"This One Will Comfort Us"

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 5:25-6:10

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Well, this morning, as you can already tell from our reading selection, we are going to finish
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Chapter 5 and then dip into some later verses from Chapter 6.
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However, we'll formally begin Chapter 6 next week. So we're not going to address, I think, what everyone is salivating to address, the
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Nephilim at the beginning of Chapter 6. What in the world is going on there? Well, you'll have to wait until next week to consider some of these things together.
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With Chapter 4, we want to keep in mind, also Chapter 5, the significance of Adam's posterity.
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And remember, in Chapter 5, we began the book of Adam, the genealogy of Adam. And that's very significant.
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Of course, we've been tracking for some time now, all the way from Chapter 4, the contrast between the line of the serpent, the
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Cainite line now, as it's become, and the line of promise. The line of the promise that God gives in Genesis 3 .15,
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of the seed of the woman who will crush the serpent and redeem the fall from its curse.
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Here in Chapter 5, really from 5 verse 1 all the way to Chapter 6 verse 8, we have the book of Adam.
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So the book of Adam does not end at the end of Chapter 5. It goes all the way until we arrive at the book of Noah, which begins in Chapter 6 verse 9.
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I'm going to read for us Genesis 5 .25 to the end. This is the actual genealogy of Adam through Seth.
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And we want to keep this in mind as we work our way forward. Genesis 5, beginning in verse 25,
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Methuselah lived 187 years and begot Lamech. After he begot Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had sons and daughters.
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So all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died. Lamech lived 182 years and had a son, and he called his name
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Noah, saying, This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands because of the ground which the
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Lord has cursed. After he begot Noah, Lamech lived 595 years and had sons and daughters.
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So all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died. And Noah was 500 years old, and Noah begot
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Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The genealogy ends with Noah and his three sons.
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And then we're brought into the context of the pre -flood world in the days of Noah, beginning in chapter 6.
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And as I said, we'll consider that in detail next week. After the generations of Noah are introduced at the end of chapter 5, they are simply repeated as the book of Noah, beginning in chapter 6, verse 9 and 10.
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This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God, and Noah begot three sons,
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Shem, Ham, and Japheth. So here's this repetition, this overlap, between chapter 5 at the very end and chapter 6, between the genealogy of Adam and the genealogy of Noah.
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John Currid, speaking of chapter 5, says the entire genealogy serves to link these two great events in the history of humanity, the creation and the flood.
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Now this is very significant theologically as we move through scripture, because creation and flood are what we would call meta -themes.
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They appear throughout the scriptures, throughout the Psalms, the wisdom literature, and significantly throughout the
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New Testament in terms of Christ's fulfillment. And we'll be unpacking that, especially in chapter 6 and 7.
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The importance, meanwhile, of the genealogies, remember we said the genealogies are the superstructure of the book of Genesis, the spinal cord from which all the theology of Genesis flows.
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We want to understand that that significance finds its culmination in the person of Jesus Christ.
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So the genealogies, when you get to your January reading and you start ticking off your little boxes of daily reading, don't skimp on them.
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Even 1 Chronicles 1 and 2, don't read through the names, they matter. They matter.
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They matter because of what they point to. They matter because of Genesis 3 .15 and the promise line that God is faithfully preserving and carrying forward all the way to the fullness of time when he sends his
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Son in the likeness of flesh, born of the Virgin. And so we read in Luke 3, Jesus is, and I'm skipping a little bit of the genealogy here,
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Jesus is the Son of Shem, the Son of Noah, the Son of Lamech, the Son of Methuselah, the
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Son of Enoch, the Son of Jared, the Son of Mahalalel, the Son of Canaan, the Son of Enosh, the Son of Seth, the
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Son of Adam, the Son of God. That's why it's important. We read the scriptures with Christ on every page.
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Horatius Bonar, the great Scotsman of the 19th century said, the importance attached to these recorded names is just this, they belong to the line of the women's seat, as we've been emphasizing.
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Listen to this. This is beautiful. It was this that made them worthy of memory. The chain to which some precious jewel is attached is chiefly noticeable because of the gem it suspends.
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Do you see what he's saying? Each of these names is a golden link and their worth is determined by that gem, by that fullness of the person of Christ.
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The steps which lead to the temple are important because of the temple to which they lead. And so it is with these names.
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So we've said now the creation and the flood are being held together by this genealogical structure.
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And in the passages dealing with God's judgment at the very end, we're going to see these next chapters serve as a type.
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The flood now will become a type of the judgment to come. We'll explore that more this morning.
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We want to consider Noah. This is an introduction to Noah since we'll be focusing on him for the next several chapters.
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And as I mentioned, we'll borrow a few verses from chapter six to do so. In fact, we'll begin there in chapter six, verse five.
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The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
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And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart.
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Boy, there is some deep, deep reflection there. We would not have time to unpack that this morning. We'll get to it next week,
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Lord willing. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air.
