Our text is found in Hebrews
chapter 12. If you would like to turn there. Lord willing, this will conclude
Hebrews 12. And we will be going second hour into the 13th and
final chapter of Hebrews, so. Coming to the end of the book.
The glorious part about that is that we could just start back
at chapter one. and see things we never saw before all over
again. The word of God is inexhaustible, isn't that amazing? As we come to the end of this
chapter, the writer, he makes a clear description, gives us
a clear description of the character of our God. The very last verse
says, our God is a consuming fire. That's a frightening thought
if you are a sinner. It's a frightening thought if
you don't have a savior. You don't have a substitute.
God is a consuming fire. That tells us that he doesn't
acquit the guilty. He will not let sin go unpunished. But just as a fire consumes that
which it burns, and most of us either have fireplaces or have
been around fire enough to understand Fire consumes it all, it's all
gone. You have some ash at the bottom,
but it's very minimalistic compared to the amount of wood that you
may have put into the fire. When it comes to the sin of man,
the Lord is a consuming fire. He will punish that sin. He will pour out his wrath upon
that sin, and it's in the form of fire. That's what hell is,
is a place of torment, a place of fire, and we see that the
wrath of God fell upon Christ, upon the cross, that's a picture
of fire. In Noah's time, it was water, judgment was water. It's
always death, that's what it represents, it's always death,
but the Lord will not show mercy in wrath. Make no mistake about
this, there's only one place One hiding place from the wrath
of God, from that fire, only one. There's not multiple hiding
places. There's not multiple cities of
refuge. There's not multiple arcs. There's not multiple clefts of
the rock. There's just one, and his name is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the one we must be in, or that fire will fall upon us. It'll fall upon us. Let's read this, Hebrews 12 verse
28 and 29. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom
which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve
God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is
a consuming fire. Notice, well first I'm gonna
give you the title. because we're gonna end up going
to Genesis chapter six as well. I've titled this message Come
into the Ark. Come into the Ark. Notice the
cause and effect here in verse 28. A lot of men have this backwards,
but he's saying because we've received the kingdom of heaven,
therefore we can serve God acceptably. Because we receive the kingdom,
therefore, we can serve God. Anytime you see the word receive,
receive is not a work, receive is not a choice, receive is passive. You received life. You were born,
you received life upon conception. You received life. You had nothing
to do with that. When you were born, you had nothing
to do with that. And just in salvation, you had nothing to
do with that. You received life. That's what he's speaking of
here. Because you received the kingdom, you can live acceptably
unto the Lord. You can live acceptably. He says,
let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with
reverence and godly fear. That means unless the Lord's
given you the kingdom, which is Christ, Christ is the, there'd
be no heaven without him. So that's what heaven is, wherever
he is, that's heaven. That's his kingdom, where his
people are. And in receiving that and being given that, we
see that we serve God. Well, how do you serve God? You
look to Christ, that's serving God. You look to his son, everything
that he requires, Christ satisfied. And the only way that you can
please God is to look to his son, is to look to his son. Only
those who receive the kingdom are enabled to do so. Most people
would say, well, if you'll serve God, If you have grace and serve
God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, then you'll receive
the kingdom of heaven. That's not what it reads at all.
That's backwards. That's backwards. Because you have received the
kingdom of God, therefore, therefore you can serve God by grace, and
it's service by grace. It's all grace, isn't it? It's
grace in the electing, the calling, the saving, the keeping. It's
all grace, and it's grace in serving. Grace to serve the Lord.
And we do that by continually looking unto Christ. But now
you can serve God acceptably, acceptably. It doesn't say if
you serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, then
you receive the kingdom. He's saying because, wherefore, in
light of everything that he just said, everything that he just
said, wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved,
let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with
reverence, and godly fear. The only way to serve God acceptably
is look to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. Don't look at yourself
and your life and see how you're living. Am I acceptable unto
God? The answer is no. Not with what
you do. Not with what I do. Even me preaching
right now is sinful. Why? Because I'm doing it. The
Lord has to take these words and bless it by his spirit into
his people or it's all vanity. The Lord has to do it all. Lord
has to do it all, when we sing hymns, we are offering praise
unto the Lord, we're attempting to worship Him, but if He doesn't
take our best efforts and wash them in the blood of Christ,
then they're nothing. They're nothing. But I'm glad
He does, aren't you? So to serve God acceptably is
by looking to Christ. And the only way to look to Christ
is to be able, been able to, having been enabled to. You and
I are not able to look to Christ on our own. We're not able to
come to Christ on our own. We don't have that power or that
ability on our own. We're not born with that gift.
