this particular passage in Genesis
chapter 6. And I want to begin reading to
you here in verse 5. Genesis chapter 6 and verse 5.
You'll need your Bibles this morning for a few minutes. If
you have them open and would like to, keep them there. And
I want to show you three or four more Scriptures. In verse 5 of
Genesis chapter 6, God saw the wickedness of man that it was
great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually. And 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 creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for
it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in
the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and
Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Shem,
Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before
God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked
upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt. for all flesh had
corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end
of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with
violence through them, and, behold, I will destroy them with the
earth. Make thine 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 of, The length of the ark shall be three hundred
cubits, the breadth of it 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 the lower,
second, and third stories shalt thou make it. And behold, 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 is in the earth shall die. But with thee will
I establish my covenant, and thou shalt come unto the ark,
thou and thy sons and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort
shalt thou bring unto the ark, to keep them alive with thee.
They shall be male and female, of fowls after their kind, and
of cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing of the earth
after his kind. Two of every sort shall come
unto thee, to the ark, to keep them alive. And take thou unto
thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee, and it shall be for food for
thee and for them. Thus did Noah according to all
that God commanded him, so he did." I want us to think this morning,
maybe upon this title, we have it here in verses 13 and verse
14, I will destroy, make thee an ark. And we could say it like
this, because I will destroy, therefore make thee an ark. I can't imagine at this time
in the history of man what a beautiful time this must have been. In
a sense of the word, the earth was still young, no sin had entered,
the ground had been cursed, but can you imagine what a beautiful
place. What a pristine environment it was at this time. I doubt
seriously at this time if there was any winter or any hot summers. The temperature was probably
just right. It hadn't rained. A mist came
up out of the earth and watered the ground. How beautiful things
must have been. And how healthy man still must
have been. Lived well over 900 years. and
probably enjoyed good health most of the time. What a beautiful,
healthy place the world must have been. What a nice place
to live. There was only one thing that
could have marred such an environment, and that was sin. And that it
did. The Scripture tells us here that
God looked upon flesh And he saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth. And the Lord sent this flood
that he warned of, and I want you to look here in the 8th chapter
in verse 21. Here's something that's very
telling about man's sins. Though the flood came, you'll
notice here that it never changed man. The Lord looked upon man,
and He said, ìThe imagination of his heart is only evil continually.î
He sent a flood. He destroyed all flesh, except
these eight people were saved in this ark. On the other side
of the flood, look here at what He said in verse 21 of chapter
8. ìWhen Noah had left the ark, he had offered a sacrifice, and
the Lord smelled a sweet savor, and the Lord said in his heart,
I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, for
the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." It hadn't
changed man at all, had it? The judgment of God, though it
was harsh, though it took away all living flesh from this earth,
it never changed man's nature. What he was before judgment came
is what he remained then. And you know something, brothers
and sisters, it's what we remain now. Man hasn't changed since
the fall. Our hearts are still deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. The Lord is not preserving
the world of humanity today because humanity has progressively gotten
better. Humanity has not changed. God
is preserving the world of humanity today because He has a purpose
in it. It's not because He looks down
upon man and hopes that man will get better. But God looks down
upon the world of humanity and He's long suffering towards it
because He has a purpose. And what is that purpose? Well,
look with me over in 2 Peter right quickly. I'll get to my
text in just a minute, but look in 2 Peter. In chapter 3. The Lord said, I'll never again
destroy man, the world of humanity, as I have done. That is, with
an awful flood. But you know God will destroy.
He determined the time He'll bring upon this world of humanity,
not a flood, but a fire. Look here in 2 Peter 3, and look
here with me in verse 3. Look in verse 3 of 2 Peter 3. Peter said, Knowing this first,
that there shall come in the last day scoffers, walking after
their own lust, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation. Now is that so? That's what men
will say in the last day. They say the Lord has promised
to come again. But He's not come yet, they say,
and everything is continued just like it was. But has it really? Has everything continued just
like it was from the creation? Why, no. There was a flood came
and destroyed the old world. The Son of God has come in our
likeness, in our humanity. We divide time with His coming. Everything before His coming,
we call it A.D. Before the coming of the Lord.
