01-31 Noah Preaches Righteousness
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Genesis 6:9-12
Genesis 6:9-12
1888 Spurgeon (Sword and the Trowel preface iii) called the church to be vigilant in prayer for revival and enlightenment of Christ’s church and interest in spiritual things among the world. Then he adds:
Everywhere there is apathy. Nobody cares whether that which is preached is true or false. A sermon is a sermon whatever the subject; only, the shorter the better.
That would be a fit description of the world today.
Nov 2014, Florida Pastor, Zach Zehnder, broke the Guinness World Record for the longest sermon preached. It was 53 hours 18 minutes (be thankful I don’t have that aspiration). Though not official in 1976 Rev. Robert Marshall preached a sermon for 60 hours and 31 minutes.
A long sermon doesn’t necessarily equate to a good one. Sometimes the audience will suffer:
7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. 8 There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered together. 9 And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting on the window sill, sinking into a deep sleep; and as Paul kept on talking, he was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third floor and was picked up dead. 10 But Paul went down and fell upon him, and after embracing him, he said, “Do not be troubled, for his life is in him.” 11 When he had gone back up and had broken the bread and eaten, he talked with them a long while until daybreak, and then left. 12 They took away the boy alive, and were greatly comforted.
Now, extraordinary things were happening there. It should reaffirm that God intends His truth, His divine Word to be communicated thru the primary means of preaching.
1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
It is the preaching of God’s Word that prevents the church from drifting toward apostasy and for the regeneration of souls—accomplished thru preaching. And God has had His preachers in every age—those called and gifted to proclaim the truth. That was true even before the Bible (or even parts of it) existed.
Noah is a prime example of this.
5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
Scripture develops the necessary character of the man who effectively and boldly proclaims the message of the Lord. In the Bible, those who delivered God’s Word were often known by the designation “man of God.” It was used of men like Moses, Samuel, David, Elijah and Elisha. John MacArthur (Expository Preaching) explains the marks of a “man of God” (1Tim 6:11-14)
Marked by what he flees from (love of money, various temptations other harmful desires)
Marked by what he follows after (righteousness, godliness—faith, love, perseverance, gentleness)
Marked by what he fights for (good fight of faith)
Marked by what he is faithful to (the commandment—Word of God)
Though this designation “man of God” is not directly applied to Noah, he certainly demonstrates the necessary character to proclaim God in the midst of his own generation. Our vv in Gen highlights 3 details about Noah that encourage us to hold fast to God’s Word and boldly proclaim the grace of God in our own time.
In the flow of Genesis: we come to the 3rd major division of the book (toledots)—the generations of Noah (6:9-9:27). Remember: toledot is not so much an “origin” but more like the development of whatever subject it introduces.
1) Noah’s Faith
1) Noah’s Faith
We can understand (at least partly) the condition of the world at the time of Noah. The outward wickedness was “great” (numerous, excessive). That is because of the inner condition of the hearts of mankind— “every…only...” The hearts of men were evil to the core. Now, add to this the demonism that is happening in the perverted marriages and offspring of “sons of God” and you have a perverted, corrupt race that is inventing ways to rebel against God. It was exceedingly dark and as bad as things seem to be today, we’ve never seen the likes of the evil of that time. And we can even begin to see why God would eliminate the vastness of His creation with the waters of the flood.
But this whole section (toledot) is a message not really about the flood. Even if it is one of the most gripping accounts in the Word of God. It is also not a message about judgment, though that is what happens during the flood. So the message is not as much about why God judges the world but in the midst of this, why does God save any out of the lost world.
This is the message about salvation and it is equally applicable today since we see the soul saved from destruction and the beginnings of a theology of salvation emerging.
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
This favor/grace is undeserved (as its very definition underscores). The description before this also highlights God’s holiness and hatred for sin as He reveals His rage and bitter anguish that in only 10 generations, humanity has abandoned the Creator and prefers wickedness. “But” Noah finds favor which expresses the magnitude of God’s grace in a perverted age. That message could equally be expressed today. God is gracious to those who deserve nothing. What a vivid testimony of His goodness.
Moses gives 3 descriptions about Noah which flow out of vs 8 “finding grace.”
Righteous
Righteous
Noah was a righteous man. This is the 1st time the word “righteous” appears in the Bible. The term means innocence, in the right or just. It is a very important word and when used of sinners it does not refer to perfection but to one’s standing before God. Noah’s righteousness is not something he earned but reckoned (credited) on the basis of faith.
Related to Abraham:
6 Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
7 By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
Noah believed God and his righteousness credited to him by faith (believing) alone. This is the doctrine Paul spent much of his NT letters developing: the doctrine of imputed righteousness (justification). This doctrine actually begins before the flood and it sets the standard that righteousness comes by faith.
Noah preached that message as Peter notes, and as he was in the process of constructing the ark thru which he and his sons would be saved, he condemned the world (Heb 11:7). “Condemn” means to pronounce a sentence on one who is guilty/wrong. God made that judgment in Gen 6 so Noah went about preaching righteousness (including God’s and that which is imputed on the basis of faith) for the next 120 years. It was during this period that God was extending grace thru patience giving opportunity for men to repent.
18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; 19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.
God’s judgment is always tempered by mercy. He is not giddy, anxious to smite the ungodly.
32 “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord God. “Therefore, repent and live.”
11 “Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’
120 years Noah preached righteousness and warning that destruction was coming. As he built the ark it stood as an illustration of not only how God would save animals but that God was patient toward humanity’s wickedness and He was giving time to repent.
Heb says Noah became “an heir of righteousness which is accord. to faith.” Only faith will bring that righteousness b/c it comes only when one is united to Christ.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”
The “righteousness of God” is an objective righteousness (outside of ourselves). It has been called an “alien” righteousness—it is the gift of God.
Later in Rom:
21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;
9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
If you are to spend eternity w/ God, praising God, at peace with God, you must become the righteousness of God.
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Blameless
Blameless
Paul expounded on the faith that makes one righteous. He also explained how the faith that receives the righteousness of God will be evident in the way a person lives (just live by faith—Hab 2:4).
Noah lived by his faith. This is describing his moral conduct. Now, Noah was not sinless (9:21) but God does want us to know that he was blameless before his contemporaries. There was an integrity that matched Noah’s deeds to his faith and to show that he did not act like the wicked. In fact, this is the contrast b/t the godly and wicked.
Now, those who preach righteousness need similarly to live blameless lives.
2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
This is the 1 character trait that is shared in the list of qualifications for elders/shepherds. That term means “not able to lay hold of” as if there were something he has done for which a just accusation could be leveled against him. It doesn’t mean that he has no sin but that there is not glaring defect that would contradict the message and ministry that he is called to.
Richard Baxter (puritan) says it best:
Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine, and lest you lay such stumbling-blocks before the blind, as may be the occasion of their ruin; lest you unsay with your lives, what you say with your tongues; and be the greatest hinderers of the success of your own labors...One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all that you have been doing.
Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God, and, when you have done, dishonor him as much as others? Will you proclaim Christ’s governing power, and yet contemn it, and rebel yourselves? Will you preach his laws, and wilfully break them? If sin be evil, why do you live in it if it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it? if it be not, why do you tell men so? If God’s threatenings be true, why do you not fear them? if they be false, why do you needlessly trouble men, with them, and put them into such frights without a cause Do you ‘know the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death," and yet will you do them? ‘Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery,’ or be drunk, or covetous, art thou such thyself ‘Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonorest thou God ‘ What! shall the same tongue speak evil that speakest against evil? Shall those lips censure, and slander, and backbite your neighbor, that cry down these and the like things in others? Take heed to yourselves, lest you cry down sin, and yet do not overcome it; lest, while you seek to bring it down in others, you bow to it, and become its slaves yourselves: ‘For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage.’ ‘To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.’ O brethren! it is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it.
It’s not just those in spiritual leadership who must be blameless—this is the work of LJC in the life of every saint:
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
This is to be your life as well. Kenneth Mathews observes:
Genesis 1–11:26 1. Righteous Noah (6:9–10)
Noah is a reproach to the believer who surrenders to the allurement of a sinful generation. He maintains his fidelity and purity when all others have followed the pack.
Walked With God
Walked With God
This is the same language used of Noah’s great-grandfather Enoch. They both encountered the intimacy and obedience that Adam would have enjoyed in the pre-fall paradise.
I think it is critical that the statement in vs 8 (finding favor) precedes vs 9. God did not extend favor upon Noah b/c he was righteous, blameless and walked with God. It is always God’s grace that comes before anything. It is always that God sets His affection on the ones who are intrinsically unloveable (enemies, hostile, sinners—Rom 5).
Why did God love Israel?
7 “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
He set His affection on them because He loved them. God loved them b/c He loved them. That doesn’t make sense in our minds—but this is how grace works. Grace is not and cannot be based on anything in us or else it isn’t grace. But that God is gracious toward underserving sinners manifests the glory of His grace and Eph tells us that is precisely what belongs eternally to God for His gracious dealings with us—all that God has done in us, thru us and for us (to the praise of the glory of His grace).
God was gracious to Noah and Noah’s life demonstrates this in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.
2) Noah’s Family
2) Noah’s Family
Vs 10
Moses continues to develop the toledot of Noah which is the lineage of blessing. It is thru Noah and his heirs that God would extend mercy upon the human family. This is the 2nd reference to Noah’s 3 sons (always listed in the same order—oldest to youngest? but Gen 9:24???). Shem, Ham and Japheth were born beginning the 500th year of Noah (5:32).
6 Now Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of water came upon the earth. 7 Then Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him entered the ark because of the water of the flood.
While the names of Noah and his sons’ wives are unnamed, they are obviously key to the survival of the human race following the flood. Noah’s family (from what is revealed to us—no formula “other sons and daughters”) is small in comparison to what other families looked like. And from what we can glean from 6:9 Noah is the only one “blameless” among his generation (in his time—not the word toledot but “generation” or “period”). Noah influenced his family by living and preaching righteousness in a generation where no one else pursued that righteousness (even as Ezekiel 14:14-20 argues that Noah, Daniel and Job would only deliver themselves by their own righteousness and would not be able to save their children).
3) Noah’s Flouters
3) Noah’s Flouters
FYI: a flouter is one who mocks, jeers, treats with contempt or who calls out in derision.
vv 11-12 reveal the nature of antagonism that Noah faced in the world. Observe the word “corrupt” (appears 3 times in these 2 verses). It is a strong contrast to Noah and his family. The whole world (all flesh—not animal b/c “way” refers to moral action and character) had corrupted its way— “to come to ruin, to be spoiled, utterly destroyed”. What was destroyed? Certainly the “very goodness” of God’s creation, the purity of the marital union b/t 1 man and 1 woman, humanity had no interest in pursuing righteousness, blamelessness or walking with God. This is the rejection of the world of its Creator.
Moses also describes the condition of the earth (6x vv 11-13) as filled with violence. Heb term is hamas. It is often a term describing extreme wickedness nearly always used of sinful violence.
Curious that the terrorist group “Hamas” (semitic root refers to being hard, strict, severe) is so named but serves as an example of the continued violence directed toward the people of God.
This is the character of Noah’s day and there doesn’t appear to be anyone besides Noah that was bothered by the culture.
26 “And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
They were just going about their lives, unaffected by the extreme wickedness that enveloped the world. But even then—God was calling people to repentance thru Noah. He was a preacher of righteousness, explaining that the only way to be accepted by God was thru the righteousness that He alone provides on the basis of faith.
That message has never changed. It continues to be proclaimed by those entrusted to preach the good news—indeed it is good news in LJC
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Be sure your righteousness is that which is imputed by God—put on your account b/c you’ve put your trust in Christ.