The gift comes by the Lord. It's called eternal life and
it's by grace. And when the Lord gives grace,
by his grace gives faith to believe we come to Christ. We come to
Christ. Then he makes a statement. At
the very end, the last thing he's saying, in chapter 12, he
says this, for our God is a consuming fire. That word for is because.
Because our God is a consuming fire. This is the fire of judgment
and wrath. This is the rain that fell upon
Noah. This was the wrath that fell
upon the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Turn with me to Genesis
chapter six. We'll look at that together. Up until Genesis chapter six,
Noah hadn't been mentioned yet. He's only mentioned in the very
last verse of chapter five. And it's just to say, he was born, how old he was,
and he had sons. So this is just a lineage in
chapter five. If you read the first part of
this, it'll tell you that the imagination of all men was only
on evil continually in the eyes of God, and God had purposed
and determined to destroy all flesh from off the face of the
earth. Why? Because they were sinful. There
was none that sought after good, none that sought after God. They
all went about their own way, eating, drinking, marrying, and
given in marriage. They were doing what they wanted to do
according to the flesh, much like the world that we live in
today. Um, you see the one, the places the Lord destroyed was
always, uh, corruption. There was sexual corruption,
but there was, I mean, all kinds of corruption. It wasn't just
one thing. But none sought after the Lord. Everyone became their
own God is how it happened. Everybody went their own way.
And that's what happens to men left to themselves. They will
go after their own way. You remember whenever the scripture
says that in the day Israel did not have the king, it said, every
man did that which was right in his own eyes. That's what's
happening here. They're all doing right what's
right in their own eyes. And so that's where we're at
right now. Look at verse five. And God saw the wickedness of
man 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
in his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy
man with whom I've created from the base of the earth, both man
and beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air. And
it repented me that I have made them. Now, if he would have stopped
right there, They would be no holy grace church. They would
be no, none of us would be alive. But he interjected, didn't he?
And what does he say? But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Now that's the gospel. That's
the gospel. Noah wasn't looking for grace.
Every single imagination of the heart of man was only on evil
continually. He said every one of them. Does
that encompass Noah as well? He said every one of them, but
here's the difference. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. That's the difference. See, if Noah had never been given
grace to believe God, Noah would continue with his heart being
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked just as you
and I, that's how we're born. But he found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Noah received grace from God
by God's choice. God chose to save him. Well,
how did he save him? Well, the scripture tells us
clearly, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according
to his mercy. According to his mercy, he saved
us. And then he actually tells us
the reason that he saved him. Look in verse 18. I got a little bit ahead of myself.
We have to read. We have to read verse nine through 13 first. These are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation. And
Noah walked with God, and Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham,
and Japheth. And the earth 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 has come before me, for the earth is filled with
violence through them. And behold, I will destroy them
with the earth, make thee an ark of gopher wood. Room shall
thou make it in the ark, and shall pitch it within and without
with pitch. Now he gives us the reason, look
in verse 18. But with thee will I establish my covenant. And thou shalt come into the
ark, thou thy sons, thy wives, and thy sons' wives with thee. What was the difference maker?
Who made the difference? God did. God said, I'm going
to establish my covenant with you. He didn't say, Noah, let's
me and you make a covenant together. That's different, isn't it? He
didn't say, okay, if you do your part, I'll do my part. He says,
no, I'm going to establish my covenant with you. Somebody said,
well, he did work, he had to build the ark. Well, we do come
to church and we do paint the walls and we do paint the building
and clean it and everything like that. Do you consider that a
work? No. No, certainly not. That's just our honor and ability
to be able to do. No, Noah didn't build the ark
as his righteousness. Noah's righteousness was the
Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, he built the ark.
