given these patterns and these shapes and these sizes.
He shapes all the pieces to be assembled. And He hands them to Shem and
Ham and Jephthah. And He says, now go over there.
This piece goes right here. You go put it there. And they
go, that's what I tell you every time I stand up and pray. Huh? I'm pointing to Christ. Pointing
to Christ. This is how sanctification fits.
And I tell you, I give you the peace. I give you the peace. He shapes all these pieces to
be assembled and then he puts them together right before your
eyes. That's my prayer that God the Holy Spirit would enable
me to do that in these days ahead. It says, all that God commanded
Noah to do, so did he. That's in verse 22. Now let's look at some things
about this arc. There was just one arc. I get
so tired of folks getting angry at me because I'm trying to point
out to them. I mean, if you were standing
out here in the middle of this road and a freight train was coming,
I'd come tell you. You might get upset at me, but
I'm going to tell you. Get out of the way. The train's
going to run over you. And they go into these false
Prophets go under the sound of their voice. Go over here and
worship in a church you don't know God. Blind leaders of the
blind. Go over there and then they get
upset at me because I tell them about it. Noah told them every
day. They're just one ark, guys. Everything
God intends to save, He's going to save in this ark right here.
Yeah, but we're building a cross over here. Yeah, but that's not
going to do you any good when the flood comes. Oh, we're building
memorials to the giants over here. Yeah, but they don't float. They're not going to do you any
good when the deluge comes. They're just one ark. And Noah
set before them this one ark. And he did it over and over and
over and over until that thing was assembled. That was his ministry. That was his ministry, just one
ark. I believe they laughed at him. I believe they built other
things. I believe they built monuments
to themselves, to their ideas. I think they built monuments
to their own concepts and altars to their gods and memorials to
the giants of their faith. But there was just one ark. Just
one ark. And that ark was God's design.
One vessel set apart by His wisdom and His purpose and for His glory.
And this design and pattern He gave to this world by one man,
Noah. What a picture of Christ. But
I see something even more here, or not necessarily more than
Christ, but I see something in addition to that. God didn't
reveal these pieces and patterns to Shem, Ham, and Jephthah. He
didn't reveal these pieces and patterns to their wives or to
his own wife. He revealed these things to Noah
who preached these things and showed these things to his sons
and to their wives. Now that's God's way. It just
is. And I see it here. I see it back
in the garden. I see it with Abel. I see it
after this. I see it in the whole Jewish
economy. God will make Himself known to His people through a
man. Why? Because it pleased Him to do
it. He's God. He does what He will. It pleased
Him. Eight souls would enter this
ark. Eight souls would be convinced of its sufficiency to save and
of God's willingness to save them. And they'd enter in. But
it's particulars He gave to one man. And He in turn gave it to them.
And they put it together. That's how it works. That's God's
way. That's God's way. And I'll tell
you this, nowhere does the rebellion of man rear its ugly head more
than it does in its rejection of God's authority and wisdom
by the mouth of His preacher. They can't stand them. Can't
stand them. I listened to them. They talk about these guys who
do all this foolishness, building crosses and gathering hundreds
of thousands of dollars sent to them. You know, what was it? Was it Rex Humbard who built
that great big Jesus out there, that great big statue of Jesus?
Said the Lord told him to build this huge 300 foot tall statue
of Jesus or whatever it was. And they started mailing that
man money, mailed him hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
dollars to build this big statue. But you stand and preach the
gospel and you're a fool. You're a fool. That vents man's,
his enmity of heart vents itself nowhere else more than it does
in his hatred. He can't get to God, so he hates
his ambassador. I say that for several reasons,
but I say it for this reason. Noah preached 120 years to his
generation and eight souls went on board. Eight souls. Only one ark. And then God, God determined to make these
things known through a man. It says in 1 Peter 3 that the
Spirit of Christ went forth in the ministry of Noah and preached
to the spirits in prison which were disobedient when once the
long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the
ark was preparing. The Spirit of God Went out in
his ministry, went out in his preaching, and preached to those
spirits of those men, Shem, Ham, and Jephthah, and his wives,
and Noah's own wife. Went out and preached to those
spirits in prison and set them free. And then in this great
vessel, there's three stories. I believe those three stories
represent the Trinity. I believe they represent the
whole of the deity. This thing of salvation as we
receive it in the gospel is not just the work of one, but the
work of three. Christ tells them from the get-go. He tells them right up front
that I have not come to do my own will, but the will of Him
that sent me. And that He represented not just
Himself, but He represented the Father. And that while He was
with them, He'd keep them. While He was with them, He'd
teach them. While He was with them, He'd comfort them. But
when I go away, He said, I'll send to you another comforter.
