FBC Eternal Issues Bible Conference

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Guest Speaker: Aaron Hoak Pastor, Grace Baptist Church Warsaw, Indiana

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All right, good evening. Welcome back tonight to, what is this, round four of our
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Eternal Issues Bible Conference. So you guys need to get to work over on this side because you are vastly outnumbered.
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If you look at the right wingers have outnumbered the left wingers, and I know that's a matter of perspective, right?
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Yeah, okay. Anyway, so glad you could come back. So before we begin, just a couple things.
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Be continuing to pray for Michael Smith. He's still in the hospital up in Rockford.
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Not a whole lot of improvement in his condition, but anyway, just pray for him.
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And then, of course, I'm sure you got the word today that Priscilla passed away last night at about 11 o 'clock, and it was a blessing in a lot of ways.
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Tom was here with Clay last evening in the service, and they both were actually there when she passed away, so he was able to get back for that, as was
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Tim and Tom Jr. and Sarah, I think,
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Rebecca was there as well. So just one of the one of the siblings had to leave and was not able to be there, but they had all been there.
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They had all been there, had other visitors that she got to see, and so it was a blessing to her as well as to the family, and she went peacefully and didn't, there was no agitation.
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As I talked to Tom and Jean today, I said, you know, she had a good death.
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We pray for that. You know, Pastor Houck mentioned last night that, Houck, I knew some
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Houcks in my past, and so I keep doing this in my brain, Houck, Houck. Anyway, I mentioned to them today that she had a good death, and Pastor Houck preached last night on the reality of death, you know, we're all going to die.
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And so what we want to pray for when we know Christ is pray that God would grant us the grace of a good death.
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Not only that that death is marked by a peaceful passing into eternity, but to the end we retain our faith, and we look to Christ, and we affirm that God is good, even in this closing moments of life, and Priscilla did all that.
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I believe the arrangements are going to be a visitation a week from Friday, not this
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Friday, but a week from Friday, and then the funeral service will be here on that Saturday morning.
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So we're talking May 5th for the visitation, May 6th for the funeral in the morning.
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So that's the plan as of this morning. I'm waiting to get confirmation that the funeral home is good with that, but that's what they're wanting to do.
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So I wanted to share that with you. So let's take our hymnals and turn to number 154.
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I had the song picked out last week. It turns out it's one of Priscilla's favorites and will be sung at her funeral to the, probably the traditional tune, but we're gonna stand and sing this alternate tune to the
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Appalachian folk melody. So let's stand and sing 154 in our praise, praise my head, praise the feet that step, grace has brought me safe thus far, grace to lead as the new day sun, we know what's good to sing
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God's praise, than when the song was first begun.
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Let's open in prayer. Kevin, would you please lead us in prayer tonight? Amen. Thank you.
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You may be seated. Let's turn to Genesis chapter 6 for the focus of Pastor Hoak's message tonight.
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Genesis 6. I'm gonna read verse 5 through chapter 7, verse 5.
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Genesis 6, verse 5. This is the genealogy of Noah.
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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. The earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence.
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So God looked upon the earth and indeed it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
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And God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them.
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And behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.
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Make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and outside with pitch. This is how you shall make it.
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The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, its width 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits.
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You shall make a window for the ark and you shall finish it to a cubit from above and set the door of the ark in its side.
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You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. And behold,
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I myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life.
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Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you and you shall go into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.
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And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you.
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They shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.
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And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten and you shall gather it to yourself and it shall be food for you and for them.
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Thus Noah did according to all that God commanded, so did he. Then the
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Lord said to Noah, Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.
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You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female, two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female, also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.
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For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.
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And Noah did according to all that the Lord had commanded him. The Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word tonight.
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And then in our supplement book, number 36, you think about that devastating flood and yet in the midst of that flood, through the midst of that flood,
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Noah found grace how deep the Father's love. I look forward to the message from Genesis chapter 6.
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You can turn with me and your
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Bibles again to the passage that your pastor just read, Genesis chapter 6, and we'll be digging into that tonight.