And afterward, it's B. After the coming. Before the
coming, things hasn't continued as they were. And Peter says
in verse 5, This they willingly are ignorant of, that by the
word of God, The heavens were of old and the
earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the
world that then was being overflowed with water perished. But the
heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word, are kept
in store, reserved unto fire against the dead judgment and
the destruction of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant
of this one thing. that one day is with the Lord
as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. The Lord is
not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness,
but He is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish,
but all should come to repentance. He is longsuffering to His elect,
to usward. Usward. We often see that word,
usward, in the Scripture. Us. He loved us and washed us
from our sin. God has a people in this world.
And if He brought the fire today and destroyed all, and there
were some of His elect people that He hasn't called yet, then
they would perish. So what's He doing? He's waiting. to all his elect are called in,
to all his elect are saved, and then destruction will come. Look
what he says in that very chapter in verse 15. An account that
the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation. Salvation to who? All his elect. God has a purpose. Look over in the Philippians
in chapter 4 with me right quickly. Philippians chapter 4 and look
in verse 11 and verse 12. God is not sparing this world
today because it's got better than it was in the flood and
before the flood. The carnal mind is still enmity
against God. Man's hearts are still deceitful
and wicked, but God has a purpose. And here's what Paul tells us
of that purpose. Look in verse 11 of Ephesians
chapter 4. When the Lord Jesus, he said,
ascended on high, He gave gifts to men. In verse 11, and he tells
us what those gifts were. He gave some apostles. He gave some prophets. He gave
some evangelists. He gave some pastors and teachers. for the perfecting of the saints,
that is the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying, the lifting up, the building up of the body
of Christ, until we all come into the unity of the faith. Until all God's elect of all
nations is brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. and the
knowledge, the saving knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man, a mature man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ. See what God is doing. He has
a purpose. That's why I'm preaching the
gospel this morning to you. God has a purpose. And it's to
call out His elect from all nations, bring them to a knowledge and
revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, faith in Him, And then
when he saves his last chosen vessel, then destruction will
come. Now look back here with me again
at our text. Look back over in Genesis chapter
6. Now some, I'm sure, and it doesn't
surprise me when they do, some will say, Bruce, I just don't
believe. that man is so fallen. I don't
believe that the imagination of men's hearts are only evil
from their youth. I just don't believe that. I
don't believe men's hearts are as wicked as you say that they
are. If they were, then men would
know it. If they were, men would acknowledge
it. It couldn't be hid. If men are as bad as you say
they are, it would be more evident. Well, I'll tell you this, that
men's hearts are thus bad, it can't be denied. Because the
Scriptures teaches us that men's hearts are desperately wicked.
The Lord Jesus said it's not what goes in a man's mouth that
defiles him, but it's what comes out of his mouth. Because what
comes out of his mouth comes from his heart. And what did
the Lord say was in the heart of a man? Evil thoughts, murder,
adultery, fornication, false witness, an evil eye. All of these things come from
a man's heart and they defile him. A man cannot deny the sinfulness
of the human heart unless he denies the Word of God. But that
he's willing to hide it from himself, I don't doubt that either. But that he don't know it and
that he will not acknowledge it, that's beyond doubt. He will not. But why? Why cannot
man see his sinfulness? No man can see it until the Holy
Ghost teaches him of it. None of us can know ourselves
except the Holy Spirit give us light to see ourselves. The heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can
know it? Some of us sometimes will say,
if I know my heart, but that's the problem with us, ain't it?
Our hearts are so deceitful that we don't even know ourselves.
We don't even know ourselves. And this brings me here to our
text and our first point. And I want us to look at these
verses this morning and learn some things quickly from them.
First of all, notice this in verse 5. When we talk about the
wickedness of the human heart, the imaginations of it that it's
evil, that's not charges that I bring against you. That's not
a verdict or a conclusion that I've reached. This is God's opinion
of us. God saw the wickedness of man,
that it was great in the earth, and every imagination of his
thoughts was evil continually. That's God's verdict. Men are apt to think because
they don't see sin in themselves that God can see. Men, because
they're blind themselves, you see, they think that God is blind. And this is why men continue
on in their sin, because they imagine that God cannot see,
because they cannot see. But God is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart. He sees that monster right when
it is conceived. The imagination means there is
where sin is first conceived, when it is hatched in the heart.