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This is decreation and judgment for I'm sorry that I've made them. Now, first thing to say about these verses, we should not read these verses as though things took a sudden nosedive in humanity.
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Yeah, we had the Canaanites over here, but the Sephites were calling on the name of the Lord. And it was kind of the seesaw.
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There was wickedness, but then there was also corporate worship. And then suddenly in the days of Noah, everything took this drastic nosedive.
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That's not how we're meant to read these verses. Since the fall, wickedness, depravity has been spreading.
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The violence of man has been increasing as men have been increasing. And so the days of Noah is representative of the wholeness of humanity in a fallen state, in a fallen condition.
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It wasn't, in other words, a spike of depravity. It was rather the culmination of it. Now that generations, thousands, tens of thousands were spread throughout the earth.
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The depravity was so great. It was the culmination of the effects of the fall. The point is made by Old Testament scholars that chapter 6, verses 1 through 8, belong to this book of Adam, as we said.
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And therefore, it encompasses the ten generations. This isn't something new. It's something that flows out of the whole of the book of Adam.
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This is what's true of the generations of Adam from chapter 5. The point here is we have a description of continual evil in the pre -flood world.
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Not just the flood generation, but the whole world after the fall. The thoughts of men's hearts were only evil continually.
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And all of that raises up as the earth is increasingly covered by fallen man. It raises up in chorus against God.
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The whole of humanity, then, is in this cursed condition. Listen carefully. The whole of humanity.
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That's important when we're talking about Noah, isn't it? The whole of humanity. Noah is not some exception to the fall.
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Noah is a fallen man. A fallen human being. A fallen son of Adam. Noah, like every fallen son of Adam, shares in a fallen condition.
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Noah is not exempt from this universal description. That's what we're saying. When you're reading this description, you're reading something that's true not only of the
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Cainites, but of the line of Adam itself. They're fallen. By God's grace, they're calling upon His name, but they're fallen.
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And the point is made abundantly clear after the flood. Though humanity is effectively wiped off the face of the earth, and only
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Noah and his immediate family is saved, sin still makes its way in Noah through the ark on the other side of a new creation, as it were.
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And we find Noah pathetically in a stupor of drunkenness, exposing himself, and his sons have to cover his shame.
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The point is made abundantly clear that we have a total description of mankind. The Lord saw the wickedness of man.
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It was great in the earth. It is now covering the earth. And every intent of the thoughts of the heart of man was only evil continually.
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And this is the response. This is the decree of judgment. I will destroy man whom I have created on the face of the earth.
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But then this is the marvel of it all. Despite this statement, we read this stunning declaration in verse 8.
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But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah finds grace, or you could say favor, in the eyes of the
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Lord. What I want to make clear in this first part is the priority of God's grace. The priority of God's grace.
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It has often been read. It has often been claimed. It is often treated as though God was despairing of the fall of mankind.
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And, you know, I'm going to have to utterly destroy everything. And then just out of the corner of his eye, well, here's
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Noah. Hey, he's actually a righteous guy. Oh, this is great. You know, I don't have to kill everyone.
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I can actually spare Noah and I'll even spare his family. As if Noah was a one -off.
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As if Noah somehow stepped outside of this fallen transmission of sin that flowed out of Adam.
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And that's no way to read this at all. It's not the emphasis here in this narrative at all. Now, of course, we will come to talk about Noah's righteousness.
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A righteousness that's reflective. But the total description of fallen man is given.
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And then some like some glorious bolt of light. We have this adversative clause in Hebrew.
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This very strong contrast. But all of humanity is wicked. But Noah found favor in the eyes of God.
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Noah found God's grace. Despite that. Despite that. As Carol Kaminsky observes.
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This does not mean that Noah is exempt from depravity. It means he's exempt from judgment.
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He finds grace. Noah shares in the fallen human condition. And the favor he finds is undeserved.
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Just like as we'll read when we get to the Jacob narrative. And Jacob, you remember, who stole from his brother and then had to flee.
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His brother wanting to avenge himself. Wanting to kill his brother. And he flees.
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And much later in life. After God's grace moves in a very mysterious way in Jacob's life. He hears that his brother is coming.
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And he's afraid for his life. You remember there in Genesis 32. How he beseeches the Lord. And how he asks the
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Lord for his blessing. And for his protection. And then when he sends the servants ahead.
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And the flocks. And the gift ahead. Hoping to somehow secure a favor. And then when Esau sees him. He runs and falls his neck.
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They weep together. They're reconciled. If I found favor in your sight. Please accept this gift.
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Esau's refusing it. You see, it's reflective. If I found favor in your sight. In other words,
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I don't deserve favor. But if I happen to have found it in your sight. Please do this. And that's what we have here.
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Noah doesn't deserve this favor that he's receiving. He doesn't deserve it. And yet he's receiving it.
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Noah's finding favor is not based on his righteousness. We end the book of Adam.
