[0:00] Well, we're going to turn to our reading now this morning, and you should have a handout on your seats that has this long section of Genesis, which begins at chapter 6 and verse 8.
[0:16] And I've put there for you the whole of the story of the flood down to the end of chapter 8, and just the first little taste of the beginning of chapter 9, and I've laid it out as it's been laid out by the writer to help show just how carefully this has been laid out and to draw our attention to what's at the very heart of this account. I'm not going to read all of it because it's very long, but I'm going to read parts of it and summarize others, and you might like to read on the rest of it as we're going to be studying it together. But chapter 6 verse 9 begins the third book of Genesis, the third book of the generations. We had the book of the generations of the heavens and the earth, beginning in chapter 2 verse 4, the book of the generations of Adam, beginning at chapter 5 verse 1, and now these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God, and Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
[1:25] 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. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.
[1:55] Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you're to make it. The length of the ark, 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, its height 30 cubits. 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.
[2:15] For behold, I will bring a great flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh, in which there is breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, your sons' wives with you.
[2:35] And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you. There shall be male and female. 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. Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up, and it shall serve as food for you and for them. Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him. Then chapter 7, verse 1, we see God calling Noah into the ark with all the animals.
[3:16] And verse 5, Noah did all that the Lord commanded him. And then from chapter 7, verse 6, following, we read of the flood rising and beginning. And notice in verse 11, the precise dating. In the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, the fountains of the great deep burst forth. And again, verse 16, all those that entered, male and female, of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in. And then we're told of the waters increasing. The flood prevails for 150 days, verse 24. The waters prevailed on the earth 150 days, having blotted out all life. But chapter 8, verse 1, God remembered Noah. And all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth. And the waters subsided. At the end of 150 days, the waters had abated and continued to abate. And we read there from chapter 8, verse 6 of the flood ending. Now look at verse 14. In the second month, on the 27th day of the month, the earth had dried out. And if you compare that with chapter 7, verse 11, you'll see exactly one year and 10 days later. And then at verse 15, God said to Noah, go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may swarm on the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth. So Noah went out, his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing and every bird, everything that moves on the earth went out by families from the ark. And then 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. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart,
[5:52] I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. And neither will ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.
[6:15] And then chapter 9 speaks of God blessing Noah and his sons. And he said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Again in verse 7, and you be fruitful and multiply, team on the earth and multiply in it. And verse 15, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
[6:52] Amen. May God bless to us his word and help us to understand his message to us today. Well, turn in your Bible or have the printed out sheet in front of you with this story of Genesis 6 to 8.
[7:16] As I said in verse 9 there of chapter 6 begins the third account, the generations of Noah, and it's got two acts. First is the story of the flood and its aftermath down to chapter 9 verse 17.
[7:28] And then after that is the second act which tells about Noah's sons. That takes us to the end of chapter 9. But our task this morning is to look at the story to the end of the flood itself, to the end of chapter 8. And we really need to look at the whole of this section to get it clear and to get the big picture clear so we don't get bogged down in details. The sort of thing that some people seem very obsessed about, very obsessed about the exact measurements of the ark, the exact extent of the flood, and so on. But our task is to grasp the main point of this story.
[8:08] And it's to see why, as the Apostle Paul tells us, why it is written for us. To make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. That's why it's written.
[8:19] So let me make a few comments just to begin with. First of all, this is presented to us not as some mythical story. It's presented as a real historical event. And that shouldn't surprise us because all over the ancient Near East there's evidence of a memory of just such an event. You find that in flood stories from Babylon, from Sumeria, and all sorts of other places.
[8:46] But as we saw with Genesis 1 and 2 in the creation story, Moses is not just copying these other stories. He's correcting them. He's revealing the truth of God to his people. And what he's saying is, no, this is what really happened and this is why it happened. Like the creation account, there's a real polemic thrust in this account. It deliberately blows holes in all those pagan accounts. These accounts are full of nonsense about a flood being visited on poor innocent people by nasty capricious gods. In fact, in one of the stories, it's because the people on earth are, I think we're a bit too loud here. Can we just turn down a little bit? Thanks. Because the people on earth are making too much noise and are causing disturbance in the sleep of the gods. So they think, well, let's send a flood and wipe them all out. I mean, that's the sort of ridiculous nonsense in these stories. But the Bible says, no, that is nonsense. It's morality that is at the heart of the flood. Not that kind of mumbo jumbo. It is God's righteous judgment on a wicked, sinful humanity that's taking place. So history is being related to us here, but it is with a theological purpose.
