That was a good sangin'. Genesis
chapter six. I'm gonna read beginning with
verse 11, read through the end of the chapter. The title of
my message tonight is The Man in the Ark. Genesis chapter six. 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 to 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.
Brooms shalt thou make in the ark, and thou shalt pitch it
within and without pitch. And this is the fashion which
thou shalt make it. Make it of the length of the
ark shall be 300 cubits, the breadth 50 cubits, and the height
30 cubits. A window shalt thou make to the
ark, and 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 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 into 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 into the ark to keep them alive with thee.
They shall be male and female, of fowls after their kind, and
cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing. of earth
after his kind, two of every sort shall come to thee to keep
them alive. Now shalt be and take thou unto
thee all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee,
and it shall be food for thee and for them. Thus did Noah according
to all that the Lord commanded him. So did he. Let us pray. Now God and our Father, we bless
thee and thank thee. for your great greatness to ruin
and wretched sinners, to know that among a world that is perishing,
and rightfully so, thou has chosen your children, thou has chosen
your people. They have found grace in your
eyes, and you have, by the blood of Jesus Christ, saved them from
their sins. We bless you and thank you for
such a wondrous thing. We thank you for your word which
accounts the destruction of the earth by your power and your
might by this flood. We thank you for the account
that Noah found grace in your eyes. We thank you for the account
of this ark that you had him prepare for the saving of his
household and the saving of the world, really. Father, we thank
you. We thank you for your goodness
and your mercy. Father, let us remember those
who are sick and going through trials. Remember Wayne, Robert,
Peggy Lambert, Ethel Conley, also my daughter Sarah, as she's
recovering from this chemotherapy. Be my wife as she's taking care
of those kids. Be with us as we gather here
tonight. Cause us in our heart to worship you in spirit and
in truth. We remember Brother Rain and
his wife as they lost their house. We ask Lord you'd be with them.
Help them to recover these great losses. Help us, Lord, to remember
each other in prayer. We pray for every man who stands
tonight to proclaim the glories of your grace. Uplift them, hold
them up. Give them great liberty to preach
the glories of Jesus Christ. We pray in his precious name.
Amen. Now this is the record of God's
promise to destroy the earth and in the habits thereof with
the waters of the great flood. As to the science of the flood,
many books have been written. I have several in my library,
and they make for interesting reading. The problem I have with
them is their method of approach to the subject. It seems that
their treatises are designed to prove the veracity of scriptures,
which is placing the cult before the Conestoga. The scriptures
are the inerrant word of God, and science plays no part in
proving them true. To use science in this manner
is to deny the only true way, that the scriptures are understood,
and that is only by God-given faith. Men sometimes think that
science gives empirical evidence to the validity of scriptures,
but the only empirical evidence is faith itself. God says faith
is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. Now the Ark was an amazing vessel,
no doubt about that. It has been said that the British
built their dreadnought battleships on the dimensions of the Ark.
There's a theme park in Kentucky that is built around a full-size
ark built on specifications given in this chapter. Archaeologists
have spent years looking the mountains of Ararat, looking
for the ark. But if they found it, men would worship it like
they did the brazen serpent that Hezekiah had to destroy and grind
to dust. I've heard remarks from people
that visited the Kentucky site saying things like they felt
closer to God when they were there. Listen very carefully. If a thing Even a thing as impressive
as an Ark remake causes you to feel closer to God. There's a
true possibility, even a probability, that the meaning of the Ark has
escaped you altogether. You don't know God at all. That
great vessel is a picture and a type of the only way a person
can be close to God. As the poet said, nearer to God
I cannot be, for in His Son I'm as close as He. If you know Christ,
you're as close to God as you're ever going to get, because you're
in Him. We'll consider the typology of
the ark in Noah in weeks to come, but this hour I want us to consider
some things concerning the man and the ark. The man and the
ark are both types of Jesus Christ. The theme is singular, as it
always is in Scripture. It is the theme of the entire
Word of God, the glorious theme that permeates every word and
sentence and line and paragraph of this sacred tome. That theme
is the salvation of the elect by the substitutionary, propitiatory
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is He whom Noah represents.
It is He whom the ark represents. It is He whom the covenant represents. It is He whom the pitch for the
ark represents. The word pitch is the same word
used for atonement throughout the Old Testament Scriptures.
Noah existed, existed for saving God's people. That's why he existed. The ark was made for the saving
of God's people. So one man, and one ark. One man and one ark. Well, there
are three arks in Scripture. There are three in Scripture.
They are vitally connected to three men in Scripture. And in
each situation only one man is connected to the ark. Only one
man. The first ark and the first man
connected to it are here in the record we have of the destruction
of the world and the salvation of the elect. In Hebrews chapter 11 when it
talks about the faith of Noah In Hebrews chapter 11, it says, By faith Noah, being
warned of God of things not seen yet, moved with fear, prepared
the ark to the saving of his household, by the which he condemned
the world, and became the heir of righteousness which is by
faith. By faith he moved and prepared
the ark. For what? For the saving of his
people. For what? For the condemning of the world.