See the difference? Those righteousness was the Lord
Jesus Christ. He believed the word of God,
therefore he built the ark. That's the difference. He didn't
build the ark to have righteousness. He built the ark because he had
righteousness already before God. He found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Why did he find grace? The everlasting
covenant of grace. It's still the same two covenants
that we've been talking about in Hebrews. We've been comparing
them, going back and forth. You have the covenant of works.
where God says do and live, but no man can come to the Father
but by Christ. There was no life that came through
the law. It was the law of work. It was the law of labor. It was Mount Sinai. It represents the bondwoman never
being set free. It's attempting to establish
righteousness by the law. That's what the first covenant
is, the covenant of works. But the second covenant, which
actually far surpasses The first covenant, it's older, means it's
everlasting. That's the covenant of grace.
That's the covenant whereby God saved his people from their sin.
That's where God does all the saving. And you just find out
you got saved. He did it. He saved you. He saved his people. When? In
eternity past, before time ever began, and in time on the cross
of Calvary, he saved his people from their sin. We've always
been seen in Christ. Don't ask me to explain that
to you. We just believe it by faith. That's the only way that
can be received and believed is by faith. This covenant, the one that he's
talking to Noah about, this is the covenant fulfilled by the
Lord Jesus Christ. This is the covenant accomplished
by the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the covenant whereby
men and women are saved. Understand, if it's not this
covenant, no one can be saved. This is the only way God saves
sinners. It's by grace, by grace. And he gives faith, his faith,
that we might believe. Scripture tells us clearly, no
one can be saved by the law. No flesh shall be justified by
the deeds of the law. And he said for that, for what
the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh,
God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law to
redeem them that were under the law. Noah found grace in the
eyes of the Lord. And that is our hope. That is
our hope. Why is that our hope? Because
we're still speaking about God being a consuming fire. He's
going to destroy the entire world right here. Every creature, every
being on the face of the earth except for the ones he has chose
to save. He's going to destroy everything
but those he chose to save. And it's the same thing now in
the covenant of grace as it was then. He had some animals come
on the ship, didn't he? On the boat. He had everything
that required to sustain Noah and his family for the duration
of time they had to be on there. He provided all of that for them.
Everything required. And that's exactly what he did
in his son. Everything required, he provided in the ark. In the
ark. Noah didn't have to go out and
fetch the means by how he was going to How's he gonna go call
two by two animals everywhere, all over the world? That didn't
happen. No, they came, why? God told
them to get, that's why. And so they came to the ark.
And that's exactly what the Lord does for his people, is the Lord
tells us, get in the ark, come into the ark. Just like he did
the animals, that's exactly the point. Otherwise we wouldn't
know there's a flood. We wouldn't know there's rain
coming. We wouldn't know that there's judgment and wrath coming. We
wouldn't know any danger is coming. We would look at ourself and
see ourself better than our peers and think God will be satisfied
with us. But God's holding us to a much higher standard. It's
the standard of perfection, perfect righteousness. It's the standard
of his son. We cannot stand in the presence
of the holy God with our righteousness. It's filthy rags. That's why
we need the ark. Here we have pronounced judgment.
with one hope given. And that's exactly what we're
doing this morning. As I am giving you pronounced judgment, the
Lord will destroy this world. And every man and woman will
give an account of their deeds, whether they be good or whether
they be evil. And your only hope is that when you stand, that
you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
That's your only hope. That's my only hope. He's the
only one ark. He was the hope of Noah. He is
our hope. There's no other hiding place
from the wrath to come. You and I cannot endure that
wrath, that fire. He did. He did. You remember
Moses and the burning bush? You ever wondered why that bush
didn't burn? Because it represented the Lord Jesus Christ on the
cross. The Lord endured the fiery wrath of God the Father on behalf
of his people, and he was not consumed. He absorbed, he extinguished,
he consumed all of the fire for the Lord's people until it was
gone, completely gone. All the sin has been taken away. All the sin has been cast to
the sea of forgetfulness. All the sin will never be remembered
again. Therefore, when you stand before God, if you're one of
his, and he brings up your record, it's gonna say Jesus Christ across
the top. That'll be your record. You're
gonna have the record of the son, not yours, not your own that
you've done what he has done. He's bestowed that by grace.