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And we begin the book of Noah. Noah's righteousness. That statement that we find in chapter 6 verse 9.
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Is part of a new book. We close the book with the fact that God's grace has found
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Noah. That's the last line of the book of Adam. In chapter 6.
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We begin a new thought. A new treatment with verse 9. And that's very significant that you don't blur those together.
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As though verse 8 is reacting to verse 9. God's grace found Noah because he was a righteous man.
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It's putting the cart before the horse. And this is precisely how God's favor functions throughout
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Genesis. We're going to see this again and again and again. We'll see it in the patriarchal narratives.
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In Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. God's grace is surprising because it's so undeserved.
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And so when it comes, it's unexpected. Just like we saw with Cain. We saw that God's mercy was completely unexpected there.
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What we see as David J .A. Klein's notes. Is we see this theme of sin, grace, and then judgment.
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We see this. It's unique. Intuitively, we understand you would think sin, judgment, and then maybe grace.
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Somewhere down the line. But in Genesis, what we've seen up to this point. Think of Adam, right?
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In the fall. There's first grace. There's a promise before the judgment of being sent out of Eden.
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First, he gives hope. The promise. He closed them. Then there's the judgment of being cast out from his presence.
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We saw that with Cain. There's the sin. He kills Abel. And then there's this promise of divine protection.
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This mark that's going to preserve him before the curse is issued. And he's sent forth to wander.
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Do you see? There's this theme of sin, grace, and then judgment. And we have that with Noah. There's the sinfulness of man.
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And then God's grace singles out this man. Right before the judgment of the flood.
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Now, to be clear, we're not going to deny that Noah is seen as righteous in relationship to his obedience to God.
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In relationship to him building the ark. We're going to emphasize that next week from Hebrews 11. But the whole point here in chapter 6 verse 8 is that Noah receives grace not because he is righteous.
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But rather, he is righteous because he receives grace. Verse 8 must precede verse 9.
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In your life as a Christian, verse 8 must precede verse 9.
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The favor that God shows is not only surprising because it's undeserved.
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It's also surprising because of how it is shown. We're reading between the lines here.
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But I think we can do so safely. What I noticed in the genealogy of Adam. Though Noah finds favor, he sticks out from chapter 5 because he does not have sons and daughters.
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Do you notice that? The patriarchs down the line. They have the significant son that's carrying forth that promised lineage.
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And then there's this general summary statement. And he had sons and daughters. So these guys are living half a millennium, sometimes close to a millennium.
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They have sons and daughters and then some. They have a lot of sons and a lot of daughters.
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And we come to Noah and we don't read that statement at all. The Lord gave him three sons when he's 500 years old.
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So he saves his family, his boys and their wives. That's Noah's family.
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And as 1 Peter 3 says, eight souls were saved. Noah and his wife, his three sons and his three sons' wives.
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Only eight souls were saved. That's Noah's family. And he's been living for 500 years. Now we're reading between the lines here.
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I mean, I'm a father of three like Noah was. But I'm only 35.
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I'm not 500. Imagine if you all could live, we could all live to be 500.
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I think Tony would make it to 969 maybe. But let's just say that we could live that long. How many children would you have?
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You have hundreds of children, tens of hundreds, maybe thousands, tens of thousands of grandchildren. And yet here
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I am with three. Does that really look like favor to you? Does that look like blessing is resting upon me?
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If you are filling cities, filling cities with your children and I only have three, does that look like a curse?
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Like I'm being deprived? Like I've done something wrong? In other words, Noah doesn't seem blessed.
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He's barely fruitful, barely fruitful compared to the others. And so there's this reversal of blessing here.
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And you know, this is setting up a huge theme in Genesis, a huge theme. Every patriarch in Genesis experiences barrenness in one form or another.
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Every single one. Sometimes when God's favor is resting upon you, it doesn't look like favor.
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It looks like barrenness. It looks like dwelling in a tent in a desert. It looks like what the world would say is the opposite of being blessed, the opposite of having favor.
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This is a very significant theme. I was listening to someone just the other day.
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They made this snide comment about God's big plan in the midst of, you know, a difficulty.
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They had, you know, some difficulty in the family. I just wonder what God's big plan, waiting for that to happen because of this huge setback.
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There's nothing to be cynical about here. This is how God works. This is how he often shows favor to his people.
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The metrics that we use to understand blessing and favor are not the spiritual metrics.
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When Jacob asked for a blessing from God, his hip is thrown out of joint. And the rest of his life, he's limping.
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God's blessings are very mysterious. And sometimes the blessing is actually the deprivation.
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Sometimes the blessing is itself the withholding. Sometimes the blessing is itself that condition, that trial, that scar, that difficulty.
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God's way of blessing, we learn, does not look like a blessing. And yet with eyes of faith, we come to the point where we see it truly is.
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And we bless God for it. We can say like Asaph, my foot nearly slipped. My foot nearly slipped until I saw their end.