This was why the ark was made. This one man was given a very
arduous task to build this enormous vessel by himself in the midst
of a world that had no interest or belief in what he was doing.
It is said in another place that he was a preacher of righteousness
and as all preachers of righteousness They are preachers of one thing,
and that is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul said, I am
not ashamed of the gospel, for therein is the power of God revealed
from faith to faith. Therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. If a man preaches righteousness,
there is only one righteousness that is acceptable to be preached,
and that is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He alone is
our righteousness. We have none but Him, the Old
Testament preachers. They had one singular and absolute
way. It's what he was talking about when Noah preached righteousness. And there is no recording of
his preaching. Maybe he preached with every
plank that he put on that ark, or every bit of pitch that he
put on the inside and out. But I know his message was righteousness.
It was righteousness, the way of God to salvation. And it's
the only way. The only way. It's God's salvation. He was preaching righteousness
in the preparation of that ark. His salvation is the way that
the world had corrupted. That's according to His own words
here in verse 12 of our text. It says, And God looked upon
the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted
His way. Had corrupted His way upon the
earth. What is His way? It's the way
of righteousness. The way of Jesus Christ. There
are numerous ways to corrupt that righteousness. There are
numerous ways to corrupt the way of God. But they are all
reduced to one thing, and it's simply this. Something that's
added to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ corrupts the work,
corrupts the gospel. The ark, that ark, was the salvation
and there was no other way. That ark. That man was the one
elect man on earth. He was the one. The one elect
man on the earth and he was about to be saved in that ark. That's how it works. One man
and one ark. That's God's way. That's God's
way. The second arc is found in Scripture
in Exodus chapter 2. If you want to turn there, in
Exodus chapter 2, it's recorded in verses 1 through 10. It says, And there went a man of
the house of Levi, and took a wife, a daughter of Levi, and a woman
conceived, and bare a son. And when she saw him, that he
was a goodly child, she hid him for three months. And when she
could not hide him any longer, she took for him an ark. There's an ark. An ark of bulrushes,
and daubed it with slime and with pitch. There's slime and
pitch again, picture of the atonement. And put the child therein, and
she laid it in the flags by the river bank. And his sister stood
afar off to wit what would be done to him. And the daughter
of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her
maiden walked along by the riverside, and when she saw the ark among
the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had
opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the babe wept. And
she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews'
children. Then said his sister Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go
and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse
the child? And Pharaoh's daughter said to
her, go. And the child went and called the child's mother. And
Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse
it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took
the child and nursed it. And the child grew. And she brought
him to Pharaoh's daughter. And he became her son. And she
called his name Moses. She called his name Moses because
she drew him out of the water. The children of Israel at this
time were in captivity in Egypt as promised by God to Abraham
in Genesis 15. And a new king arose in Egypt
that knew not Joseph. Because the children of Israel
were multiplying, the king of Egypt began to fear an uprising
might occur because of the number of the children of Israel. And
he sent out an edict to the midwives that aided in the birth of the
Israelite children. This is all found in chapter
one. The edict was to kill all the
male children. Kill all the male children born.
A male child, however, was born to a son of Levi and his wife,
and he was a goodly child. And she hid him for three months,
and when she could hide him no longer, she made an ark of bulrushes,
pitched it within and without with slime and pitch, and floated
it down the river. to be found a Pharaoh's daughter
who in time adopted him as her son. And in that ark was a child
who would become a man who would be the Savior and deliverer of
Israel. There's an ark and a man. He was commissioned of God to
deliver Israel and he did it. And in doing so brought the destruction
of Pharaoh and his army in the bottom of the Red Sea. And this
is true of every instance of deliverance and salvation throughout
the Scripture including yours. Before God saves you, He destroys
your enemy. You can count on that. God saved
your soul on the cross by bruising the serpent's head. That was
part of your salvation. Check it out. Throughout Scripture,
every time God delivers His people, He destroys their enemy. Those
two things must be because there is no salvation if the enemy
still exists. Salvation must be destroying
the enemy to retrieve those whom God has chosen to deliver. One
man and one ark. This is what we see. Preserved
for the salvation of God's elect people. Years down the road there
will be another child born. Centuries. Who is also under
the sentence of death by another cruel king. And that child was
preserved where? In Egypt. In Egypt. He was preserved until the death
of that king and that child became the one man. He was the Son of
God. He was both the man and the ark
who would save true Israel, the elect of God, the Israel of God.
He would save them from the bondage of sin and of Satan and self
by His perfect sacrifice to God. One man. One ark. The salvation of God's people.
The third ark was found in Exodus chapter 25. in Exodus chapter 25. In Exodus
chapter 25 in verse 10 it says, And they shall make an ark of
Shittim wood, two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof,
and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half
the height thereof. This is the ark of the covenant
the Ark of the Covenant. That piece of furniture was central
in the atonement of the people of Israel. It was a chest made
of shittum wood, covered in gold, and inside the cabinet was the
broken law, Aaron's rod that budded, and a bowl of manna.