This is what is so important. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. You and I must, we must find grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And the only way to find grace is to be in the
ark, to be in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, was Christ successful on the
cross? Yes. How do you know? Well, somebody
asked me recently, why do you believe the Bible? Well, for
one thing, it's the Christ of the Bible, but the Lord has caused
me to believe it. And in believing the Bible, it
said when he by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the
right hand of God. If that's not true, I have no
hope of salvation. When he said it is finished,
if that's not true, I have no hope of salvation. That's why
I believe it. He's given us the ability to
believe. He's given us, whenever he endured God's wrath, this
was a transaction between him and his father, where we were
made perfectly righteous. And he was made a curse for us.
He was made sin who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. And he purged his people's sin. That's
why we must be in the ark. We must be in the ark. Somebody
said, how much of the Bible do you have to believe? All of it. All of it. That's simple, isn't
it? Every word. Why? It's God's word. It's not mine. It's not man's.
It was inspired by the Holy Spirit. It's God's word. It's God's word. Here's the command that comes
from God's word. Look in verse Chapter seven, verse one of Genesis. And the Lord said unto Noah,
come thou and all thy house into the ark for thee I seen righteousness
before me in this generation. Now I want you to notice the
wording here. I love this wording. So many times we could see this
and just skip over this part. But before I mentioned the come
thou into the ark, and that's the title of this message, I
want you to notice that it says for thee, God's saying for thee,
have I seen righteousness before, have I seen righteous before
me in this generation? Thee I have seen righteous before
me. And how is that possible? Because he was in Christ. because
he was in Christ. Christ was the righteousness
God saw. Noah was not the righteousness God saw, Christ was. Come thou
and all thy house into the ark. The Lord didn't say go into the
ark, did he? Have you ever thought of that? He didn't say go into
the ark, why? Because that's where he was,
come. Come unto me. See, you're coming
to a person. Salvation's a person. Salvation's
not a prayer we pray. Salvation's not an act we do.
Salvation is a person. We must come to Him. We must
be enabled to come to Him. Come into the ark, not go. Come to where I am. Come to what
I am pleased with. Come to what satisfies me. This
ark's your only hope. God is a consuming fire, and
this ark is your only hope of eternal life. You have to be
in the ark. Come. into the ark. I'll tell
you that they went into the ark and for seven days the door stayed
open. You find that interesting? The Lord tells him in the next
verse, seven days, it's gonna be, not the next verse, but yeah,
verse four, for yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon
the earth. So seven days, door was open. You'd think that he
would be outside the ark, wouldn't you? No, it'd be like, okay,
we'll just come in on the sixth day at nighttime or something.
No, they went into the ark right then. Why? Because they had a need. Why
do you come to the ark right now? You have a need. And only
those who are enabled by God's grace have that need. He gives
us a need that only he can feel, and he fills it with his son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. We see the wrath is coming. I
see my sin ever before me. Oh, wretched man that I am, I
have no hope of enduring that wrath. But the Lord prepared
an ark, the Lord Jesus Christ. who was pitched within and without.
That blood's atonement. He has blood. That's our covering. When he sees the blood, he'll
pass by us. Not our lifestyle, our living,
our good deeds. When he sees the blood, that
blood protected him, didn't it? And you think about that rain
beating down upon that ark and wave after wave of hitting it,
and it endured. It endured, and every single
person in that ark was brought safely. I love the fact that
it doesn't have, you'll never find in Genesis chapter six and
seven where it talks about the size and everything that he's
building, the rooms and the windows, it doesn't say anything about
a rudder, doesn't say anything about a sail, doesn't say anything
about a steering wheel, why? Because Noah wasn't in charge,
that's why. We're not in charge of this,
God is. And it's gonna land exactly where God has purposed for it
to land. And bring every single person that God's put in that
ark, That's what's gonna happen, safely to the other side. If you want peace with God, you
must be in the ark. If God's shown you you're the
sinner, and you wanna be saved from wrath, and you wanna be
saved from self, and you wanna be saved from sin, and you wanna
be saved from what you are, Want to be safe from Satan? Want to
be safe from the world? You've got to be in the ark.
You've got to be in the ark. You must come into the ark. The
door is open. The door is open. God said, I
shut doors no man can open, and I open doors no man can shut.
How do you know the door is open right now? Because I believe
that there's still people on the face of this earth that's God's
chosen people. His wrath will not fall upon them ever. Why?
Because it fell once upon his son for them. And it was Christ
satisfied the Father whenever he took that wrath. Therefore,
you and I in the ark at that time. See, justice can't be executed
twice. Justice can't be executed twice.