And all through the Scriptures, we find that this salvation of
God is the work of the Holy Trinity. It's the work of Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. But it pleased the Father that
in Christ should the preeminence be. And His is the name and the
work and the way God reveals these things to us is in Him.
But the work is of the Trinity. And so when you go inside this
ark, from the outside it just looks like one. One body. That's what we see on the outside.
We see this one Savior. We see Him. He's the one who
appeared on this world. He's the one who obeyed the law. He's the one who did all these
things. But when you go inside this ark, you see the Trinity. When you enter into that body,
then you see the fullness of God. Paul said, in him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And so these three stories,
or three floors, or three places, or whatever you want to call
them in the Ark, these three distinct places, they tell of
the Trinity and represent the Trinity of God in the salvation
of sinners. Each with a distinct work, and
yet all together as one. Everything inside this ark has
to do with this Trinity. Then think about this. This ark
was given to Noah by instruction of God because God made a covenant
with him. It's not the ark of the covenant,
but it was a covenant ark. It was a covenant. He said, everything
on earth is going to die, but with thee I will establish my
covenant. My covenant. And when God establishes
His covenant with a man in time, it's because He made that covenant
for him in eternity. It's an everlasting covenant.
You can read about it over in 2 Samuel chapter 23. Those were
David's last words over in 2 Samuel chapter 23 verse 5. And David
cried out, and he said, Although it be not so with my house, yet
he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things,
and sure, for this is all my salvation and all my desire,
although he make it not to grow. Only eight souls went on board,
but those eight souls were saved. And everything in that ark was
ordered. It was ordered in all things,
I'm sure. Everything that was required to preserve what God
determined to save, it was sufficient to handle the job. That grace
that Noah found, he found in the eyes of the covenant God.
And his grace came from an everlasting covenant of grace. It was a covenant
ark. It was ordered in all things
concerning God's purpose and will, concerning God's character
and name, concerning God's judgment and wrath, and concerning God's
glory and grace. And this coming of a man to faith
in Christ is a result of God's everlasting covenant of grace.
We went over that Sunday in the Sunday school lesson, you remember?
He said, no man can come unto me except my Father which sent
me draw him. Because he didn't come to do
his own will, he came to do the will of the fathers that sent
him. And he tells you what his will was. That's the result of
that everlasting covenant of grace. Of his fullness, John
said, had we all received in grace for grace, essential grace,
purpose grace, purchase grace, and personal grace. This ark
was a covenant ark. And then in the top of this ark
was a tiny little window. Now, they tell me, my Bible here,
I'm not so sure about it, it says that a cubit is close to
a foot. All the other Bibles I've ever
had in the footnotes said a cubit was from fingertip to elbow. That's about 16 or 18 inches
on an axe. And so when he gives the sizes
of these things, that's the distance. When he says 30 cubits, he's
talking about 30 times 18 inches. Or if it's 300 cubits long, it's
300 times that amount. You can get a rough idea. I did
some calculations this afternoon and that ark was about the size
of a World War II aircraft carrier. About the size of it. It was
a big boat. A big boat. But this ark, in the very top,
there was this tiny window and it was about from here to there
square. So we're talking about a window
about that square, all the bigger it was. Just kind of big enough
to see through. That's about all the bigger it
was. And it's right in the top. It wasn't in the side. It wasn't
a porthole. But it was in the top. And its
purpose was to let in light. Let in light. This window is
a picture of Christ. He said, in Him was life, and
this life was the light of the world. He is the light. There
is no light apart from Christ. But to see what faith brings
you to see, you have to be in the ark. That window didn't do
any good to the world. It didn't let any light shine
on the world. Where this light shined is where
the glory of God was inside the ark. This light shined where
the Trinity was represented. This light shined where salvation
was. This light shined where the redeemed
of God would be inside the ark. If you wanted this light, you
had to be in the ark. Salvation is to be in Christ. It's not to know some things
about Him. It's to be in Christ. Christ in you, the hope of glory. One little tiny window. Every
ray of light that come into that ark came through the opening.
The heavenly light from above came through this one window
and shined inside that ark, shined on all the glory inside. To have this light, you had to
be inside the ark. And you can tell men about this
light. And I imagine Noah did. But you'll never see it until
you come inside. Then you'll see it. Then you'll
spend the rest of your life trying to describe what you saw. And
people scratching their head and looking at you like, I don't
know what you're talking about. In the side of the ark, there
was a great door. He gives detail on this door.
He said that this door spanned 1st, 2nd, and 3rd stories. This
thing, Arthur Pink said it was a great gaping dash inside of
that ship, I think is the words he used. It was a mammoth thing. I get the idea that it was about
as wide as this church building. And it went 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
stories all the way. Whatever it was, it held up elephants
when they walked up it. Or mammoths or whatever they
had in that day. walked up inside of it. Every living thing that
God purposed to go in that ark is able to go through it, in
pairs or in sevens. It spanned the first, second,
and third stories, and by this door everything in the ark could
be accessed. I've never seen that before.
When you enter this door, Inside that ark, you remember I told
you, was first, second, third story. This is the whole work
of God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. By this one door, you access
the Godhead. By this one door, you access
all the benefits of God. By this one door, you access
assurance. You access protection, safety,
peace, everything that Godhead presented, you access through
this one door. You didn't go through that door,
you didn't get anything, because it was all inside the Ark. You
access through that door your daily sustenance, because that's
where God put it. That's where He put the provision
for you. You're going to have fellowship with God's people,
you're going to have to go through the door, because that's where
God's people purpose to go. They're going to be inside the
Ark. Access by to the Father, access
to the Spirit, access to the blessings and benefits of God,
to shelter, protection, preservation, sustenance, fellowship, all these
things. Noah took his axe and he shaped
these pieces and assembled this great vessel. And as he put each
piece into its place, he preached to dying sinners. And as he moved
with fear and prepared this ark, he condemned this world, Paul
said. By the vessel he constructed, he proved to this world that
the end was near and that the end was sure. And he said, here
it is. Here it is. It's the only way
out through that door. Through that door. And watching
him daily and listening to him preach, his wife, his sons, and
his son's wife were persuaded. And one day, God said, come you
and your son, come into the ark. And they went in. Why'd they
go in? Because they was persuaded. They was persuaded. Something I left out a while
ago when I was talking to you about this covenant God was this.
God made His covenant. This ark was an ark of God's
covenant. The ark was a certain size. A certain size. And it was exactly
the size required No more, no less, to fit everything for whom
that covenant was made. There's not going to be any room
left over. No room left over. There was something in every
place purposed in that house. It wasn't an empty chair. It
wasn't an empty room. I hear them talk about them empty
places in heaven. There's not going to be any empty
places. I'm going to be in it. And I thought about this. I don't
know if these three sons were the only sons that Noah had.
See, in the genealogy here in Genesis, it just talks about
Cain and Abel. It doesn't talk about all these
other sons. He could have had a hundred sons for all we know.
We don't know. We just know the ones he mentioned.
But Noah was 600 years old when he went in this ark. It's hard
for me to believe he only had three sons. But there's only
three who went on the ark. So let's just say he did only
have three sons. Their wives had brothers and
sisters. Their wives had families, had mothers and fathers. Their
wives had friends, cousins, nieces, nephews and uncles. They had
relations. And his wife had a mother and
a father. When they went into this ark
where God told them to come, they left this present world
and they left all their loved ones, all the ones who wouldn't
go with them, they left them and they went on this ark. They
went on this ark because they were persuaded in the sufficiency
of this ark that this ark was purposed of God. And it says
this over in the book of Peter. You can do some studying over
here in 1 Peter. 1 and 2 Peter both talk a lot
about Noah. But in 1 Peter chapter 3, when
he talks about the Spirit of Christ that went out in the ministry
of Noah and preached to the spirits in prison, and then he says there
were eight souls saved by water. Saved because they got in this
ark. Saved from the destruction of
this water. Saved in this figure that God
presented before him by this man. Saved in this thing. Just the same as what baptism
saves. That ark didn't have anything
to do with that change of heart. When he got on that ark, his
sins went with him. Noah was a sinner when he sat
in this ark. Now he was. I'll tell you how
I know that. When he got to the other side,
he sinned. And sin kept right on going, didn't it, in the generations.
This thing of faith, you become a believer, you don't leave your
sin, your sin is still there. John said, if you say we have
no sin, you're a liar and the truth ain't in you. That's what
he said. They got on this thing and he
said, but how it saved was the like figure where unto 1 Peter
3 verse 21, the like figure where unto even baptism doth also now
save us. Not the putting away of the filth
of the flesh, that wasn't what the ark was about. But the answer
of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. We see Christ, the ark of God's
covenant. Christ dying under the wrath
of God, bearing our sins and His own body on the tree, and
us in Him. And then being raised from the
dead and set at the right hand of God, being convinced of the
sufferings of Christ and of His good will to you, to present
Him to you. And we willingly walked through
that door just the same as those eight souls did. We walked through
that door. That door of faith. Isn't that what Paul is talking
about over there in Ephesians chapter 1 when you look at that?
Talking about Christ in whom God first trusted, in whom you
also trusted after that you heard, and after that you believed,
you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. They walked
into that ark, and they stood there and looked at that big
door. Shem, Ham, Jephthah, Noah, and their four wives. Couldn't
shut that door. That thing was three stories
high, strong enough to support elephants. They couldn't shut
that door. And it says, and God shut them in. That's what happens
in faith. We enter in and God shuts us
in and seals us with the Holy Spirit of His promise. He seals
you. He makes you to know. Paul, he
broke out in prayer. When he began to even contemplate,
he broke out in prayer. He said, I have not ceased to
pray for you that your understanding, that you have understanding,
that God by His revelation would open your eyes to see what His
inheritance is in you. And you read chapter 2 over there
in Ephesians and he talks about what happens. you that were dead
in trespasses and sins. He quickened you and raised you
up with Christ and set you at His own right hand in heavenly
places. He didn't just save Noah from
wrath. It said Noah was an heir. He was an heir. This faith declared
him. He condemned the world and became
heir of righteousness, which is by faith. He was an heir. He was a son. God raised him
up, made him a son. He didn't just save him from
wrath, but it gave him everything. Joined heirs with God. Joined
heirs with Christ. Heirs of God. Joined heirs with
Christ. You can't even fathom that, can you? Heirs together
with Christ. Set inside that ship. Wrath of
God all around them. They couldn't see it. They couldn't
hear it. But it's going on. And I tell
you this, using this thing in a spiritual sense, if you have
faith in Christ, you are in Christ. And you may not see the wrath
of God, but the wrath of God abideth on everybody outside
Him. Right now. Right now. Eternal wrath is going
to be revealed one day, but right now that wrath of God They're
dead, dead in trespass. Everything outside the ark was
dead. Their hearts was tuned to one
another. They started looking at one another. I guarantee you
that man took on a whole new appreciation for his sons and
his daughter-in-law and his wife. Saved, redeemed of God, joined
as sons and daughters.