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I see what you've done in my life. I thank you. Your rod, your staff, they comfort me.
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We begin to look at blessing in a different way. Another reversal we see here is a thematic reversal of the younger being favored over the older.
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And we'll see that again throughout Genesis. So we read Shem, Ham, and Japheth as though Shem were the firstborn, but he's the youngest.
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And so we're seeing that God already. And we'll see this again and again throughout Genesis. The least is favored.
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The last is made first. The promise goes through the weakness, not through the strength.
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Through the triumph, not through the boast, but through the humility, through the weakness. This is how
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God works. Now returning to our main point, Genesis 6, 6, 8 tells us the definitive difference between Noah and everyone else who lives on the face of the earth is found in these words.
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He found favor in the eyes of the Lord. There is no movement toward God without a movement of God's grace.
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First, we're going to see that again and again. And we've seen that. And I hope you've come to know that in your own life as a
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Christian. It's not so much that we sought out God as he sought us. That shepherd came to save the wandering sheep.
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We are all born dead and trespassed in sin. And you're born reborn out of that fallen condition.
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And if you've been reborn out of that fallen condition, then you know it all began with the undeserved, unmerited, unexpected mercy of God.
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And you short circuit your ability to walk in humility, to walk in strength and joy when you forget that.
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When you start walking as though it was expected, as though you are earning it, as though God's favor is upon your good weeks, as opposed to your weeks of stumbling and despair.
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You short circuit your ability to have joy in the Christian life when you forget this fundamental truth. It all begins with the grace of God.
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Unmerited, undeserved, rich and free grace. He didn't earn favor in the eyes of God by being good.
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He owed everything to the fact that God had determined to set favor upon him for reasons entirely hidden from our view and from his view.
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Despite the fact that Noah's heart was like a stone, his spirit was dead in sin because he was fallen like all human beings are born fallen.
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Every inclination of his heart was only evil continually. And yet he found grace in the eyes of God.
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And that grace then made him what chapter 6 verse 9 says he is. This is the experience and story behind every child of God.
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It doesn't always seem that way. I'm sure there are many Christians who will pass from this life into the next, never quite acknowledging that, never quite understanding that.
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But this is the fundamental reality behind every conversion. What did the
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Lord say to his disciples in John 15? You did not choose me, I chose you. There, perhaps he's speaking of the external call.
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But we realize that that's a true statement of the internal call for every believer. What a glorious thought.
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If Noah found God's grace resting upon him undeserved, and I'm looking upon my faith as a gift from God, from his favor resting upon me undeserved, then
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I can rest in this realization. He didn't choose me. He hasn't shown grace to me.
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He's not drawing me close to him because I'm now beginning to do good in my life. His grace found me when
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I was yet an enemy. His grace found me when I was at my worst. His grace found me when
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I had no shame, no conviction. His grace found me and won me when
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I was against him and against his ways. And if that's true, if his grace rested upon me at my worst, then how much joy and assurance can
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I have in the gospel grace today? Despite all my failings and those sins that so easily beset, can
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I not have the joy of assurance in the grace of God? He found me at my worst. Every Christian ought to be able to look back in their life and say, as John Newton said,
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I'm not what I ought to be, not what I want to be, not what I will be. But thank God, I'm not what I was. Look back and say,
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I'm not what I was. But God still loved me even then. God's grace and favor found me even then.
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And if that was true then, how much more so now? God's grace has been hedging me in, holding me close, not allowing me to wander too far, allowing me to stumble so that I'll be humbled and be ever closer to him.
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And this corresponds to why God allows suffering, why Moses experiences barrenness for so long, so that we'll be humble enough to depend upon him for his grace.
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He cripples us. He defies us. He brings us low so that he can bring us close.
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If like Noah, God knows all about my crooked way, all about my past stumbling, all about my present stumbling, all about the sins that will carry on into tomorrow.
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If God knows all about that and his grace has rested upon me, then I know that I'm in a love that will never let me go and that love will work out its design on my life.
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Even when I'm cold and distant, I don't have to be led to despair. I can go back to the
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God whose promise is binding me. The definitive act was the grace that God showed
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Noah and his purpose was before the foundation of the world. It was the grace that saved
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Noah even before the flood. We think of Noah being saved through the flood. Noah was saved even before the flood.
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Grace has found him. Grace has brought him close to God. And so we stand where Noah stood time and time again.
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We're driven to this fact. Our whole hope, whether in life or in death, lies in the grace of God.
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It's the priority of his grace. We let him down in our minds. We let him down in our works.
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We let him down in our bodies and our imaginations again and again. And yet the grace that he gives us is not in vain.
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It's not in vain. He keeps working in our lives because of this eternal determination to bring us with him into a new heavens and a new earth.
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That's what it means to find favor in the eyes of the Lord. And then moving on to verse nine, we see that God's grace working in Noah's life has effects.