It's unjust then. It's unjust, but justice has
been satisfied never to be executed again. Come thou to the ark. They had a need. It never rained
before. Do you know that? You ever seen
fire fall from the sky? I'm not talking about a meteor.
I'm actually talking to fire rain. I haven't either. I don't know. I don't want to be presumptuous
that nobody's ever seen it, but I haven't seen it maybe from
a volcano or something, but I'm talking about utter destruction. Well, we're told that's going
to happen. That's exactly what's going to happen. Lord's going
to burn this earth up with a fervent heat. Never saw it before. Do you believe it? Yes. Why?
Because God said it. He said, Noah, it's going to rain. Can
you imagine Noah? He's like, what's rain? I mean,
seriously. He doesn't say that in here,
but he wouldn't have known what that word meant. It had never rained
before. And Noah believed God. How is
it that Noah believed God? God gave him faith to believe
God. That's how. That's the only way we can believe.
It's the only way we can believe. And we must, with that faith,
God must give us that need to believe him, give us that need
to come into the ark and then fill it with Christ, or we'll
never have a need. We won't need to go into the ark. All the people
out there, you know they made fun of Noah. You know they did.
They heckled him, scoffed at him, made fun of him, all kinds
of things. 100 years it took him to build
this boat. Imagine working on the same thing for 100 years.
It's gonna rain. It's gonna rain. It's gonna rain, and everybody's
like, okay, if there was any doubt that you're crazy, now
we're certain that you're crazy, it's not gonna rain. I mean,
really, that's what their mentality would have been like, because
you understand what I'm saying. But God, he kept his word. In his time, it rained. Cannot come into the ark without
faith. That's why all these that heckled and made fun of him didn't
come in. God didn't give them faith. They did not find grace
in the eyes of the Lord. If God hadn't revealed the flood,
he wouldn't have known anything about it, but he saved Noah the
same way that he saves all of his children, by grace alone,
coming to the ark. That's what he tells us, coming
to the ark. Once we arrive in the ark, meaning,
Once the Lord calls us out of darkness into his light, once
we see the truth, we realize, well, we've always been there.
I've always been in the ark. I just didn't know it. Because
the Lord's the one that has to put you there. I love that, don't
you? This ain't something where you
stand up to where you are and you come down here to the front and you
shake my hand or you eat something or even get baptized. No, that's
not what he's talking about. He's saying come to Christ. How
do you do that? With the eyes of faith. The heart
of faith. Don't move a muscle. Come to
Christ. Come into the ark. There's only one hope to escape
the reign of wrath. Come into the ark. Doesn't matter
how good we are. Well, how good we think we are.
God tells us how good we are. There's none good, no not one.
What does none mean? I'm a country boy, so I can understand
small words. None means none. It means zero,
nada. There's none good, no not one. And when men believe that they
are good, they're looking at others who are worse than them
in their mind, and they think, well, I'm not as bad as that man or
that woman. God says there's none good, no not one. There's only one hope to escape
the rain. Come into the ark. Doesn't matter how good we think
we are. Once that door shuts, it will be too late. It will
be too late. May the Lord calls us. May the
Lord call us into the ark today. If he never has, right now. Lord,
call me into the ark. Call me into the ark right now.
Ask him. He never turned away a mercy beggar. Lord, if I haven't
believed, calls me to believe right now. Believe to Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. That's what we're told. In closing,
let's go back to Hebrews 12. Verse 28, wherefore, we receiving
a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we
may serve God acceptably, and reverence and godly fear, for
our God is a consuming fire. Because our God is a consuming
fire, you and I must be in the ark, the Lord Jesus Christ, we
must. You wanna serve God? Somebody
said, what can I do to serve God? Come into the ark. believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, look to Christ, don't look to yourself,
that's how you serve God. There's no substitution for him,
there's no other hiding place, there's no other righteousness
but his. There's no righteousness outside of this ark whereby men
are saved, there's not. Anything you and I produce is
just filthy rags. He alone satisfied God demands. He alone is the salvation of
God's people. He alone is salvation. The ark
is our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ coming to the ark. Let's
pray. Father, thank you for being the
way. Lord, we worship you, Father, for your
glorious truth. I ask that you would bless it
to our understanding. In Christ's name, amen.