When the monster of sin is bred, God sees it in the heart. When
it takes its first breath, God's eye is upon it. God sees sin
when it first comes into a man's heart. He discerns it. He knows
where it begins. He knows who it's against. He
knows how desperate the sin is. He knows the extent and the effects
of that sin. God is the one who saw the wickedness
of man. The prophet said, the eyes of
the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. And He sees it all. That's the
first thing that you and I need to learn this morning, that there's
not one evil thought, there's not one bad motive, there's not
one harsh word, whether it's spoken against heaven or against
man, but what God sees it. Every imagination. All of them. Every sin, every sin. Every imagination,
God sees. It wasn't Noah that saw, but
it was God that saw. And secondly, brothers and sisters,
let's learn this. When God sees sin, He sees it
for what it is. He puts a proper name upon it. When God saw the wickedness of
man, When God saw the imagination that they were evil, see how
He qualifies this? When you and I look at our sin,
we're apt to lessen them. We call them mistakes, or we
call them shortcomings, or something like that. But when God sees
sin, He calls it for what it is. He puts a proper name upon
it. He sees sin as being exceedingly
sinful in the light of His holiness. So He calls it wickedness. He
calls it evil. He calls it abomination. Why
does He do that? Because God knows what sin is. He knows it better than you and
I know it. And when He writes it in a book,
it's said to be written with a pen of iron and with a point
of a diamond. It means He presses down. He
writes it so it cannot be scribbled out or forgotten. And thirdly,
you and I must learn this from this. God discerns sin as to
its degree. He discerns sin as to its degree. We are told here that God saw
the wickedness of man, that it was great in the earth. The degree of wickedness was
great. Other places were told that the
iniquity of man was not yet full. God looked upon a man and He
said his iniquity is not yet full. And you and I read in the
Scripture so often that there are some sins worse than others. All sin is sin. All sin is damnable,
but as we read the Scriptures, we realize there are times when
God will tolerate some sins and others He will not. There are
some times where God will look upon a sin and He'll tolerate
it for a while until He brings judgment. And then there are
other times and other sins where He brings judgment immediately. And it's God only that decides
that. Cain had brought this offering,
the work of his own hands, and he had come into the presence
of the Lord. He had no faith, he had no blood sacrifice, and
God rejected him. I won't accept you, he said.
But God did not destroy him. God instructed him to do well. You do what you've been told.
You bring a blood sacrifice, you bring it by faith, and you'll
be accepted. Though Cain had sinned, God was
long suffering with him and instructed him what to do to be accepted. But what did Cain do? Out of
the hatefulness of his heart, he went and argued with his brother
and slew him. And then what did God do? God
said, now you're cursed. Now you're cursed. Before, I
was willing to tolerate you and your sin, but now you've filled
up your sin. You've done something that I
will not tolerate." And what did God do? His judgment fell
upon Him. I imagine that there are worse
sins than the sin that Achan committed. Achan found some Babylonian
garments and a few wedges of gold and silver, and he took
it. There was all kinds of garments.
There was all kinds of gold and silver, a great amount of it.
And he took just one or two garments. But the judgment of God fell
upon him because of it. He was stoned because of it.
And it was because of the circumstances that it was under. See, God is
a God who discerns sin. And it is earned when a man is
filled with sin, and God says, I'll judge it now. And others,
He lets them go on for a space of time before He brings judgment.