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It bears fruit. That's always the case. You should have no comfort that you're somehow resting in the favor of God or walking in his grace.
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If your life doesn't have some buds somewhere on some branch that's observable, hopefully to at least someone, maybe something in your family.
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Sometimes the only people that can see fruit are the people that aren't living with you. Hopefully, at least someone in your home can say, yeah,
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I think there's a little bud of grace there somewhere. Dad's been different lately. We have a twofold description of Noah in verse nine.
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Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. And Noah walked with God. So as we've said, this is the outflow, the result of God's grace finding
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Noah. This isn't what creates God's grace finding Noah. This isn't somehow earning or meriting God's grace.
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This is the result of God's grace. He set apart from the world around him. He's consecrated to God as a just man.
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You could translate that righteous to the righteous man. Perfect or blameless in his generation.
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Righteousness, a quick from the definition of righteousness is conformity to a standard.
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Now, there's a lot of debate in theological circles about how to understand righteousness. So many of the key doctrines of the
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Christian faith are built upon understanding righteousness and justification. And the point about righteousness that's often debated is whether righteousness is transformative or declarative.
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In other words, forensic legal. Is it something that has a quality that transforms? And therefore, that is what justifies.
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Or is it something declared objectively, forensically, legally? And we'd have to say that it's legal.
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It's forensic here. It's based upon conformity to what God has revealed. Conformity to his standards.
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Acceptance to what he has commanded. That's very significant. And I think you'll remember back to our time in Philippians and looking at the cross in Philippians 2.
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You'll understand perhaps where I'm going with that. But we have to keep in mind what it means for Noah to be blameless.
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To establish the point that he was part of the fallen lot when God's grace found him. We have to be able to say that blameless does not mean sinless.
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When Paul speaks of his former life as a Pharisee, he says, I was blameless concerning the law.
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Paul's not saying in the same context, he says, I'm the chief of sinners. How can you be the chief of sinners and blameless,
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Paul? Well, clearly, blameless does not mean sinless. Rather, it means he conformed to the standard that God gave.
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When he sinned, he did the sacrifices necessary to atone for his sin. In that respect, he was blameless before the law.
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But he was a sinner needing to depend upon the sacrifices of the law that pointed all the way to Christ.
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The true sacrifice, the anti -tank. So we have to keep that in mind when we look at Noah.
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Because after the flood, Noah in Genesis 8, he builds an altar and he sacrifices to God. And the question is, where did
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Noah learn to do this? Was this some new act? Noah sacrificing to God? Of course not.
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Noah was blameless because he always sacrificed to God. Just as Abel did. Just as we can infer all the
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Sethites who called upon the name of the Lord did. It had been revealed to them and passed down to them that sacrifice was now necessary to keep communion with God.
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And all of that is heralding going down the corridors of history toward the sacrifice of Christ.
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Noah, secondly, walked with God. That brings us back to chapter 5 with Enoch, doesn't it?
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Which we considered last week. In Hebrew, it's this very rare hipayel stem and it emphasizes this personal, reflexive nature.
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He walked intimately with God. He walked consistently, continually with God. Just like Enoch walked with God and was taken up, so Noah walked with God.
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Enoch was spared from death. We'll see that Noah will be spared from judgment. You see again the emphasis that Moses is putting here in Genesis.
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You must walk with God. Do you want to escape the fall? Do you want to escape the condition of death?
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Do you want to escape God's judgment? Part of the answer is walking with God. Walking with God.
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It draws us back to the garden as we saw with Enoch. As we'll see in Hebrews 11 next week, it's a walk by faith.
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By faith, Noah obeyed God. By faith, he responded to the revelation of God. Not only is
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Noah an emblem of the faithful, significantly, he's also a type of Christ. Noah is a type of Christ.
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Not just a type of the faithful believer, but actually a type of Christ. Jeffrey Nehas, three -volume biblical theology, a very, very helpful,
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I think, very excellent biblical theology. He says, Noah found favor in the eyes of the
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Lord. We have this description, right? Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.
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The same things are true of Jesus. We read that Jesus was in favor with God and men in Luke 2.
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He's called Jesus the righteous in 1 John 2. And his walk with God was so close that he could say, the words
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I say to you are not just my own, but rather the Father living in me who is doing his work. Or moreover, we read in John 5, he could only do what he sees his
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Father doing. That's how close he's walking with the Father. With, I have found you righteous.
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We have that in Genesis 7, 1. That you there, we don't distinguish between the singular and the plural when we use the pronoun in English.
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Unless you're southern and you say y 'all for plural, or all y 'all if you're really going plural. When he says,
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I found you righteous, that's singular. God says, Noah, I found you alone righteous.
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Go, you and your family into the ark. So Noah's righteousness was taken by God to cover more than just Noah.
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In other words, the righteousness of one covers many. And in that sense, we're brought right to the picture of Christ, the work of Christ, the righteousness of one that will save many.