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Tonight we come to a record of a sad state of affairs on the earth.
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The subject matter in Genesis 6 is wickedness in the earth, and it's great wickedness.
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And when I say great wickedness, I mean big wickedness. It's terrible wickedness, not great in a good way, wickedness in the earth.
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We also find God's judgment. We find a man named Noah. We find a really, really, really big boat, an ark.
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And though it is a terrible account in many ways, there is remarkable good in these verses.
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We've just sung of our Savior Christ. And I trust that we will see Christ in this passage tonight.
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So there is great wickedness. But God has an answer to great wickedness. And in all of it, it's radical.
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The sin is radical. The judgment on the sin is radical. And the deliverance from the judgment is radical.
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It's all big. It's not something that you just kind of read over, although maybe we do because we're so familiar with it.
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It's not something you just read over and go, oh, okay. This is a massive flood and a really remarkable form of deliverance.
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And the wickedness that brings it about, that is the impetus for the judgment, is horrific as well.
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And so as we look at these verses tonight, the eternal issues that I would like us to think and focus on are those of God's judgment and God's salvation.
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I think those will be plain to us tonight. And so we've already read the passage together.
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We're just going to jump right in. We're going to start with great sin, and then we want to see great punishment, and then a great salvation.
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Great sin, great punishment, great salvation. Pretty simple outline for you to follow along tonight and see what we can learn from God's Word together.
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Great sin. After the genealogy last night, we now get to see what's happening during Noah's day.
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Noah's the last guy in the genealogy. Well, you meet his three sons there too. But what is going on in Noah's day?
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What sort of world has he been born into? Well, just Lamech's words that we saw last night that maybe this one will give us rest from our toil, from this cursed ground, gives you an idea that things are not great in the world.
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Lamech was weary of it. And here we begin to understand why.
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It's not a pretty picture that's painted of the world in the days of Noah. In fact, it's really horrific.
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Wickedness abounds. Look at verse 5 that we read earlier. We're going to be mostly in chapter 6 here.
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And so unless I say otherwise, if I say a verse, I'm talking about chapter 6. So verse 5, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
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That's horrific. This is total depravity it seems. Unrestrained. Thankfully, God often restrains evil so people are not as bad as they could be, but sometimes
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He gives them over to their sin. This looks like the people of this day have been given over to their sin.
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And it's not just bad outward behavior. It comes right out of the heart. Verse 5, listen to these superlatives.
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The evil of man was great on the earth, and all of the intentions of the thoughts of his heart were only evil all the day.
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It's like He's trying to stack up as many all superlative things.
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Like only evil all the time. That's it. That's all that's coming out of men's hearts.
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It's really bad. And then here's what that looks like when that gets worked out in the world.
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Look down at verses 11 and 12. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence, and God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
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So the earth is marred or corrupted because all flesh, not just man, all flesh marred, corrupted their ways on the earth.
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Somehow the results of the fall and sin affected animals as well. We saw that somewhat with the curse, the serpent, the snake itself, the ground was cursed.
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It appears that animals were affected by this. Maybe we see that in the violence of animals against one another and against man.
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Maybe a reflection of that reality that all flesh had been corrupted on the earth. When you get to the descriptions of the new heavens and the new earth, you find pictures of animals at peace with one another and not violent toward one another.
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And so somehow the fall has affected even the animals. All flesh is corrupted on the earth. Sin is ugly.
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It has devastating effects. We might think, I'm just going to do a little sin, just a little bit here. And it's not really a big deal.
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It's just a little sin. And here you see that there is no little sin that just maybe doesn't really affect that many people.
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Sin is ugly and terrible all the time, and it has devastating consequences.
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That would continue after the flood as well. You'll see it in Noah's own behavior. We won't get there tonight.
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But we see sin continue after the flood with Noah later. The psalmist will say, Psalm 14 1 -3, the fool says in his heart, there is no
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God. They are corrupt. They do abominable deeds. There is none who does good.
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The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand who seek after God. They have all turned aside.
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Together they have become corrupt. There is none who does good. Not even one. And Paul's going to quote that later in Romans 3.
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We talk about just how wicked man is in the world.
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And is it really all that different in our day? Look at verse 5 again.
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It kind of feels like we live in a world where every intention of the thoughts of his heart is only evil all the time.
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Wickedness abounds. It's everywhere from Noah's day to the psalmist's day to Paul's day to our day.
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Sin is glorified. It's people you're praised for the worst sin that you do.
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People love it that way. Unless we just point our fingers outside the walls of the church and say, the people out there are really bad.
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Then we know that we've got that in our own hearts remaining still that needs to be put to death. Our own sin.
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And unrighteousness that we still need to put to death. And all of that may be discouraging to us.
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God being dishonored, our own sin should grieve us. That's the reality that we live in in this world.
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But hang on because there's hope to come. But this is a bleak, bleak picture of man's sin.
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Great sin. Secondly, great judgment or punishment which comes in the form of a great flood.
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God tells Noah about coming punishment here. In light of the great wickedness on the earth, there is great punishment coming for sinful man.
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God has determined it. Verse 7. Now, Noah doesn't know this yet. Moses, our author who's writing this, tells us about it.
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But as far as we know, Noah doesn't know this yet. Verse 7. So the Lord said,
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I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land. Man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. For I am sorry that I have made them.
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I don't think Noah knows this. Maybe God said that to Noah, but we're not told that. God is determined to blot out man and animal on the earth.
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All flesh. We just saw verse 12 was corrupt. And so judgment is coming on all flesh on the earth.
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On the face of the earth. The seed of the serpent is wreaking havoc in the world.
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Evil is prevailing on the earth so much that God reveals Himself as grieved to the extent that He regrets making man on the earth.
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That's what it says. I don't fully know how to explain that. We're not going to get into it tonight. I'm just going to leave all sorts of things out here for you to pick up the pieces and explain all the hard stuff once I go.
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But that's how God reveals Himself in this moment. He regretted making man on the earth.
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That's how bad it was. So He's going to remove man from the earth.
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Moses, the human author, has told us that. Now God turns and tells
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Noah that. What's going to happen? Well, verse 13. And God said to Noah, we already know what's coming.
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Noah doesn't, and God's going to tell him now. I've determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them.
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Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. God's making it clear now to His servant
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Noah. Judgment for the wicked is going to be the end of flesh. Destruction.
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It's interesting, in verse 12, the word corrupt or ruin describes what man has done on the earth.
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In verse 12, God saw the earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted or ruined their ways on the earth.
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And God turns around and uses that same word to describe the punishment. He will, the
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ESV here, in verse 13, has destroy. That's the same word. He will corrupt.
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He will ruin man on the earth. Behold, I will ruin them with the earth at the end of verse 13 there.
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When commentator said the punishment fits the crime. They've ruined everything with their sin. God will ruin them.
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No mention is made just yet to Noah of the method. He doesn't say how he's going to wipe them off the face of the earth.
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We know it's a flood. We know that that's coming. But that hasn't been told to Noah yet.
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So I find this really interesting. God says, I'm going to destroy everyone on the earth, verse 13, and the next thing he says in verse 14 is make an ark.
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Noah still doesn't know there's a flood coming. So we're going to come back to the ark in a minute.
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I just think that's interesting. You're going to destroy all flesh. Make an ark. How does that follow? Well, if the destruction is coming by way of a flood, that follows.
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But then God does tell him that in verse 17. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven.
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God's going to bring punishment by means of a flood of water that will cover the entire earth.
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God now uses, so he uses that word, ruin, and the way the ruin is going to come is by way of a flood all on earth.
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Everything in which is the breath of life under heaven will die. Some hesitate to attribute natural disasters or other hard things to God.
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I just want you to see here, God has no such qualms. And it's really extra emphatic there in verse 17.
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We don't always see it in our English translations. And I, behold, I am bringing the flood of water on the earth to ruin all flesh.
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Good reminder to us that God is the one who brings these things, sovereign over all, which is ultimately for our comfort.
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If God is not sovereign over everything, including things like natural disasters and floods, then there is no hope or confidence that any good will come from it and that he's using it for our good.
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You don't want God to not be sovereign. I, behold,
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I am bringing the flood. He's at the helm of the universe. Psalm 29, 10, the Lord sits enthroned over the flood.
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The Lord sits enthroned as king forever. If he's not in control, there's no guarantee that it will all work for good for his people.
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Go back to the point at hand. This is a devastating judgment on all flesh. All which is on the earth will die.
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They had the breath of life, but they won't once God brings the flood. Great punishment is coming in the form of the flood.
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Later, there's a few other details about the flood down in chapter 7 and verse 4.
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Once all of the people and animals God plans to save are in the ark, there's going to be 40 days and nights of rain.
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In all existence, God made on the face of the ground. He will wipe out. Great judgment is coming because of man's great wickedness.
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And since there is great wickedness in our day too, we should be warned of coming judgment.
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And God does warn us of coming judgment. As in the days of Noah, God will judge again.
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He will bring punishment again. He will wipe clean and recreate as He did in the flood.
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That's a sobering picture of what final judgment will be with the flood and then what's coming when Jesus comes again.
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God will do it permanently at the judgment day with the new heavens and new earth following. 2
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Peter 3 verse 3 Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
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And then verses 5 -7 of 2 Peter 3 verse 4 They deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
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But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
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God's judgment is surely unmistakably coming again.
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Just as surely as the flood came. You may not believe this, but it doesn't make it any less true.
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Will you be ready on the day when Jesus returns and judges the world in righteousness?
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Or will you be wiped away with the wicked into eternal torment? Jesus warns this. Matthew 24, 38 and 39
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For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking Jesus is talking about the flood.
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Before the flood they were eating and drinking marrying and giving in marriage until the day when
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Noah entered the ark and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.
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So will be the coming of the Son of Man. When you read the flood account don't just go, that was a long time ago.
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That was a thing or maybe it wasn't even real. The flood is a picture of what is coming again.
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And did you notice that Jesus didn't treat the flood as a mythological event that didn't really happen?
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He treated it like a historical event that it is. In the days of Noah before the flood.
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And so will his return be a very real historical event that is actually going to happen.
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The return of Jesus marks the next big judgment event. There have been others since the flood but not worldwide like the flood.
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And none will be like that until the coming of Christ. You've been told in advance. You get warning after warning after warning.
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Seems like Noah probably warned others. The New Testament tells us he was a preacher of righteousness. Probably warning the people that judgment is coming.
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Why do you think I'm building this gigantic boat? Because judgment from God is coming.
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And not one person repenting. His family came with him on the boat but that was it. And you get warning after warning after warning.
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You're being warned again tonight. You've heard your pastor warn you. Maybe you've heard your parents warn you.
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Maybe friends have warned you. Have you heeded the warnings? It's not an idle threat.
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It's not just trying to scare you. It's reality. God is coming again in judgment.
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And all who are not in Christ are going to be swept away like the wicked were in the flood to an eternity of judgment, punishment, and suffering.
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And there is only one way to be ready and that's trusting in Christ Jesus alone. And I want to say more about Him now as we look on what
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God has to say to Noah about salvation. There's great sin.
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There's great judgment. And there's a great salvation. And it comes here in the form of a great boat.
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There's one exception in this story to all this wickedness on the earth. One righteous man who finds favor or grace in the eyes of God and it's
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Noah. And so Noah is told by God as we just saw that he's making an end of all flesh.
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And then again immediately without telling him that a flood is the method he starts telling Noah to build the boat.
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Look at verses 14 -16. He gets going, Behold, I'm going to destroy them with the earth.
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Doesn't say how. Then he says, verse 14, Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and outside with pitch.
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This is how you are to make it. The length of the ark, 300 cubits. Its breadth, 50 cubits. And its height, 30 cubits.
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Make a roof for the ark and finish it to a cubit above and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks.
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Put yourself in Noah's shoes here for a minute. Okay? You should do this when you read the
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Bible. Put yourself in their shoes. Noah knows that the world is full of sin.
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Noah himself is righteous. He's blameless in his generation by God's grace. We'll see later that's of faith.
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And so he can see a difference between his own life and the world. He knows the world is wicked. Now he knows that God is coming in judgment.
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And then God says, Build a boat. Build a box, a chest, an ark.
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Okay? We're going to build a little ark. When Moses was put in the reeds in a basket.
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Remember his mom put him in a basket? We've switched from Noah to Moses. And she doesn't want him to be killed because that's what
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Pharaoh was doing. She hid him in a basket, set him afloat in the river. And Pharaoh's daughter comes and finds him in the river.
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That little thing that he was in, he was in an ark. That's a manageable size ark. It's a little baby size ark, a little infant size ark.
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That's not what God is asking Noah to build. And so if anybody ever gives you a hard time, you ever gotten the names wrong?
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You ever said something about Moses' ark? Or did anybody ever trick you and say, How many animals did Moses take on the ark?
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Like two, two of each? Moses didn't take any animals on the ark. Right? Because it's Noah.
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Well, next time somebody does that, you say, Moses did actually have an ark. And he didn't have any animals with him.
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Anyway, that's free. So God says, Build an ark. Go for wood.
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Okay, we're going to assume Noah knew that, what that was. We don't know. We can guess, but we don't know. Make some nests, or rooms, or compartments in the ark.
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That makes sense once you know it's going to house animals, but Noah doesn't know that yet. Cover it inside and out with pitch.
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Okay? Needs to be waterproof. So far, it may sound fairly manageable.
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Something waterproof needs to float. Probably going to be a boat, this ark, or box, or whatever it is.
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Chest. Okay? And here's how you're going to make it. 450 feet long.
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That's one and a half football fields long. 75 feet wide. And 45 feet high.
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Gulp. Not a fishing boat. Not a rowboat.
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He's not just building a canoe to row around the lake with his sons. Of course, it's given in cubits.
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We're estimating 18 inches to a cubit, which is open to some debate, sort of the length of your elbow to your fingertips, but that's in the neighborhood of the size.
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450 feet long. I meant to do some pacing off of the church building. I forgot to do it to give you some comparisons.
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Our church building is about the width of the ark where we live. It's wider than this room for sure.
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And then, yeah, you can picture a football field and a half for how long it is, and then another 45 feet high.
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It was big, big boat. God tells him to build it. Some of the directions aren't entirely transparent to us.
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In verse 16, what we want to consider tonight doesn't require us to get into all of that. There's a lot we simply don't have details on, and that's okay.
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We have what God wants us to have. We got a big vessel designed to float and to house animals.
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We don't have to get too hung up on the dimension and the details of all of that. It's a floating zoo is what it's going to be.
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You want to chase some of the details down further. There's a lot of interesting material on that out there.
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Answers in Genesis has done tons of research that even build a possible replica of an ark. Remember that displays like the ark encounter and articles about how a huge wooden boat could survive a massive flood without breaking apart and how you can fit all the animals on and feed them and take care of all the waste.
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That can be helpful information, especially when there are skeptics who say that's impossible.
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That can never happen. That's all helpful to show skeptics, look, here is a way that it could happen, but understand a lot of that is educated guesses.
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And so the ark encounter might not look like the ark that Noah built, and that's okay.
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But it shows that it really was possible to do. Just make sure that you don't raise all that stuff to the level of the
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Bible, some of those things that are added in or assumed or calculated and figured.
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God's given us what we need here. I kind of want to know what Noah's ark would look like.
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But God didn't give us a picture Bible. He gave us words. And so we've got the dimensions.
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We know it was a big thing that could float and survive a massive flood.
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We don't need to be dogmatic about some of the details. Again, I think the usefulness of that sort of thing is answering skeptics to show here's how it could have happened.
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It's not beyond the realm of the possible. What is this ark for? Okay, let's get to that.
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Verse 17, For behold, I'll bring a flood of waters, destroy all flesh, everything that's on the earth will die, and then floods coming.
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And verse 18, you're going to need a way to survive it. Noah, I want to come back to verse 18, but he says the ark is going to be for you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.
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So it's to house Noah and his family. But before we talk about that, I want to talk about the animals for just a moment.
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Verses 19 and 20 and on down into chapter 7 as well. Not just Noah and his family are going to be on board the floating zoo.
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This boat is way too big for just eight people and supplies for them. But if you're going to bring enough animals to repopulate the earth, the size of the boat starts to make sense.
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From all living, from all flesh, two of all you will bring into the ark to preserve with you, male and female, they will be.
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Verse 19. Pairs of all flesh, male and female. Of course, male and female so they can reproduce after the flood and repopulate the earth.
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Chapter 7 gives some additional details about the animals to be brought. Look at verses 2 and 3.
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Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also male and female to keep their offspring alive on the face of the earth.
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Of clean animals, Noah is either going to need to take seven or seven pairs of animals.
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The Hebrew is not entirely clear there. It says, I'm remembering, it just says seven, seven.
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I'm not sure if that means seven by seven or pairs of seven, which is how most English translation takes it.
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I don't think it's super important. Why seven of some of the animals? Well, after the fact, we find out that some of them are needed for sacrifice.
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So if you want to look at, if you don't like, if you don't know what happens, just plug your ears for a second.
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This is spoiler alert, right? If you do know what happens and you don't mind, look at chapter 8 and verse 20.
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I'm guessing all of you know what happens. So chapter 8 and verse 20, then
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Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
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So if you offer a sacrifice of the only representative animal on the ark, it can't reproduce.
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So you need some more for sacrifices. The two, two by two, give us the basic idea, male and female.
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The seven fills it out a bit in certain categories of clean animals and birds. And so to preserve life and to have sacrifices,
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God is preserving animal life on the ark along with Noah and his family.
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Now again, we're not going to get into all the details tonight. I think there's natural explanations for some of what is happening here, but I think we should be willing to entertain supernatural answers to some of these things.
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If we default to only one of the other, like how did that happen? Well, it's all supernatural. It's God. He made it work.
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We don't have to know. Or if we default to we have to have a naturalistic explanation for every single one of these things.
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I think we're skewing in the wrong direction because I think God points us in both directions right in the passage here.
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I think we should be willing to entertain supernatural answers to some of these things. There's a mix of both natural and supernatural at work.
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I don't think Noah had to go and round up every animal. God brought them. Look at verse 20.
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Of the birds according to their kinds and of the animals according to their kinds of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind two of every sort shall come into you to keep them alive.
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That's supernatural. Have you ever seen two of every kind of animal for any natural reason or explanation all coming to the same place at the same time?
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No. That's God's hand at work. Supernatural. Don't be bothered by that. But then in verse 21 right after that also take with you you do this,
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Noah take with you every sort of food that is eaten and store it up that shall serve as food for you and them.
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God didn't reign manna in the ark. He said take it with you. There's a natural explanation for how that was going to work on the ark.
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And that's where I think the answers in Genesis has done some really helpful stuff on seeing how we could do that how we could get this many animals on the ark and this much food and deal with this much animal waste and sorry that's not real pleasant to think about but if you're
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Noah you've got to think about it. So don't be too quick to skew either direction and say oh it's all supernatural or all natural explanations.
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Noah had to bring the food. God brought the animals. Forty straight days of rain and fountains of the deep opening up.
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There's got to be something supernatural going on there. But God gives us what we need to know and Noah had what he needed to know.
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The God, this is what we know is going to punish wickedness on a massive scale with a flood and he's going to preserve life with an ark.
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And it really happened. Historical event. It's what
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Jesus said. That's what the Bible says. All of those are maybe some interesting things about the ark and the animals.
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Lest we get sidetracked, this is about God telling Noah about coming salvation because that's exactly what the ark is when the flood of God's judgment arrives.
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It's the saving hand of God delivering Noah and his family and all the animals.
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Look at verse 18 now. But I will establish my covenant with you and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.
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God is going to preserve Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives in the ark.
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They too will be able to repopulate the earth after the flood. And for the first time in Scripture, the word covenant is used.
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The idea appears before this, but here God makes it explicit. God says, I will establish my covenant.
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It's God's and he cannot fail. He makes the arrangement. He establishes the terms. He signs the contract.
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When we make a covenant, we make a contract, sign a contract with someone, we may of necessity or maybe maliciously back out of that contract maybe because of weakness and we're unable to fulfill the terms or maybe we don't like the terms anymore so we just break the contract.
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So you've signed a contract to pay rent on the apartment and you lose your job and all of a sudden you can't pay and so you're in violation.
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You've broken the covenant. Not because you wanted to, but you're weak and so you broke it.
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Maybe you decided you didn't want to leave there anymore and you just left and broke the contract because you didn't want to keep it.
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That never happens with God and his covenant. God makes it.
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He sets the terms and he keeps it. And it's all by his grace.
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After Adam's fall in the garden, everyone's born in sin, so any salvation or deliverance from sin and its consequences will be by grace, not earned.
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So Noah having found grace in the eyes of God in verse 8, God initiates an arrangement with him by which he will be saved, a covenant.
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All flesh going to be ruined, but God covenants to preserve his righteous servant Noah and his family along with the animals.
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And yes, this is grace even for righteous Noah. Noah's righteous, chapter 7 in verse 1.
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Then the Lord said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you were righteous before me in this generation.
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Even that is only so by God's grace. He found grace, favor in the eyes of God, chapter 6 in verse 8.
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Noah will prove his own sinfulness after the flood. He didn't earn a place in the ark.
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God gave it to him. God tells Noah more about his covenant with all creatures and all the earth after the flood, but here it seems this covenant or this part of the covenant has to do with his salvation from judgment on the sinful world and those in it.
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Judgment is coming, Noah, but I'm making a covenant with you and your family. I'm going to keep you alive when everyone else dies.
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Salvation from judgment on the sinful world and those in it. And guess what?
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Our salvation also under the terms of a covenant. The new covenant.
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It's promised in Jeremiah 31. Author of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 8 that it's been fulfilled with Christ as the mediator of that covenant.
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We don't deserve salvation from our sin and its penalty. We're just as undeserving as Noah was, but God promises and provides salvation on His terms according to His promise.
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He promises it and He delivers. Back to Noah here.
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God tells him to get on the boat. Those are God's terms. God speaks and Noah obeys in faith.
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Look at verse 22. Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him. Chapter 7 and verse 5. And Noah did all that the
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Lord had commanded him. God speaks, Noah obeys. God establishes
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His covenant with and saves Noah and gives him the grace to obey. Now I mentioned at the very beginning that we wanted to see
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Christ tonight. So how does all of this show us Christ? Well, how does
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God deliver His people? We just noted, for us too, it's under a covenant arrangement.
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The new covenant. A gracious covenant where Jesus, the Christ, is our representative.
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Where He obeys God perfectly and suffers His wrath is just justice for us.
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And so Jesus becomes an arc of refuge against the storm of God's judgment that we deserve to face on our own.
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We deserve to be left out in the flood. We're part of the all flesh that should be wiped off the face of the earth.
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But Jesus took that wrath in our place according to God's plan, according to God's covenant.
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And so Jesus is our shelter in the storm. He is our arc.
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We will come out on the other side of the day of judgment worshiping God as citizens of the new heavens and the new earth just as Noah would emerge from the ark on the other side of the flood worshiping
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God, offering sacrifices to Him. Listen to Jesus again.
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Luke 17, 26 and 27. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the
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Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given marriage until the day when
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Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. In verse 30, So it will be on the day when the
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Son of Man is revealed. If you're not in the ark, when the flood comes, you drown.
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You die. Only Noah and his family, of all the people on the earth, only Noah and his family were there.
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Everyone else drowned. If you're not in Christ, when
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He returns, you die. If you're in Christ, if you're in the ark when the flood comes, you survive.
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Noah and his family. If you're in Christ when He returns, you live.
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You're saved from God's just wrath. Praise God that we have a covenant with God through Christ. Listen to Hebrews 8.
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But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old.
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As the covenant He mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the
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Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their
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God. And they shall be my people, and they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying,
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Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.
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That's God's new covenant of grace with us through Christ by which we are saved.
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This deliverance of Noah here in Genesis anticipates the deliverance
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Christ provides for us. Noah found grace and favor in the eyes of God.
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In Christ, we find grace and favor in the eyes of God. So we find here in the flood, before Jesus ever walked the earth, in anticipation of Jesus, Noah was saved by grace, as we are.
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He was saved by Jesus, as we are. He believed
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God, and so by faith he was righteous and was delivered by God. Listen to Hebrews 11 and verse 7 about Noah.
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By faith. Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household.
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By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
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God. Noah believed God. He trusted Him. And God delivered him.
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And we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered that flood of God's wrath that should have swept us away.
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He took it in our place so that we can have eternal life in Him. God didn't just talk to Noah about judgment.
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He talked to him about salvation. He didn't just talk about it.
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He brought the judgment, and He brought the salvation in the form of an ark.
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Hallelujah. What a Savior God. And if He saved you in Christ, hallelujah for us too.
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If you're not in Christ, this salvation, this big, beautiful ark of deliverance has room for you.
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It's one of the things this massive ark shows us. There is room. There's room for all who come and put their faith in Christ.
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Jesus stands with arms open, ready to receive you tonight. You come and you trust in Him to do for you what you could not do for yourself.
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You'll either face the punishment of sin forever yourself, or you trust
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Jesus to take it in your place. Which will it be for you? I pray that you'll trust Him and take refuge in the ark of Christ.
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Judgment is surely coming. Salvation is freely offered. I pray you receive it in Christ.
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Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank
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You for Your salvation. We thank You for Noah and the ark. We thank You for saving us in Christ.
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May many more come to Him in faith, even today, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I want us to turn to number 411 in our hymnals.
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I hope you can sing this song, that your hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
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As the metaphor changes, it's not an ark, it's a rock in the song, but it's nevertheless just as true, true for you.
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If not, put your hope in Christ and in His blood and His righteousness alone tonight.
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Trust in Him as your Savior. Let's stand together as we sing, shall we?
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411. On the third, and then the last.
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On the third. All of His sinking sand.
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All of His sinking sand.
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And He shall come with trumpet sound. Oh, rest in His righteousness alone.
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Walk lest you stand before the throne. Christ the solid rock.
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Rest in all of His sinking sand.
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All of His sinking sand.
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I see Tom and Gene slipped in here tonight. Continue to pray for them.
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I did get a confirmation text from Tim just after the message started that visitation will be next
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Friday night, the 5th, May 5th, from 5 to 7, and that'll be at McDonald's in Sterling.
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The Sterling McDonald Funeral Home. And the funeral service itself will be at 10 o 'clock in the morning,
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Saturday morning, May 6th, here at the church. So mark that thing down on your calendar and plan accordingly.
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Let's pray. So, our Father and our God, we do thank You for the ark, the
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Lord Jesus, and thank You that we are safe in Him. We're thankful for Your amazing grace that opens the door and shuts us in.
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And we're thankful for the confidence and the assurance that in the whelming flood that exists and that's coming, all who are in Christ will be safe through it all.
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Thank You for that grace. We do pray for Tom and Gene tonight. Pray that You would continue to give comfort to their hearts, give them rest and refreshment to the body, and we pray much grace that would sustain them in these days ahead.