Sometimes you and I will see a 75 or 80 year old man, and
in our own eyes we know he's a wicked person. He manifests
it in the life that he lives. But God lets him live on. His
cup is not yet full. And yet at the same time, a 15
or an 18-year-old boy will suffer the eternal judgment of God. Now why is that? And we've all
wondered why that is. Brothers and sisters here, we
find out why that is. God discerns sin as to its degree,
as to how long suffering he'll be with it. He'll let one sin
go a long time before He judges it. And other sins He'll cut
off immediately. So He looks upon this old world
here, and here's what He says about it, I've determined this,
I'll tolerate their sins no more. I've looked upon it and I've
discerned and I've judged that their sin is great in this earth. You may say, well, I can commit
this sin. Everybody else is doing it. And
God may tolerate it in others, but He may not tolerate it in
you. God discerns those things. He has the prerogative of when
He sees He'll tolerate certain sins no longer. He saw the wickedness
of man, that it was great in the earth. In verse 6, we learn
something else. We learn how the sin of man affects
the heart of God. Did you notice that in verse
6? See how the sin of man affects the heart of God. He was grieved
in his heart. You know what you and I are apt
to think? And we think this wrongly. We think about lost men, it doesn't
matter what a lost man does. He's not saved anyway. And sometimes
lost people get this in their heads. They think, well, there's
coming a day when I'll turn from my sin and I'll turn to the Lord
and I'll seek Him. But until I do that, it doesn't
matter what I do. I can live in sin as I please. It doesn't matter because I'm
lost anyway. What an awful thought for a man
to have. Sin, wherever God sees it, in
whomever He sees it, grieves His heart. When God sees sin
in His own children, sometimes He takes extreme measure to correct
it and to bring them to confession of that sin and forgiveness of
it. And how much more so, brothers
and sisters, when He views it in the ungodly. Sin grieves the
heart of God. I don't care who we are this
morning. I don't care what our position in the kingdom of God
or the kingdom of this earth is. Sin is noticed of God and
it grieves His heart. The Lord loves righteousness
and He hateth iniquity. And the Scripture says that His
eyes run to and fro through this earth beholding the good and
the evil. And listen to this, God judges
the righteous and He is angry. He is grieved with the wicked
every day. Why? Sin grieves the heart of
God. He's angry with sin. Fifthly,
I want us to learn this, when God looks upon man's sin, He
has only two options available to Him. When God looks upon the
sins of man, He has only two options available to Him. We
found that here in verse 7 and verse 8. Look in verse 7. The Lord said, I will destroy
man. That's His first option. And
number 2 is found in verse 8. But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. That's the only two options.
God either must destroy a man because of his sins, or He must
forgive that man's sins and save him from those sins. Now brothers,
if you can find any other option that God has in the Scriptures,
I'd like to see it. There is no other option that
I ever read about. I know people wish there was
other option. They wish there was something
between hell and heaven, but there's not, you see. They know
they're not good enough to go to heaven, and they hope they're
not bad enough to go to hell. And they wish there was something
in between here where they could go. But there is no other place. And God, though He's almighty,
though He's wise, has only two options available to Him. When
He looks upon the sin of man, He must say, I will destroy him,
or He must look upon a man and say, I will forgive him. I'll
save him from his sin. Now let's look at the first option.
This is the most fearful thing. I will destroy a man whom I have
created. Here's the words of the Creator. And who's He talking to? Who's
He directing these threatenings to? A mere creature. I will destroy
man whom I have made." For God to make a man, and for God to
give him breath and being and movement and all things that
pertain to this life, and then look upon that man's sin and
threaten to destroy him, that's the most fearful thing, brothers
and sisters, I can think of. Not just say, I'm going to take
his health from him. Not just say, I'm going to take
his family from him. Not that I'm going to take His
property from Him, but He says here, I will destroy Him. For
God to take what a man has is one thing. For God to destroy
a man's health is one thing. But for the Creator to determine,
I will destroy Him, that's a fearful thing, ain't it? The Lord Jesus
said, don't fear them which kill the body and have nothing else
they can do. But He said, I'll forewarn you
whom you should fear. Fear Him who has power after
He's killed the body to destroy the soul in hell. This is a threatening
of God. He looks upon man, and because
of man's evil, He says, I'll destroy him. I am the Creator. I made him. He's my choice creature,
but now I will destroy him. Oh, that's the most fearful thought.