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And so we see Noah's righteousness points us toward the promised seed, points us forward to Christ. And so we acknowledge that he has faithful integrity as a result of God's grace.
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He's obedient to God. He's a preacher of righteousness, as 1 Peter says. But behind all of that is the priority of God's grace.
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And behind that is this picture, this projection of the promised seed who's coming.
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Lastly, going back to chapter 5, we find a promise of comfort through Noah.
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Genesis 5, verse 29. Lamed called his name Noah, saying, This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands because of the ground which the
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Lord has cursed. This to me is, I think, one of the most stunning statements in Genesis 5.
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And it's one that we're tempted to read past because it's all part of the genealogy. We just go, oh, that's neat. His name means comfort.
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We're missing, again, some of these themes that we're trying to uncover. We realize that Lamech is giving a prophecy.
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It's not just choosing a name from Google or something. You know, Siri, help me find a boy's name.
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This is prophetic, and it's recorded in that way. In the Hebrew, there's some wordplay going on.
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The roots behind rest are inverted with favor. And so the idea of Noah finding favor at the very end of the book of Adam is a wordplay.
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It's a reversal of his name. So rest, that's really what Noah means. It means rest.
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Not comfort, but specifically rest. And then favor. So Noah will bring rest,
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God's favors upon him. That's part of the wordplay. The reason that Lamech says, this one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands because of the ground which the
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Lord has cursed, is he's playing off a possible stem from a certain verb.
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And so that's very important, too, because he is drawing comfort into rest. That's important, and we'll get there in a moment.
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Now, Jewish commentators viewed Lamech's explanation about the naming of Noah as going beyond agriculture.
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The curse of condition is hard. There's more men, more mouths to feed on the face of the earth. It's hard to till the ground, and Noah's going to come.
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He's going to bring comfort. He's going to undo the curse upon the ground that God had made. Some would say the comfort comes after the flood because now
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God says you can eat animals. You know, there's a right way to eat animals now. But this is all missing the point.
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And I think John Calvin very helpful in dismissing that he says the Jews do not do not judge erroneously in declaring
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Lamech's expression to be a prophecy that much they understood, but they go too far and restricting to agriculture was applicable to all the miseries of human life that proceed from God's curse, which are the fruits of sin.
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I come indeed to conclude the holy fathers, meaning the patriarchs anxiously side when being surrounded with so many evils.
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They were continually reminded of the first origin of all evils before and regarded themselves as under the displeasure of God.
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Therefore, in the expression, the toil of our hands might because of God's curse. There is a synecdoche synecdoche.
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Some of you, this is going back to maybe English writing. You homeschoolers. This is a good, good pop quiz word.
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Synecdoche. It's a part that represents a whole. So if the if the majesty sends seven sails upon the sea, that word sail is a synecdoche.
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It's part of the ship representing the ship. So you use the part to represent the whole. And that's what
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Calvin is saying is going on here. Under one kind of toil, he includes the whole miserable state of the fall.
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You see the toil of our hands because of the curse that was God's direct curse to Adam. And so it's in part representing all of God's curse.
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This one will comfort us from the curse of the fall. That's the emphasis. And so they were earnestly looking for the mercy of God.
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For their faith was strong and it urged them to desire his help. Now, remember, this fits very well with what we've already understood about the contrast between the
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Sethites and the Cainites. Remember that the Sethite line are those who are calling upon the name of the
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Lord. They're not building towers for themselves, building cities, doing great things, becoming inventors of technology, right?
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They are a little behind that because they're busy congregating and worshiping, calling upon the name of the
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Lord. And you have to keep that contrast in view. Even in Lamech's naming of Noah, we see the difference.
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The line of Cain seems to be happy with the labor of their hands. They're not crying for comfort.
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They don't experience the curse in some constant way that makes them desirous of God's mercy. They're trying to get past the curse.
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They're trying to live ignorant to the curse. They don't see a vanity behind all their work. They actually begin to boast in all of their work.
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How unlike the line of Seth. The line of Seth doesn't boast in violence and in strength and in things that they can build.
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They actually are reflective. They're sacrificing. They're looking for the promise. They're in need of comfort because of sin and because of the fall.
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They're longing for promised comfort. And Lamech says, this one, this one, this one will comfort us.
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This one will comfort us. Now, how do we understand this? Well, first of all, it's a wonderful truth that God personally comforts
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His people. But that is not going on here. It's a wonderful truth.
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It's a wonderful truth. Psalm 94, 17. Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul would soon have settled in silence.
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If I say my foot slips, Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up. And in the multitude of my anxieties within me,
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Your comforts delight my soul. Very personal. God loves to comfort
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His people. You who have shown me great and severe troubles, You will revive me again. You'll bring me up again from the depths of the earth.
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You'll increase my greatness. You'll comfort me on every side. So again, we don't want to take away from the fact that God personally comforts
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His people. But Noah's name is not speaking about Lamech's personal comfort.
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It's not saying that Noah is going to have a Barnabas spirit, just be a comfort to everyone as they're clinging to the planks on the ark.
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This is really a prophecy about God's salvation through judgment. Comfort and rest are imbued.
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They're glowing with end time significance, eschatological significance. And the way they do that is they highlight
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God's salvation through judgment. In other words, we recognize that God's comfort is going to follow a cataclysmic judgment, right?
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There's going to be no comfort before there's first a flood. And it raises the question, why would
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Noah have this name? How in the world could Noah be a comfort if the whole depraved earth is drowning under God's judgment?
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And what possible world could Noah be a comfort? Do you think Lamech had that in mind? This one's going to be a comforter.
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And then the whole earth is wiped clean of all living things. The answer is that God promises comfort as a gospel fulfillment.
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So that comfort and rest ultimately point to the fulfillment of salvation, which always comes through judgment.
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When Isaiah announces the good news of the gospel, remember Isaiah 1 -39, the emphatic coming of judgment.
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Judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. The stars will fall from the heavens.
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The earth will burst forth from the deep. Chaos, barrenness, desolation, famine.
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It's decreation. It's utter judgment. And then we get to the good news. The first pronouncement of the good news.
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The paradigm. Good news is the same word for gospel. The paradigm for what the gospel is.
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When you start reading any of the gospels, the paradigm is Isaiah, the good news. And what is the announcement of the good news?
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Judgment, judgment, judgment, judgment. Good news and how does it open? We used to do this in the
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Princeton Center, remember? Comfort. Comfort my people, says your
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God. Do you see how significant this little word comfort is? Comfort, yes.
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Comfort my people, says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem. Cry out to her, her warfare has ended.
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How does this come forward as God's salvation? Isaiah 51 .3, we have another glimpse of it. The Lord will comfort
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Zion. You see, this is eschatological. The Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all of her waste places.
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He will make her wilderness like Eden. Oh, interesting. We're going back to Genesis 3 here.
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He will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in it.
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Thanksgiving and the voice of melody. Verses 10 and 12. Are you not the one, Lord, who dried up the sea, the waters of the deep?
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Flood language. The waters bursting forth from the great deep. That made the depths of the sea a road.
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Now we're looking at the Red Sea. For the redeemed to cross over so the ransom of the
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Lord shall return. Now we're looking at return from exile. All in two sentences. We've gone from Eden to the flood, to Egypt and the
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Red Sea crossing, to the return from exile. This is all about God's salvation.
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And they will come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They'll obtain joy and gladness. Sorrow and sighing will flee away.
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I, even I, am he who comforts you. See, the emphasis is on comfort that comes from salvation.
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But only through judgment. Now, how does that point us forward to Christ? Well, all of that is ultimately displayed for us at Calvary.
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Jesus Christ comes. He becomes obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
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And there Jesus Christ is utterly submerged in the flood of God's wrath.
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And his life is snuffed out. So that his broken, bleeding body can be an ark for his bride.
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And that through his judgment, we might have comfort. Not just now in this life, but ultimate, everlasting comfort.
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The prelude to entering into the joy of the master is him wiping away our tears, literally comforting us as he embraces us into an eternal presence.
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Lamech carries on the gospel promise in the Sethite line. And he says, this one, this one, he will comfort us.
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It's going to come through judgment, but there will be comfort. There'll be salvation. There'll be rest. We'll no longer toil.
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Toil in the fallen condition awaiting for that rest that never comes. There'll be that eternal Sabbath, the promised rest of God.
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What does Hebrews 4 say? There yet remains a rest for the people of God. And that rest is fully arriving in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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For all those who are crying out like the Israelites cried out in Egypt, crying out from bondage in the toil, whose hands are toiling because of the fall.
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He proclaims, come, come all ye who are weary, heavy laden. Come to me,
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I will give you rest. Rest. That's salvation.
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That's eternal life. He's the second Adam. Of course, he's
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David's greater son, but he's the true Noah. He's the one who brings comfort. He's the one who gives rest to his people.
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We sing him in the song whenever we sing, come ye weary, heavy laden, lost and ruined by the fall.
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I love the theology of him sometimes. This is Joseph Hart, and he's recognizing. Notice he's combining these two things.
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When Jesus says, come ye who are weary and heavy laden, he's not talking about, oh, you're so exhausted in life. Let me life coach you.
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Here's 10 steps to living a more productive life. No. He's saying, come ye if you're heavy laden because of the fall.
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Because you're a sinner. Because you're headed to a path of destruction, and your life is breaking down in shambles of misery, and you're living in this world without hope, without life and light.
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Come to me if you're toiling in the curse, I will give you rest. My rest
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I give as salvation that came through my judgment. Came through my judgment.
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I will arise. That was to say, if you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all. God's grace has to find you, has to find you.
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But if you tarry till you're better, if you're saying, well, I don't think it's found me yet, so I'm just going to kind of sit here and wait. You're not understanding what we're saying.
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Run to him. Cry out to him. If you wait till you're better, you'll never come. I've seen too many people, they never come.
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They have intentions to come, they wait for the next season to come, and you know what? They never come. If you wait to come, you'll never come.
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I'm saying that to you this morning. I put that on you from God himself. If you wait to come, you'll never come.
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You'll never come. And then the refrain from this hymn, He will embrace me in his arms.
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In the arms of my dear Savior, oh, there are ten thousand charms. We look at the
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Sethite line and we see man after man, woman after woman, this faithful passing down of the gospel promise.
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And with that, a hope that there will be a deliverer that comes and no wickedness is covering the face of the earth.
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There's hope that God has not forgotten his promise. God will deliver, though it seems like the darkness is thick and there's no hope of light.
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We're reminded, especially this time of year, that light pierces through the darkness in an unexpected way.
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It doesn't come with an angelic army. It doesn't sweep over the world and make its way on all the mainstream media.
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It's just a writhing infant screaming for his mother's milk in a little manger in Bethlehem, a place where swine and donkeys come to feed.
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That's how God's grace works. We anticipate like these patriarchs that coming day of rest.
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But now we know who it comes from. Now we know its fullness. We live on the other side of its fulfillment and we await its consummation.
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We don't wait in vain for that consummation. Brothers and sisters, we're like Enoch. We walk with God, waiting for the day that God takes us up.
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We look to that promise, knowing that on that coming day, which we behold by eyes of faith, we'll be taken up with the
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Lord. And there he'll comfort us. He'll bring us into that rest everlasting. And so we can hear this morning worship and proclaim just like Lamech, this one, this coming one, this coming king, he will comfort us.
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It's not easy to walk by faith among the snares and thorns of the fall. Isn't it a wonderful thing to know that God has a desire to comfort you this morning?
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That he has compassion upon you because he knows how hard it is to live a Christian life in a fallen world. And when the most you can do is just say,
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God, just take me, just comfort me, give me rest. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. The way is hard. It's narrow.
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It's thorny. I have enemies. There's bitterness. Give me rest. Give me comfort. It's not easy to live apart from or even against ungodliness in this present age to live apart from, be consecrated away from worldly lust.
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It's not easy to find God's favor, not just in the good things he gives, but in those precious things he takes.
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And yet we know the night is spent and the day is at hand. And this promised seed is now exalted on high, this reigning king, this one is coming and he's coming to comfort us in light of that.
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He's coming to comfort us. This we say to you, we close with these words from 1
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Thessalonians 4. This we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we are alive, we who are alive and remain until the coming of the
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Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, with the trumpet of God.
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The dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
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Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.
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Let's pray. Oh God of all comfort and God of all grace,
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God who gives rest, God who is rest, who is life, who is light, who is joy, who is peace, who is goodness, who is compassion, who is mercy, who is bounteous in grace, who is surprising in the compassion that you show us, who's faithful at a loss, faithful both in what you give and what you take.
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What a wonder it is, Lord, that you care, that your mind is upon our lives and our hardships, that you have a desire to bring comfort to our souls, to bring rest,
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Lord, in the midst of a weary and fallen world. What a wonder, Lord, that you would set your favor upon us who are undeserving, that you died for us when we were yet enemies, that you reconciled us and brought us near by a salvation that came through judgment, but not a judgment upon us, it was a judgment upon your
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Son, a judgment upon our Savior. He was utterly consumed in your wrath, and yet the grave could not hold him, and he burst forth, defeating death, removing that sting of death from all of his people, and now we cry out as all the generations of your people have,
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Maranatha, Lord, come, come bring that rest and comfort, come for your people. Help us to live with lambs full,
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Lord, awaiting that day, knowing that truly the night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us live soberly.
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Lord, I pray if there's one in this room who's been waiting to come, that they'll be convicted,
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Lord, that they would tremble, that they would find no rest, no distraction, no avoidance until they come to you, that they would come as they are, heavy laden, bowed down, convicted by their sin, acknowledging their bondage,
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Lord, acknowledging that there's no hope unless they come to you and you give them hope through your grace, through the gospel.
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Might they do so this very day. Help us, Lord, who have known you, walk in your ways to find that great assurance that comes from your promise,
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Lord, knowing that you found us at our worst and are slowly but surely sanctifying us into ever greater conformity to your son, whom we love, though we have not seen.
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Help us to have your spirit, Lord, as we pursue you. Forgive us, Lord, that we often walk before you as though we were deserving, as though we were meriting, and often,
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Lord, we stay distant from you as though we had to merit or had to earn. Oh, Lord, forgive us.
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What foolishness. Let us run to the same God who richly gives grace, gives us grace, however fouled up and distant we are.
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Let us run to the prodigal God who runs to us. We sing so we ask in your son's name.