[10:12] And that is its primary purpose, to refute all of these pagan errors, errors in understanding God and man, and instead to teach the truth to God's people and through them to the whole world. Now, if we forget that primary purpose of scripture, then we might very well fail to see the wood for the trees. We might miss the whole point of this message being in the scripture for us. So, for example, Moses is not interested in teaching us about dinosaurs and where dinosaurs might fit into the history of the world. But he is very interested in teaching us about God and about the one true God of earth and heaven. And he is the God who judges the world in order to save his world. And that focus is absolutely plain when we look at the structure of the whole story. And you can see it if you look at this handout that you have. It's absolutely plain where the writer wants our focus to be. And it is on God, and on God's saving action that is right at the very heart of this. Look at chapter 8, verse 1, right at the center, but God remembered Noah. That is the heart of the message that this passage shouts out to us, light and clear. And if we miss that, friends, we miss absolutely everything.
[11:40] God remembers his covenant promise of grace, even in the midst of a cataclysm of judgment, when everything looks lost. Maybe even for those who are inside the ark after all of that time.
[11:57] God remembers his covenant. God brings the flood, and God causes it to abate. And all because God made a promise. And not even the collapse of the whole world in a cataclysmic flood will make that promise fail. Now, if you get a hold of that verse right at the heart, and you realize that the covenant God of Noah is the same God that we know and worship today, who still remembers his promises, his promises to save even in the midst of a great and terrible judgment, to save those people who trust in him and take refuge in him and heed his warnings and embrace his appointed way of salvation.
[12:48] Well, then you see what the message of this passage is and what it teaches us today. In fact, it might just be that one half verse that you need to keep hold of this morning. Perhaps if your own world seems to be collapsing around you, this is the God who remembers his covenant and who saves his people.
[13:11] And that's why, you see, after racing through centuries and centuries of history in a few verses in chapter 5 of Genesis 6, now Moses slows right down to give so much space to this crucial story of the flood because he wants us to learn about the God who saves through judgment. Not apart from judgment because he's just and he must show himself to be just, but he is a saving God nonetheless, even for a world that is self-condemned in its utter corruption and its sin. In fact, we might put it this way. The flood was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness in the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith. To lift Paul's words from Romans chapter 3.
[14:10] So we must be distracted here. We must focus on the heart of this message. And we must be guided also by the New Testament writers and their inspired interpretation and focus of what this is all about. In fact, the significance of this story is summarized in just a single verse in Hebrews 11 verse 7. Listen, by faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. And by this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. And do you hear that? The Holy Spirit himself speaking through his apostle is plainly telling us three things that really matter about this story.
[15:01] Three things about the message of this whole three chapters in front of us this morning. First, Noah received God's warning of judgment. Second, Noah embraced God's way through judgment.
[15:16] And thirdly, Noah inherited God's world beyond that judgment. Now that is the New Testament control that we must pay heed to if we're going to understand these scriptures in front of us this morning. If we're not guided by that, if instead we want to we want to determinedly focus on all kinds of other things, well, we're ignoring, aren't we, the Holy Spirit of God.
[15:42] And we'll very likely go very wrong indeed in our understanding. So let's clarify this message and under these three headings. First, Noah received God's warning of judgment.
[15:54] And the point here is this, God's purpose for the world is revealed in the flood. And that purpose is preservation through purging. God preserves his world through a purging of total judgment, not without it. So we see the account opens with introducing Noah and his family and the society that they live in in the days prior to the flood. And chapter 6 verses 11 and 12 make it very, very plain, don't they? I've highlighted it for you. This world is corrupt. It's corrupt. It is corrupted.
[16:30] And so completely corrupt is it and so full of violence that it seems like Noah alone is a man who is righteous and blameless. And that does not mean perfect and sinless, of course, but it means he is right with God wholeheartedly. That's what blameless means in the Bible.
[16:54] Noah, we're told, walked with God. And he cut a lonely figure. We shouldn't be surprised. Verses 1 to 8 of chapter 6 prepared us for this last time.
[17:09] Society, we're told there in chapter 6 verse 5 was totally depraved. It was a result, as we've seen, of the demonization of society that had raised human defiance so outrageously and sunk human depravity so appallingly. And so bad it was, says verse 7, that God said, I will blot out man and every living thing. So sorry am I that I have made him.
[17:35] And yet that second book of Genesis last week, we saw, didn't we, it ended with a note of hope in verse 8. Because Noah found grace, he found favor in the eyes of the Lord, gratuitously, wonderfully. And that tenacious refrain of grace has been there ever since the beginning of man's sin.
[17:56] Because God's purpose for his creation will not be thwarted. There's nothing man can do. There's nothing the devil can do through man that can thwart the purpose of God for his world.
[18:09] The seed of the woman, the people of faith will inherit God's world. And so that was seen in the hope displayed, remember in chapter 5, in Enoch, who walked with God and didn't die. And in Lamech, the father of Noah, who looked to the future of the promise, who named his son, Noah, through whom we will find Nacham, comfort from the curse of pain. But how can both of those things be true? God's painful need to purge the earth of all that wickedness and God's promised purpose to preserve the world? How can that both be true? Well, the answer is revealed in the flood.
[18:53] God's purpose will come to pass to preserve the earth, but through a purging of judgment, not apart from that. And the narrative here clearly shows us that purpose of preservation. Begins with a world full of corruption. The old world there in verses 9 to 12. But it ends, you see, right at the bottom at the beginning of chapter 9, with a new world, a world which is cleansed. And once again, it's set on its way with wonderful blessing and wonderful promises. Chapter 9, verse 1, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Chapter 9, verse 7, team on the earth and multiply. Just like Genesis chapter 1, isn't it? All over again. God's world has not been utterly destroyed. It's been preserved.
[19:44] And God's purpose is that his world will go on and be blessed at his hand. But of course, it's been preserved only through a terrible purging that has swept away. All the corruption of man, all its terrible fruit in society, in that whole flood of judgment. There's a preservation only through purging. And it is a total purging. The language there, verses 17 to 24 in chapter 7, deliberately echoes the language of Genesis chapter 1. But it's in reverse.
[20:22] This is an undoing of creation. The world has been plunged back into the watery chaos from which it came. If God is to preserve the chief purpose of his world, which is that man should be fruitful and multiply under his blessing, and fill a preserved earth that has been cleansed by this purging, and yet man is to be wiped out as a judgment on it. He said, well, how can those two things be?
[20:54] Well, the answer is that God warned Noah concerning these events yet unseen. A warning about God's judgment to come, through which that ultimate purpose for creation will be preserved.
[21:11] The only way it could, through purging, through a divine punishment on man's sin. To use Paul's plain way of speaking, God preached the gospel in advance to Noah, just as he did to Abraham. God revealed the deep personal reality of his gracious covenant of salvation to Noah, even as he revealed the awful pervasive reality of his curse upon the sin of the world.
[21:42] Chapter 6, verse 17 and 18. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh. Everything will die, but I will establish my covenant with you.
[21:54] That's one of the great buts of the Bible, isn't it? But God. And Noah not only heard that gracious warning of God, he obeyed. In reverent fear, he constructed an ark, says the apostle, for the saving of his household. In other words, as Hebrews 11 is saying there, Noah had faith.
[22:19] And that's the second thing, you see. Noah embraced God's way through judgment. The point the Hebrews writer is wanting to make about this story and wanting us to see is that God's provision for his world is revealed in the flood, and it is deliverance through the destruction. God delivers his precious people through the destruction of this world, not out of it, but through it. And that means they must trust God's provision and embrace the only way that there is through that destruction, which is God's ark, his ark of salvation. And that's what Noah did.
[23:07] Noah didn't just assume, did he? Oh, it'll be all right in the end. He didn't say, oh, well, you know, all that talk about God judging sin. Well, that was fine when I was a youngster, but of course, I'm more mature now. I've grown up. I've moved on in my faith journey. Can't believe that sort of thing anymore about a God who judges. No, Noah didn't say that. In reverent fear, Noah built an ark of salvation.
[23:35] He heard God's warning, and he embraced God's way. He acted in obedience to God's command for salvation.
[23:46] And that is how Hebrews 11 defines what the Bible means by faith. Faith is emphatically not some kind of irrational belief in something for which there is no proof.
[23:58] That's not faith. That's fantasy. But hearing and heeding the revelation of God, well, that is faith. Noah received from God and a clear revelation about God's purpose for the world and about his provision for deliverance through a terrible destruction of judgment that was coming.
[24:21] And Noah acted on that word with the obedience of faith. See, the writer of the Hebrews knows how to read the Old Testament carefully and properly.
[24:34] He's just pointing us, isn't it, to the refrain that we see in this section several times. Look at the end of the paragraph there, beginning B, at chapter 6, verse 22.
[24:45] Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him. Again, in chapter 7, verse 5, Noah did all that God commanded him. Chapter 7, verse 16, all of them went into the ark as God commanded him.
[25:01] And because of that, God, the Lord, shut him in. And to be shut in by the covenant God in his ark of salvation is to be in the only place of safety and salvation when the flood of great judgment comes.
[25:23] Noah received God's covenant promise, a personal word of salvation, amid a perishing world that was heading for judgment. And he embraced it with all his heart and his soul and mind and strength.
[25:37] And so, although God didn't remove him from the earth, he kept him safe through the cataclysm of the judgment that was to come. He embraced God's way through judgment.
[25:53] He didn't scorn it. He didn't mock it. He didn't demand that God make another way of deliverance that suited him better. Better than decades of ridicule as he prepared for the future in a society that just dismissed his actions as pure religious fanaticism.
[26:13] He just went on doing what God said as the world went on, eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage right up until the day when Noah entered the ark, as Jesus said.
[26:23] And by his grace, God granted Noah not just an ark of salvation, but an attitude of submission to his words. So gladly and obediently, in reverent fear, he embraced God's provision for the only way through the judgment to come.
[26:43] Friends, that is what the Bible means by faith. And in case you're wondering, yes, it is still exactly the same today. God's purpose hasn't changed to preserve this world through the purging of judgment upon sin.
[27:01] He warns us of an ultimate judgment to come, and he urges us to embrace the one way that there is through that judgment. Well, let's not jump ahead.
[27:14] Keep our eye on Noah because there's more to learn from this still. Hebrews 11 tells us that because Noah obeyed, because he embraced the way of salvation in response to that warning, he condemned the old world.
[27:34] He became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. And that's the third thing. Noah inherited God's world beyond the judgment.
[27:46] A new world of blessing, of promise, of future. A new home, the home of righteousness, you could say. And the point there, you see, is that God's pattern for the world is revealed through Noah.
[27:59] And to us in the flood. And it's recreation through redemption. God recreates his world for righteousness only through redemption.
[28:12] Rescue through judgment. Not apart from that. No other way. See, the story's not just about survival and deliverance out of God's judgment, out of the purging of destruction.
[28:24] It's about a great deliverance into a glorious new creation. As Derek Kidner puts it, Noah goes into the ark, not as a mere survivor, but as the bearer of God's promise for the new age.
[28:41] And he emerges from the ark, he says, as almost a second Adam into a virgin world, washed clean by judgment. And the spectacular deliverance in the ark is seen as a mere preliminary to salvation proper, which is a new creation.
[29:01] That's exactly the language, isn't it, at the beginning of Genesis 9. And that's why, of course, both Jesus and the apostles pick up on the story of the flood and talk about it in terms of new creation.
[29:12] And use that language to describe the ultimate recreation of the whole universe that has at last been accomplished in Jesus Christ. The redemption that utters in a whole new and eternal creation.
[29:30] Of course, you see, because we're dealing with the unchanging God and God's pattern for the world is revealed over and over again through the scriptures. In this account of Noah, you see, he becomes the inheritor, doesn't he, of God's world beyond judgment.
[29:46] And we see a characteristic pattern of God so clearly. Recreation, new creation through redemption. And through God's redeeming covenant grace mediated to the world through his obedient servant, in this case, Noah.
[30:06] Don't you think God is very daring? In those days, the whole future of the world hung on the obedience of that one man. But one man's obedience saved not just his own family of faith, but a whole future for the world.
[30:25] That sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it? And do you notice the parallel between Noah's obedient building of the ark there in chapter 6, verse 14, in which his family is saved?
[30:36] And then down at the bottom, chapter 8, verse 20, Noah builds an altar. And through the sweet savour of the offering, rising up to God, we're told the Lord promises to preserve not only Noah, but the whole of the earth and the heaven, even though the heart of man is still evil right from his birth.
[30:57] Never again will I curse the ground because of man. And God's personal covenant promise to his obedient redeemer, Noah, bears fruit through his obedience and through his sacrifice in this pervasive and permanent covenant blessing for the whole world.
[31:19] It ushers in, it guarantees the future of a whole new creation. Do you want to get a sense of the pattern about this God and where his purposes, where his provision for this world is heading in its ultimate terms?
[31:40] Do you think that God is dropping pretty big hints all along for his people in the story and in their history so that they'll get the hang of the way that he works, the patterns he uses, so they'll recognize his signature.
[31:55] They'll recognize his handiwork in the future as events unfold. Because you see, if you see that, you will see a lot of what Jesus meant when he said that Moses wrote about him and about his work.
[32:09] And when he said that if you understand what Moses was writing about God and his purpose for the world and his provision delivering through God's coming judgment and God's pattern for redemption and God's rescue into his coming new creation, well, then you'll understand immediately, won't you, what Jesus is all about and who he was and what he came to do and why.
[32:33] And above all, you'll understand how to respond to him as he came to fulfill everything that the law and the prophets were pointing to and hoping for with longing.
[32:46] See, when we begin to see the pattern of God's working in the world, in this story as well, the pattern of the God who saves through judgment, we can see why this is preserved in the Bible for us, can't we?
[33:06] Because even when Moses first wrote these things for his people Israel, do you remember they were on the way to the promised land and he wasn't just writing about past history, although it was their past history, he was writing for them in the present, he was writing them a present gospel word, a word of challenge, a word of comfort in the unchanging God, the God who must judge sin and evil but who judges in order to save his world and to save his people through judgment.
[33:37] Moses was applying God's revelation, his gospel, to his people. Yes, these are events of past history but they've got God's own explanation of their significance and he's doing it in order to call his people then in Moses' day to the same obedience of faith that saved Noah, that delivered Noah into the way of blessing, to deliver them into the future with a covenant God.
[34:05] When you think for a minute about their past experience, Moses' people, it's so plain, isn't it? They too were a people who were delivered out of a world of violence and corruption in Egypt.
[34:16] They were delivered through waters of judgment, weren't they, in the Red Sea that wiped out all of their enemies. How would that come about? I'll go back and read Exodus chapter 6 later on.
[34:29] God spoke through him to the people in the Exodus and said, I am the Lord, I've remembered my covenant, I will deliver you from slavery, I will redeem you and I will bring you into a land, a land of promise, a place of blessing and fruitfulness to a glorious future with me.
[34:49] And then afterwards, remember after they were delivered, God made a great new covenant with all Israel, mediated through God's obedient servant, Moses. And incidentally, Moses himself was saved from death, from a watery judgment in the Nile.
[35:05] Read Exodus chapter 2 and you'll find that Moses was placed not in a basket but in an ark, the only other place in the Bible where this is used, an ark dobed with bitumen and pitch just like how Noah's ark is described.
[35:19] See, Moses' message is just the same. He's saying this God is the same God. He's the covenant keeping God. He remembered Noah and he'll remember you also. He'll go before you into this new world, into the land of blessing and promise, guaranteed to you by his covenant promise.
[35:38] Take his covenant promise seriously. Rejoice in it. But remember that his covenant must be embraced, that his saving way must be heeded because he is the God who preserves righteousness only through judgment on sin.
[35:59] Noah obeyed, you see. Noah cast everything on the way on the way of God's covenant blessing. And so must you. That was Moses' message all through his life, wasn't it?
[36:12] I've set before you life and death. I've set before you the way of Noah or the way of a corrupted world. Choose life. Choose life that you and your offspring may live.
[36:25] Noah did all that the Lord commanded him and God shut him in in the place of judgment. That's the only assurance, isn't it?
[36:36] The only hope facing God's judgment. Noah's saying, Moses is saying to his people, don't you be outside, don't you be on the wrong side of that door when God shuts it.
[36:50] That was Jesus' gospel too, wasn't it? Just the same. Read his parable in Matthew chapter 25 about the wise and the foolish virgins. The bridegroom went in and shut the door.
[37:03] That's always been the Christian gospel. It's the New Testament gospel because there's only one gospel, the eternal gospel that Revelation chapter 14 says is proclaimed to every nation and tribe and language and people on this earth.
[37:18] What is it? Fear God. Listen to him. Give him glory. Why? Because the hour of his judgment has come. But he is the God who saves through that judgment.
[37:32] He's a God who proclaims a gospel, an eternal covenant word of promise, a personal word that warns about that coming judgment and calls people to embrace the way through judgment and find that glorious inheritance of a world beyond judgment, a new creation, the home of righteousness.
[37:53] So the question you see for every single person is just the same. Have you embraced that warning and found that absolute assurance of God's one place of salvation?
[38:06] For Noah, well, that meant reverent fear in building and in entering the ark of salvation. for Moses' people, well, it meant submission, didn't it, to God's covenant at Sinai and obediently following Moses and then Joshua into the land of promise.
[38:27] And many sadly rebelled, didn't they? And their bones rotted in the wilderness. They found themselves on the wrong side of that door. What does it mean for you and me?
[38:39] Well, the New Testament tells us, doesn't it, that at last one far greater than Noah, far greater even than Moses, he came, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he himself became the ark of salvation forever.
[38:56] And the whole of the world's future, its eternal future, hung upon his obedience to God's word. But he obeyed. Paul says in Romans 5, by the obedience of one, many were made righteous.
[39:13] Because at the same time as he sheltered his chosen ones from the terrible judgment of God, he himself bore in his body that terrible judgment on the cross forever.
[39:28] And as Paul says in Ephesians 5, he offered up a fragrant offering also and a sacrifice to God. And Hebrews 10 tells us that just like Noah's offering on his altar, but in a far greater way, a far more wonderful way, by a single offering, he, Jesus, has perfected for all time those who are being made holy.
[39:53] For those who, like Noah, will inherit that world beyond judgment. See, friends, God is still saying the same thing today. He's saying judgment is coming.
[40:05] But come into the ark. Come into the presence of the Savior himself. He it was whose saving presence was in that first ark because his presence and his person is salvation.
[40:22] The only salvation through judgment that has ever been in Moses' day and Noah's day in our day, every day, always. See, this chapter is still saying to us the same thing as the gospel of Jesus.
[40:35] Don't be deaf to the eternal, unchanging gospel of God. Fear God and give him glory for his hour of judgment is coming. God and give God by faith Noah being warned concerning events yet unseen in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.
[40:59] And by this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. I hope that all of us here this morning are sure that we've received God's warning of judgment and that we've therefore embraced his way through that judgment.
[41:23] So that we will surely inherit the world that is promised beyond judgment of beauty, of fruitfulness, of wonder, the home of righteousness.
[41:35] If you're not sure about that, you better make sure you are sure today before this day ends. don't you think? That's the message of this passage for us today.
[41:50] Let's pray. The waters of judgment prevailed on the earth, but God remembered Noah.
[42:06] Lord, we ask that you would remember us also. as we call out to you in faith as Noah did, give us hearing ears and obedient hearts to bow the knee to our Lord Jesus Christ, that we should ever, every day of our lives, be found shut in with him in the place of salvation, taking refuge in his body and blood, given for us that we might know the glory of your salvation.
[42:41] And so, Lord, as we come to his table now to remember in the bread and in the wine that great sacrifice for our sins and that great redemption, grant us, we pray, faith in our hearts, that in eating and drinking, we might confess our faith and our obedience to your covenant grace and know the joy of your salvation.
[43:12] For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.