I can think of between the eternities. That God, look here, that God
would show a man no more consideration than you would show an old stray
dog or a sow or a spider that needs to be crushed under your
feet. I will destroy man Not only will
I destroy him, but he said, I will destroy all the other creatures,
the beast, the fowls of the air, and the creeping things, with
man. He lumps them all in one lump
and offers no more consideration to man than you would a beast. Isn't that a fearful thing? That
God would look upon one of his creatures and not uphold him
any longer? Treat him as though that he's
a poisonous spider and says, crush them all together. Destroy
them all without any consideration. All who can imagine of being
so abhorred of the Lord and so grieved that the Lord would not
give him one more breath to breathe. I will destroy man whom I have
created Though I have made him in My image, though I have upheld
him and watched over him and extended his life, I will do
it no longer. I will destroy him. He that made
them will have no mercy upon them, and he that farmed them
will show them no favor. I will treat them like a beast. I'll treat them like a creeping
thing, or a fowl of the air, which means nothing to me, he
said. I will destroy them. I'll shut him up in the prison
of hell, and who can open him? I'll whiten my glittering sword,
and my hand will take on judgment, and I will render vengeance to
my enemies, and I will repay them to their face that hate
me. These are words of God. I'll
repay them to their face the hate. When you parents go to
correct your children, what do you do with them? You make them
look at you, don't you? They'll drop their heads or they'll
try to turn away and you'll put your hand under their chin and
you say, look at me. Look at me while I'm talking
to you. Why do you do that? You want them to know why you're
correcting them. You want them to know what they've
done. You want their attention. You don't want them to be ignorant
about the matter anymore. When God says, I'll repay them
to their face that hate Me, what He means is there's coming a
day when He'll get men's attention because of their sin. He'll say,
this is the sin that you've committed. You've committed this sin and
you've committed that sin and I kept silent while you did it.
But now I'm going to set these sins in order before your face,
right before your face. I want you to know when you sinned,
who your sin was against, the effects and consequences of your
sin. He'll repay them to their face. He has no option. He has no option. We've heard men say that they
cannot believe that God would send man to hell. Well, give
him another option. If he looks upon a man to judge
him in his sin, what other option does he have but to destroy man? We were talking on the way to
church this morning. Someone made the statement that they
could not believe in the fact that God would send men to hell
because of their sins. Someone perished for all eternity.
And I made the statement, ain't that difficult to believe? I
have problems with that myself, don't you? I can't apprehend
such a thing. How bad sin must be. How holy
God must be that He's created a hell to punish it and to punish
men because of it. I can't get a hold of that. I
just know it's so. I just know it's so. And it scares
the hell out of me when I think about it, don't you? I don't
want no part of a holiness of God. I don't want a face of God
without a mediator, do you? I don't want God to look upon
me and say, I'll destroy Bruce Crabtree. I've made him and I've
upheld him. I've given him breath and food
and all things that pertain to this life. But now I'm going
to destroy him. Let a man believe it or not,
it really don't matter. It's just so. It's just so. The second option is this. It's
found here in verse 8. And oh, doesn't this make this
so precious? Noah found grace. Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. This is the first time this word
is mentioned in the Old Testament. Right here. We've seen salvation
in these preceding chapters. It's been so plain, but we've
never had a word attached to it to describe it. God provided salvation when our
parents fell. He made coats of skin. He applied
that salvation because He Himself clothed them with those coats. God continued that salvation
because Abel, he was saved. Seth and Enos and Adam's descendants
on Seth's side were saved. And Enos walked with God. And
God translated him. So what do we see in that? We
see salvation worked out, provided, applied, continued, completed
in anything. God translated him and took him
to heaven. But here only do we finally get a word to describe
what kind of salvation it is. What is it that brings such a
salvation? We are told here in verse 8,
Noah found grace. What is it that brings salvation,
brothers and sisters? It's grace. It's grace. How sweetly this Word here is
introduced. God saw the wickedness of man,
that it was great in the earth, but Noah found grace. Every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually, but
Noah found grace. I will destroy man whom I have
made, But Noah found grace. Isn't that a sweet sound? First
time we find this word in the New Testament. First three or
four times we find it. Such precious. So precious. First time we find it is in Luke
chapter 2 verse 40. It is speaking of the dear and
blessed Lord Jesus. It said, The child grew, and
he waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, And the grace of
God was upon Him. Now why is that so precious?