The chest was covered with a solid gold cover, and upon it were
two solid gold cherubim with outstretched wings. And between
the wings dwelt the Shekinah glory of God. Does that sound
familiar? It should. That's where The offering was
made by Cain and Abel at the east of Eden in Genesis chapter
3 and verse 24. The same kind of language is
used to describe that altar there. It says, so he drove out the
man and placed at the east of Eden, east of the garden of Eden,
cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way. What?
To keep the way of the tree of life. And that word flaming there
is shaken. in the original language is Shekinah
Glory. There's the dwelling glory of
God. That's the flame that licked up Abel's sacrifice in acceptance
and rejected Cain's sacrifice. It's a mercy seat is what it
is. It's a place where God communes with his people. Between those
wings dwelt the Shekinah glory of God. That cover was called
the mercy seat. The mercy seat. In the scripture
you find another word in the New Testament for mercy seat.
That word is propitiation. Propitiation. What is that word? It means satisfaction or expiation. Expiation or appeasement. Appeasement. You see under the
old covenant it was over the mercy seat And that was the only
place where God would commune with His people, over that mercy
seat. It says that in Exodus 25 and
verse 22, And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune
with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims,
which are upon the ark of the testimony. Of all things will
I give unto thee in commandments unto the children of Israel. The mercy seat. God would commune
with His people there. This is a wondrous thing. Under
that old covenant, God would communicate with his people in
a 15 by 15 foot cubicle. Think about it. Now the earth
was a big place. Lots of people all over the face
of the earth. I don't know how many acres of
land there was, but there's probably millions and millions of people
upon the face of the earth. God met with one man one time
a year in a 15 by 15 foot cubicle only for one group of people.
one small group of people made up of twelve tribes called the
Children of Israel. You think how big the earth is?
A fifteen foot, fifteen cubic area would fit a couple times
in this room. That one little area is where
God met. There's where God communed with his people. That communion,
however, was not with the people. It was with a person. It was
a person who represented the people. He was called the High
Priest. It was communion with the people's
representative. He alone met with God. The people
didn't meet with God. The representative met with God.
We don't meet with God. Our representative meets with
God. Our representative, our mediator, stands between God
and me, and he can reach out and touch God. He can reach down
and touch me, and he's the one. He is, in Him dwell the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. That is Jesus Christ, the great
High Priest. He alone met with God. He alone
communed with God, where propitiation was made. God said, I'll meet
you over where propitiation is made. I'll meet you where my
law is satisfied. I'll meet you where I am appeased
for your sin, where I am propitiated. That only happened one time a
year, one day a year, on the day of atonement, when the high
priest appeared before God with the blood of a lamb to make atonement
for himself and for his people. One man and one ark. One man and one ark. And the
issue was what? Atonement by blood. That was
the issue. For the sins of his people, God's
elect. Years later there would be one
more high priest. And he was a great, called the
great high priest who would enter into the holy place, but not
the one made on earth, the one not made with human hands. And he would not enter with the
blood of a slain beast, he would enter with his own blood, because
he's the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And
he entered there to propitiate God for the sins of his people,
to put his people's sins away, to perfect them by that one sacrifice. In fact, he is the propitiation. Oftentimes, especially in the
King James Version, you'll find two words added just prior to
when Christ is called the propitiation. And those words are in italics.
They were added by the translators. They are to be. That kind of
leaves things open. To be. It says here in His love,
in 1 John chapter 4, not that we loved God, but that He loved
us, and He sent His Son to be the propitiation. Now it doesn't
really say that in the original language. It said, He sent His
Son, the propitiation. There was propitiation. Jesus
Christ is the propitiation. He is the satisfaction of Almighty
God. And He went into that holy place,
before that holy ark of the covenant. the new covenant the covenant
of grace one man one ark and in that act all the sins of God's
people were remitted they were put away so much so that God
will remember them no more this is how it's described in Hebrews
chapter 9 in Hebrews chapter 9 it's described this way but
Christ Now that word but means that everything that preceded
that is opposite to what this was. And what was opposite to
what this was was a whole bunch of blood poured out by all kinds
of beasts throughout history for the atonement for sins. For
the atonement. That means covering. That means
covering. Atonement is not the same thing
as propitiation. It's not the same thing as expiation.
Atonement covers. Expiation puts them away. They're
gone. Their sins are gone. He said,
but Christ, as opposed to all that blood shed in the Old Testament
that never took away our sin, but Christ being come and high
priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
Paul was pointing to the temple at the time he said that, neither
by the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood he entered
in once, one man, one ark, one time into the holy place having
obtained eternal redemption for us, for His people, for the elect
of God, for those for whom He purged their sins and sat down
on the right hand of the Father. One man, one ark, and salvation
is accomplished in each situation. With Noah the world was saved. in that ark. With Moses, Israel
was delivered. He was born in an ark or put
in an ark. And with Christ, the sins of
his people were forever put away by the sacrifice of himself.
One man and one ark. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen.