A World Deserving Destruction

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I want to invite you to open up your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 6.
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We're moving today into one of my favorite sections of study.
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We're moving into the flood narrative.
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And last week we began Genesis 6 by looking at the first 8 verses.
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We recognize that in those 8 verses there are some difficulties.
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But we said that the overall narrative is relatively easy to follow.
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There has been an incident of intermarriage which has led to a significant spike and rise in the evil among men.
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To the point that the Bible says that the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
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This sinful expansion among men grieved the heart of God and therefore God declared that He would put an end to all flesh.
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But in the midst of that statement of judgment one man finds grace in the eyes of the Lord.
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And today we're going to pick up where we left off at verse 9 and we're going to learn about that man.
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We're going to examine the way God chooses to bring deliverance and we're going to begin our focus on the next three chapters of Genesis which we will be looking at today.
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Obviously not next Sunday because we will be having a guest.
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But over the next several weeks of my preaching we're going to be looking at Genesis 6-9.
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So today is our introduction to the study of the flood.
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Let us stand together and read.
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Genesis 6 beginning at verse 9.
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We're going to go all the way to verse 22.
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These are the generations of Noah.
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Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
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Noah walked with God and Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
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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.
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For all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
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And God said to Noah, I have 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.
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Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.
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Make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch.
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This is how you are to make it.
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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 on the side.
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Excuse me, set the door of the ark in its side.
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Make it with lower, second and third decks.
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For behold, I will bring floodwaters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven.
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Everything that is on the earth shall die.
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But I will establish my covenant with you.
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And you shall come into the ark, you and 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.
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Of the birds according to their kinds, 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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Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten and store it up.
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It shall serve as food for you and for them.
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Noah did this.
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He did all that God commanded him.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I pray now that you would keep me from error, that you would keep me from cowardice, that you would fill me with your Spirit, and Lord, that your people would hear your word, that we would understand, Lord, that much like the days of Noah, we live in a day where many men are not concerned with the evil in their hearts because they do not recognize there is judgment to come.
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Lord, may we understand that as it was in the days of Noah, so too will come another day, a day where you will judge the world in righteousness.
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Lord, help us to understand how this old story is relevant today.
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In Christ's name, Amen.
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When we come to Genesis chapter 6 and arrive at verse 9, we come to a very familiar expression.
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If you have been with us the last several weeks and you've been hearing the study, you will remember that I have made mention that one of the marking posts that we have in the book of Genesis is the phrase, these are the generations of.
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We saw this in chapter 2, verse 4.
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We saw this in chapter 5, verse 1.
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We will see this again another seven times because this is a ten point navigation system through the book of Genesis.
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And after every time you see these are the generations of, it's beginning a new portion of the narrative.
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In Hebrew, it's called the Toledot.
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And therefore, some people call these the ten Toledots of Genesis.
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Kent Hughes said this, he says, This third section of Genesis, which recounts the flood of judgment, runs from 6-9 to the end of chapter 9, and it is the longest of the ten sections of Genesis and serves as the centerpiece of primeval history.
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This section provides an interpretive bridge between the shadowy past before the flood and the nearer, more comprehensible era of the fathers following the deluge.
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So think of what Hughes is saying.
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He's saying this narrative, this flood narrative is like the before and after.
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Before this, the world was completely different.
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And when I say completely different, I don't mean it was necessarily a different world, but what I mean is the topography was different.
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Everything looked different.
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And I got to thinking about it this week, when Noah came off the ark, it wasn't like somebody who comes in after a tsunami.
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Because a tsunami will come and will wipe out a place, but when it goes back out, there's still signs of civilization.
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Right? There's still foundations of buildings and there's still roots of trees that are sticking up in the landscape.
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This is not what it would have been like for Noah coming off the ark.
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Everything was destroyed.
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God has created, man has corrupted his creation, and therefore God is saying, I am going to end it and start again.
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Noah will in that sense act as a second Adam.
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He will fill the earth with his offspring.
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He will receive a covenant in chapter 9 that's very similar to the commands given to Adam.
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Go and fill the earth.
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He will receive very similar positioning as Adam was the head of the human race.
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Noah will be a new head and a race will come from him.
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So it's interesting that we see this.
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We need to know about this man Noah.
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Because this man is going to become the forefather of everyone.
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Adam is your father.
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So is Noah.
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There's no one here that wasn't born of Noah.
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Now you may be a Shemite, you may be a Hamite, or you may be a Japhethite, but you are of all things a Noahite.
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And so, we will see this man today.
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And this is the outline that I have for you as we begin to learn about this man.
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Did I put it in the screen? Okay, I wasn't sure if I remembered.
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We have five points that we're going to look at today.
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We're going to look first at Noah's description.
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Then we're going to look at the world's description.
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And then we're going to look at God's determination.
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Now, God's deliverance, verses 14 to 21, I want to go ahead and say we're not really going to get into that today because that really is introduced in chapter 6, but we are going to follow the narrative in chapters 7, 8, and 9.
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So, even though we've read through it, that's really not going to be part of today's message, but it is part of the outline.
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God explains what he's going to do.
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But then, verse 22, we're going to end today by seeing that Noah was obedient to God.
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So we're going to learn about this Noah character today and find out what God is doing through this man.
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So let us look first at Noah's description.
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Verse 9, it says, These are the generations of Noah.
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Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
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Noah walked with God, and Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
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Now, right away, every Calvinist who reads this text has a little anxiety attack when he reads that Noah was a righteous man.
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Because if there's one thing that we as Calvinists affirm, it is the biblical teaching that there is none righteous, no not one, there is none who understands, and there is none who seeketh after God.
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Right? And all we're doing there is quoting Romans chapter 3, but that's not the only passage that says that.
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Psalm 14, 3, You have all turned aside, together you have become corrupt, there is none good, not even one.
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Mark chapter 10 and verse 18, the rich young ruler runs to Jesus and says what? Good teacher.
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And Jesus says to him, Why do you call me good? You know there is only one good, and that is God.
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So if the Bible affirms that none are righteous, if the Bible affirms that all have turned aside, that all have given way to sin, that all are corrupt, then how is it that we come to Genesis 6 and verse 9 and it begins by saying Noah was a righteous man? Again, like I said, it causes Calvinists to have just a little twitch in the eye, a little discomfort, because sometimes we don't know what to do with these texts.
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But we should.
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Because when the Bible says that none is righteous, it's saying the truth.
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But it is also saying the truth from the perspective of in themselves.
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No one is righteous in themselves.
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No one is good in themselves.
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You are not righteous in and of yourself.
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You are not righteous in your own nature.
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You have inherited a nature from Adam.
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And let me tell you this, you have a lot more in common with those whose every thought and intention of the heart was only evil continually than you do with Jesus.
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So, if we're not righteous in and of ourselves, how is it that Noah is proclaimed to be righteous? Well, the Bible doesn't make us have to guess.
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The Bible tells us the answer.
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No one is righteous based on his own goodness, but righteousness is declared by God upon the basis of faith.
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I'll give you a few verses.
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The Bible says in Genesis 15, 6, Abraham believed God and he was counted to him as righteousness.
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We call that imputed righteousness.
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God making a declaration.
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Why did God declare Abraham righteous? Because he believed God.
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It says he believed the Lord and it was accounted to him.
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It was imputed to him as righteousness.
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Habakkuk 2, 4 tells us the righteous shall live by faith.
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Romans 1, 17 says this, The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
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As it is written, the just shall live by faith.
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Galatians 3, verse 11 says this, Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law.
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The righteous shall live by faith.
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So, based upon all of that, how is anyone declared righteous? By faith.
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And you say, well, the Bible doesn't say Noah had faith.
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Oh, nay, nay.
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If you go to Hebrews 11, in that great hall of faith passage, I want you to hear what it says.
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You can turn there if you want, but turn quick because I'm going to speak quick.
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In Hebrews 11, verse 7, it says this, By faith Noah, being warned of the 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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You see, we don't have to interpret it.
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All we have to do is read it.
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How was he made righteous? By faith.
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What does the text tell us? He was righteous by faith.
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He was made heir of the righteousness that comes through faith.
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So, when we read Noah was a righteous man, we could just as easily read Noah was a man of faith.
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And by that was declared righteous.
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And one thing I want to remind you, we looked at this last week, is back in chapter 6, verse 8, it says Noah found grace in the eyes of God.
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In fact, that's the first time the word grace is used, is in regard to Noah.
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The first time that the grace of God is mentioned, not the first time it's given, because grace is given to Adam and Eve in the garden, because God clothed them in their nakedness, and that was an act of grace.
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But this is the first time the word grace is used, and it's used of Noah.
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And guess what? This is also the first time the word righteous is used.
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So, how do we understand Noah's righteousness? It is by grace through faith.
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How is Noah declared to be righteous? The same way you are.
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He was declared to be righteous by grace alone, through faith alone.
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Now, does his faith produce good works? Absolutely.
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Does his good works magnify themselves through the land and everyone see them? Absolutely.
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But how is he ultimately saved? By grace through faith.
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Noah is ultimately going to become the example of that throughout the rest of the Bible, because we're going to see everybody who was ever saved was saved by grace through faith.
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Abraham was saved by grace through faith.
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Paul tells us this in Romans.
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He says if you want an explanation of how Abraham was saved, it wasn't because he was good, it was because he believed.
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Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him as righteousness.
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Beloved, Noah is the example, Abraham is the example.
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You follow the covenants down and you see it is by grace through faith that God declares a man righteous.
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But Noah was not only called righteous, Noah was called blameless.
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And blameless is different than righteous.
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It's not necessarily just a parallelism, where he's saying the same thing again, but when he says Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generations, he is referring to Noah's moral character.
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Because not only is Noah righteous before God, but he is blameless before men.
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And I like to compare this, and how do we know it's before men? Because it says in his generation.
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It refers to those in his generation.
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What is Noah's generation like? They're evil, only evil, continually, except for this one bright spot, who by grace has been given the faith to live a life pleasing to God.
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He's been given by grace through faith an ability to live a life that is morally upright in a world of morally corrupt individuals.
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Noah is different than them.
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We can't just say, oh Noah acted the same way as they did.
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I don't believe that.
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Any more than I think we should act like the world.
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You see the problem is, we believe that because we are saved by grace through faith, our lives should look just like the world, and they shouldn't.
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Noah's life looked different from those of his generation.
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Now I'm not saying Noah was sinless any more than any of our elders are sinless, but our elders are called to be what? Blameless, above reproach.
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That's basically the same concept, right? Kent Hughes says this, he says, Noah of course was not sinless, but his conduct was blameless despite the evil context.
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The demonized culture did not divert or pervert him, nor could it indict him.
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He was the one bright spot among the numberless darkened souls of the primeval world.
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Noah was a godly man in an ungodly world.
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And we know that not only because he's called blameless, but the very next line it says, and he walked with God.
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If his righteousness references his standing before God, and his blamelessness represents his standing before men, his walking with God represents his relationship to God.
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Not only did he believe in God, but he believed God and he loved God.
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And he walked with God.
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Who is the only other person so far that we have seen that the scripture says walked with God? Enoch, right? Enoch walked with God and he was not, for the Lord took him.
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See, Enoch walked with God and through that special relationship, God provided him salvation from death and translated him directly into his next life.
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Noah receives salvation from the flood and is carried away in the ark of God's own design to begin anew.
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So Noah was righteous, he was blameless, and he walked with God.
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And it says he fathered three sons, which I've mentioned before.
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This is simply to remind us that he is not the only survivor, but there will be three additional survivors with him and their wives.
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So there will be eight in total.
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And these will become the fathers of all nations.
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This is the man that we see.
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But there's one thing the text doesn't tell us here that we learn elsewhere.
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And for a moment, I do want you to turn in your Bible.
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So if you...
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Keep your finger in Genesis because we shall return.
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But turn all the way over to 2 Peter.
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Go all the way over to 2 Peter 2.
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And look at verse 5.
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So I'll give you a second.
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I hear Bible pages turning.
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Now, unfortunately, I don't have time to exegete 2 Peter 2 because we're in Genesis.
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But I want to show you one important statement that's made about Noah.
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Because Noah is used by Peter as an example here.
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And he's used as an illustration.
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But listen to what it says in verse 5.
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If he, that being God, did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.
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You can stop right there.
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Like I said, it goes on to use Noah as an example for Peter's point.
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But notice what Noah is called.
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Noah is called a herald of righteousness.
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Do you know what the word herald means? Some of your Bibles say it.
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A preacher.
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Noah was a preacher of righteousness.
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That's not often how we think of Noah.
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In fact, I don't know what picture you have of Noah in your mind.
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But so many of us have the second grade Sunday school picture of Noah in our mind.
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A very cute little ark that looks like a bathtub toy.
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Couple of giraffe heads sticking out.
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Maybe a couple of elephant trunks.
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And you got this really old looking guy who just sort of looks like maybe an older version of Dr.
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Doolittle.
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It's a picture people have.
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It's sort of the Dr.
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Doolittle version of Noah.
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The Bible does not paint that picture of Noah.
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The Bible pictures Noah as a righteous man in a world of unrighteous people.
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A blameless man in a world filled with blame.
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It pictures him as a godly man in a midst of ungodliness and a man who was willing to speak out about it.
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He was a herald of righteousness.
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He spoke the truth in a generation that hated the truth.
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He spoke righteousness to an unrighteous people.
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Now what did he say? I don't know.
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I know he preached righteousness.
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I have no idea what his sermons were like.
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I'm not even sure that they were necessarily sermons.
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I know they were proclamations based on that text.
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I would say they were certainly verbal proclamations of truth.
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Probably condemnation to his generation.
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You know what we've been told by our generation? If you speak condemnation, you're not being godly.
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If you say words of condemnation, you're not being godly.
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You know what the Bible says? The Bible says if you call good evil and evil good, woe unto you.
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And that's what we are.
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Noah called evil evil.
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And he declared it.
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We don't have a word recorded of what he said until chapter 9.
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By the way, Noah will not speak until chapter 9.
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Not anything we know.
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And the first words out of his mouth are going to condemn his grandson.
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Cursed be Canaan, son of Ham.
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We'll get to that later.
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But that's the only thing that we hear out of his mouth.
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But 2 Peter tells us there were more things that came out of his mouth.
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It was righteous proclamation.
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You say, what are you trying to get at, Pastor? I'm trying to get at this.
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Noah was more than just a boat builder.
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Noah was a man of God.
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He was a righteous man of faith.
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He was a godly man in a godless generation.
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And he was a preacher of righteousness.
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Noah, according to Hebrews 11.7, condemned the world.
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That's what it says.
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It says he condemned the world.
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So if I know anything about his preaching, he condemned the world.
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Because Hebrews 11.7 says so.
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And I'll tell you this, he condemned the world not only with his words, he condemned the world with his works.
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Because every time he fell a tree, and every time he coated a new coat of pitch on the ark, he was reminding the people who were watching him of their coming destruction.
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He was not only a man who spoke the truth, but he lived the truth, and he was a living sermon.
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Every time one of those people walked by, Ha ha Noah, it ain't raining yet.
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He knew the day was coming.
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He knew the truth.
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And he heralded their judgment.
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Noah was a faithful man.
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He was a godly man.
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He was a father and he was a preacher.
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And he stood in stark contrast to the world around him.
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And that's what I want us to see now.
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Look at verse 11.
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Back in Genesis, look at verse 11.
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Because what it says in verses 9 and 10 is about Noah and his blamelessness and his righteousness and his being a father.
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Now it's going to say, Now the earth, in contrast to Noah.
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Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, 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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The word corrupt in Hebrew means to be spoiled or ruined.
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And notice it says it was this way in God's sight.
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If you compare this to what it just said about Noah, it said about Noah that he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and God saw that he was righteous.
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This is all from the perspective of God.
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Now he looks at the earth and there's this tremendous juxtaposition.
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You've got Noah, the blameless, righteous man of God, and you've got the earth, which is corrupt.
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And we have a world that grieves God, but one man who pleases God.
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And I want to show you something that I just found tremendously interesting this week.
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Maybe you won't find it as interesting as I did, but as I was studying this, it just kept going back in my mind.
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Notice it says the earth was corrupt in God's sight, which means it was corrupt truly, because everything from the perspective of God, it's the truth, right? And the earth was filled with violence, and God saw that it was corrupt, and all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
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I want you to, again, we're doing Bible drills today.
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I want you to hold your place there.
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I want you to go over to Luke chapter 17.
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Because I remembered as I was studying this, I said, wait a minute, Jesus talked about this generation.
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What did Jesus say about Noah's generation? And so I went back and I looked at Jesus' words from the Gospel of Luke, and something struck me to the heart.
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I want you to see what it is.
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In Luke chapter 17, Jesus is essentially talking about the coming of the kingdom and preparing people for the coming of the kingdom.
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And Jesus chooses to use Noah and Noah's generation as the example.
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And I want you to notice what it says in verse 26.
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Luke 17, 26.
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Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man.
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They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
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You say, so what? As bad as things were, as evil as the world had become, as corrupt as the world was, men were still going about their lives like nothing was happening.
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They were still eating and drinking, they were still marrying and giving in marriage.
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They did all of that until the flood came.
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In the midst of a wicked and vile world, they lived like business as usual.
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And you say, that doesn't strike you.
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It struck me because I thought about our world.
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I think about all the viciousness that's going on in our world, and yet we live like it's business as usual.
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That's just the way it is.
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And maybe things aren't as bad now as they were in Noah's time.
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But maybe they are.
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And we just fail to see it.
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Because we just don't think the end is coming.
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Because that's the way it was in Noah's day.
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Yes, there's murder happening.
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Yes, there's violence happening.
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But I've got to get my daughter married.
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Yes, there's all this wickedness happening, but I've got to go out to dinner.
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They were living as if it was normal.
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Maybe it's not getting you like it got me.
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It just struck me because the way it's spoken of in Genesis is almost like Thunderdome.
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It's almost like Mad Max.
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That's the picture you kind of get.
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Wickedness and every intention of his heart is only evil continually.
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And we're thinking about this picture of people, of these bands of roving maniacs.
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But yet they're still having weddings.
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They're still having feasts.
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I like what Jameson Fawcett Brown says about this.
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It says, though the antediluvian world, that's the pre-flood world, and the cities of the plain were wicked, it's not their wickedness that Jesus points to, but their worldliness.
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They were so fascinated with the world they lived in, no matter how wicked it got.
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And they were happy to be there, no matter how wicked it became.
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And they did not see the end coming.
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It wasn't until they wiped that first drop of rain off their brow that they said, oh wait, maybe there's something to Noah's command after all.
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Or Noah's warning.
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Just for a moment, consider this application.
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We live in a world full of wickedness, and we live in a world where men are willfully oblivious to it.
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They don't want to hear the word of God.
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They don't want to consider the consequences.
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They just want to eat and drink and be merry.
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They do not want to turn to God because they don't see the consequence coming.
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They don't want to repent because they love their sin, and they don't believe that they're worthy of punishment.
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And they don't believe it's going to come.
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Most men, I'll tell you this, some of you don't even know, you don't even believe that judgment is coming.
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You say you do, but do you really? Robert Murray McShane said this, he was a great Scottish minister if you've never heard of him.
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He had a Bible study with a circle of friends, and he asked all of them, he says, do you think Jesus could come tonight? And they all looked at each other, and they looked at him and said, I think not.
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And he opened up his Bible and he read this, The Son of Man cometh when ye think not.
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Noah's generation was wicked and unready.
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Our generation is wicked and not ready.
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The original title of this sermon was Between the Water and the Fire.
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I changed it to A World Deserving Destruction, but Between the Water and the Fire was what's been on my heart all this week, because that's where we are.
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You see, they were before the water.
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Noah's generation was before the water, and they didn't know it.
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See, we're after the water.
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We look back, we know that happened.
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But it still doesn't strike us to the heart to say there's fire coming, because he won't do it with water again.
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The next time it's going to be with molten heat.
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And we're right in between it.
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We don't know where we are in between, but we are in between.
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And the generation of people that we wake up next to in our neighborhoods, that we drive next to in our cars, and that we sit next to in our work, are many and mostly willfully oblivious to where they are in the timeline of God's judgment.
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Like the people of Noah's day.
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They're marrying and giving in marriage.
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They're eating and drinking, and they don't care.
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Yes, there's 60 million babies getting murdered.
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We don't care.
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Yes, people are being killed by mob violence.
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And yes, people are being sold into slavery.
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And people are being sold into human trafficking.
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And we don't care.
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Because I can still go to Chipotle and get a 799 burrito.
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I ain't saying that's a sin.
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They got good burritos.
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But the point is we get so consumed with worldliness that we can't see the wickedness.
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That was Noah's day.
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They didn't know the water was coming, and it was.
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Many of us don't realize the fire is coming, and it is.
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And that's what we see in verse 13, God's determination.
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And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh.
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For the earth is filled with violence through them.
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Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
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First of all, just imagine what Noah thought when he heard that.
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Noah, I'm about to destroy the earth.
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He believes God.
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He believes what God is saying.
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We know he does because of what he does next.
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He goes about doing what God tells him to do.
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He trusts God's word.
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But imagine that message.
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I am about to destroy the world.
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In the grand act of de-creation.
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Because God has already created the world.
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Now He will de-create the world and re-create it.
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Much the same way as He brought form out of the waters in Genesis 1 and 2.
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When it says the waters were over the face of the deep and He brought the earth out of that.
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Much the same, He's going to bring water and destruction and bring it back to life.
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How startling must have been the announcement of the threatened destruction.
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Jameson Fawcett Brown again, it says, There was no outward indication of it.
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The course of nature and experience seemed to be against it.
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And the public opinion of mankind would ridicule it.
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But Noah knew the truth.
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Noah knew the truth.
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It's coming.
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Do we know that truth? We say we do.
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We say we know that it's coming.
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We say we know judgment is nigh.
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But do we really? We know Noah believed it because of how he lived.
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Now again, I'm going to jump past verses 14 to 21.
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I'm going to revisit these in the next sermon because it's going to take us into the next chapter.
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Because it talks about covenant and all that.
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I don't have time today.
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And it really isn't the part of the message I wanted to get to.
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But I do want to keep this in your mind.
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We're going to talk about Noah and his covenant.
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How he built the ark.
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All in our next sermon.
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But for now, jump with me to verse 22.
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Because this is the key.
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It says Noah did this.
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He did what? He did all the things in verses 14 to 21.
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The stuff we're not talking about.
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He did that.
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He built the ark.
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He brought the animals.
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He did all those things.
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Why? Because God had commanded him.
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He did all that God had commanded him.
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Beloved, I want to say something to you that's sometimes hard to hear.
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But it's the truth.
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Faith is demonstrated in obedience.
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Not perfect obedience because you can't have perfect obedience.
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But faith is demonstrated in obedience.
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If you don't get anything else from the book of James, you better get that.
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You say you have faith, I will show you my faith by what? By what I do.
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Because my faith is more than mere words.
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My faith will change how I live.
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My faith will cause me to seek after God.
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My faith will turn me from sin.
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My faith is a changed life.
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There's so many churches today that will say this.
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If you believe in Jesus, raise your hand, come forward, and repeat a prayer.
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And I want to tell you, sometimes God uses that to change people's lives.
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But the telltale of the tape is not whether they raised the hand or came forward and prayed.
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The telltale of the tape is what happens after.
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If God has changed your life, it will be a changed life.
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Not a perfect life.
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Not a sinless life.
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But it will be a different life.
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And if you are living today the same way you did, and with the same intentions of the heart that you had before you came to Christ, it might be a moment in time for you to ask, did I truly come to Christ? My heart is not to make saved people worry, but the Bible does tell us to make our calling and election certain.
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We are between the water and the fire.
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Noah's generation was not ready for the water.
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Are you ready for the fire? Only one way.
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Be in Christ like Noah was in the ark.
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And that will be the subject of our next message.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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I thank you for the reminder of judgment which we have in this passage.
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And a reminder that, Lord, you have set aside your elect who you will save through your Son.
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And, Lord, I pray that everyone under the sound of my voice right now would have their hearts cut to the quick.
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And, Lord, if they are living outside of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you would open up their heart to believe, and that their lives would be changed.
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But, Lord, at the same time, for those who are believers, Lord, I pray that they would not find their security in what they do, but rather their security in how you have changed their heart.
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And ultimately find their security in what Christ has done for them.
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Lord, Noah didn't save himself in the ark.
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It was the ark that saved him.
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And we don't save ourselves in Christ.
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It is Christ who saves us.
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Lord, may we who trust in Christ rest in Him today, and know that in Him our lives are truly changed.
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I pray this in His name and for His sake.
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Amen.