Because when it said the grace of God was upon the Lord Jesus,
it wasn't upon Him as a private person. The Lord Jesus did not
need grace. He was holy. He was without sin. But the grace of God was upon
Him as our representative. And then the second place we
find this is in John 1, verse 14. The Word was made flesh and
we beheld His glory full of grace. The heart of the Lord Jesus is
bigger than this universe. And what's it full of? Grace. And the very next verse said,
of His fullness have all we received. Grace. The law was given by Moses,
and what does the law do for us? It proves our guilt. It curses us. It casts us out. But grace and truth came by the
Lord Jesus Christ. Those who don't know how to interpret
Scriptures, they interpret this like this. They say, Noah found
grace because he was a just man. and perfect in His generation.
But what went first, brothers and sisters? What went first? Sin went first. The wickedness
of man went first. I will destroy. That's what went
first. When there was no goodness or
merit or righteousness in the creature. When God looked upon
His creatures and said, all is lost. Then and only then did
grace enter to intervene and to save. But Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. Grace cannot act where there
is merit in man. Grace will not do what man can
do for himself. If man can help himself, grace
cannot help him and will not help him. Grace is unmerited. Grace comes in and gives hope
to the hopeless. It gives help to the helpless.
It saves the lost. It forgives the guilty. Noah
found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Look over with me in a
couple of places right quickly. Look over in Isaiah chapter 57.
Isaiah chapter 57. My brother Larry Baker was talking
yesterday, Isaiah 57. We're living in a day where men
have no more need of the Lord Jesus Christ than a millionaire does of a
quarter. They just don't need Him. And one of the reasons they
do not need Him is because they do not know their awful sin and
condemnation before God. Brother Barnard used to make
the statement, and he said, I know men are going to judge me for
saying this, but he said, we run too quickly to Christ sometimes. We get to Christ too quickly,
he said. We offer Christ to men who don't
want Christ. We preach Christ to men who don't
need Christ. Men must be confronted with their
sin against the Holy God. And when they begin to cry out,
what must I do to be saved? Then you bring in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Men don't need grace, do they?
You know the only people that need grace? It's the guilty.
Those who are ready to perish. Noah found grace. And why is
that so precious? Noah was ready to perish. Noah
was ready to suffer the same fate everybody else suffered.
But Noah found grace. Look here in verse 16 of Isaiah
57. Verse 16 of Isaiah 57, the Lord
said, I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth.
The Spirit shall fail before me and the souls which I have
made. For the iniquity of his covetousness
I was angry, I was wroth, and I smote him, and I hid myself,
and I was angry, and he went on forwardly. You know what that
word forwardly is? It is very closely associated
with apostasy. Apostate. Idolatrous apostate. He went on forwardly in the way
of his heart. And look in verse 18. I have
seen his ways. What are you going to do about
it? I am going to destroy him. Well, that is what you think
he is going to do, but that is not what he said. I will heal
him. Oh, ain't that grace? Ain't that
the grace of God that's in Jesus Christ? I ought to destroy Him. He's worthy to be destroyed.
What are you going to do with Him? I'm going to heal Him. I'm
going to lead Him, restore confidence into Him and to His mourners. That's grace. Let me show you
another place. Look on Ephesians chapter 1 and
verse 7. Ephesians chapter 1 and verse
7. I'll quickly close. Ephesians 1, verse 7. Because
I will destroy, make thee an ark. Look in verse 7. Paul said in verse 6, The Lord
has saved us to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein
He made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches
of His grace. Not according to the greatness
of our merits. Not according to the power of
our free wills. Not according to the strictness
of our religion. Not according to our fine conduct
and good character. But according to my rich grace. Ain't that wonderful? One more
place, and I'll quickly close. Look back over in Genesis one
more time. We'll close with this point. In verse 13 and verse
14, look at this. In the last portion of verse
13, I will destroy them with the
earth, make thee an ark of gopher wood. In verse 8, it tells us
that the Lord showed Noah grace But here in these two verses,
we're told how grace saved him. How is God going to get Noah
and his family through this floodwaters to a new world? He can't leave
them out there in those waters. He'll drown with everybody else.
So God is determined to save them from His wrath. You know,
we say sometimes grace saves us, but we can't stop there.
How does grace save us? How does grace save us? Well,
here we're told in verse 14 about this ark. And brothers and sisters,
I'm not a person. I have no sense as to type things. I'm ignorant about typology.
I'll confess that to you. We have an ark here that was
somewhere around 540 foot long, about 90 so foot wide, and about
40 or 50 foot high. It's pitched within and without,
built out of gopher wood, has three layers in it, and on the
top there's a window about 18 inches wide and a big door inside.
And what all that means, I have no idea. I know what some of
it means, but not very much. But what does it mean to me when
I read that? You know what this means to me? God was not going to leave it
to chance. How to get Noah and his family
and all of these animals through this flood into a new world. He was not going to leave it
to Noah's skill. He was not going to leave it
to chance. He wasn't going to leave it to Noah's imagination
on how to do it. God gave the blueprints because
only God knew what it would take to get them through this flood
over to that new world. What kind of art would it take?
God said, I've determined that myself. And what does that mean to us?
Only God knows the awfulness of His judgment upon sin. And
only God knows the kind of person it's going to take to save us,
to bear our awful load, to put away our sins, and to bring us
from this world to that world that's to come. And what kind
of a person did He send us? He sent us His only begotten
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, they'll cry unto me,
and I'll send them a Savior, a great one, and He shall deliver
them. And there you see that ark. Look
at that ark, brothers and sisters. God is the one that gave Noah
the blueprints for that ark. What kind of an ark would it
take to endear these waves and all this wind? And there you
see it floating up on those waters. And all these waves beating against
the sides of that ark. Sometimes, don't you know, that
a wave come and down it went? And you couldn't even see the
ark. There it would pop up again. And I would imagine those inside,
they were rocking and a-rolling. Don't you think they were? Sometimes they may have thought
in their own apprehensions, will we ever get through this? Will
this ark hold us? Will it secure us? Will all these
waves and wind beat against it? But you know what? They landed. They rested, the Scripture says.
The ark come to rest on a mountain. And they were all safe in a new
world. And God sent His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And He took us and our sin into
Himself. And there on the cross of Calvary
outside the walls of Jerusalem, you see the awful wrath of God
pour over his soul, wave after wave after wave. And sometimes
he went under and he said, Thy billows have swallowed me up. You and I wonder sometimes, are
we going to make it? Will we make it? But you know
something, brothers and sisters, All the wrath and all the judgment
fell upon Him, but it never touched us. Not one drop of water that we
ever read of entered that ark to touch those that were in there. And no wrath No eternal wrath
of God will ever fall upon those who are in the Lord Jesus Christ,
because He bore the wrath of God in their stead. They go through
this life and sometimes they may wonder in their own apprehensions,
will I really make it? They see their sins, how awful
they are. They have these apprehensions
of the wrath of God and the curse of the law. And oh, sometimes
in their mind, how they're shaking. But you know something, brothers
and sisters, if you're in the Lord Jesus Christ this morning,
He's going to take you through this sin-cursed world, and He's
going to land you safe on heaven's coast. And then when you and
I are there, we'll sing, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. We
sang it here, but we'll really sing it there. that saved a wretch
like me. I once was lost, but now I'm
found. I was blind, but now I see. Through all these dangers, falls,
and snares, I have already come. And it was grace that brought
me safe thus far. And His grace will lead me home.
And when we've been there 10,000 years, shining as the sun, we've
no less days to sing His praise. than when we first began. I will
destroy, therefore make thee an ark. Oh, dear soul, if you're
not in Christ this morning, you don't have an ark. You don't
have an ark. Get in Christ. Get in the Lord
Jesus Christ. There is no other safe place.
There is no other safe place. Our gracious Father, or our Father
in Heaven. We dare not this morning approach
unto you, apart from the name and the righteousness and the
obedience, the intercessions of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only
you know truly the great Savior that we need, because you know
the exceeding sinfulness of sin and your awful anger and power
against it. Our Father, we approach unto
you this morning and address you as our Father, our kind and
tender Father, because of the Lord Jesus. Thank you for giving
us your Word. Thank you for teaching us. I
pray you'll be your own interpreter this morning. Bless your people. Warn the lost. Give them grace
to come. Bless this day, our service as
we go, as Garrett professes Christ in water baptism. Meet with us
there. For Christ's glory we pray. Amen.