Grace to the Rescue
As In The Days of Noah • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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In the middle of the gathering clouds of cataclysmic judgment, this verse cuts through:
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
How does that ever happen?
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
The word itself... grace... has become trite and debased through misuse and overuse. It does not move us the way it moved our early Christian ancestors. In some European countries, certain high ecclesiastical officials are still called, Your Grace. Sportswriters spoke of Michael Jordan's easy grace while business mogul Donald Trump has been described as lacking in grace. A new perfume appears with Grace on the label and a child's report card is called a disgrace. The word has lost its raw imaginative power.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky caught the shock and scandal of the Gospel of Grace when he wrote:
At the last judgement, Christ will say to us, Come, you also! Come, you Drunkards! Come, weaklings! Come, children of shame! And he will say to us: vile beings, you who are in the image of the beast and bear his mark, but come all the same, you as well. Then the wise and prudent will say, Lord why do you welcome them? And he will say: If I welcome them, you wise men, if I welcome them, you prudent men, it is because not one of them has ever been judged worthy. And he will stretch out his arms, and we will fall at his feet, and we will cry out sobbing, and then we will understand all, we will understand the gospel of grace! Lord, your kingdom come. (Crime and Punishment. New York: Random House, 1950, page 322)
What a stunning truth! Justification by grace through faith. It's almost too good for us to accept. Through no merit of ours, but by his mercy, we have been restored to a right relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of his beloved son. This is the Good News, the gospel grace.
Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel. Multinomial Books: Colorado Springs 2005. Page 18-19
Noah was not spared because he was worthy. He was spared because Noah found Grace - unmerited favor with God. Salvation was then as it is now, by Grace, accessed by faith. As we think of the similarities between the impending judgment during Moses’ day and the impending judgment with the return of Christ, we will see that it always has been and will always be Grace to the Rescue when we take God at his word, when our faith is counted for righteousness.
Faith That Accessed Grace
Faith That Accessed Grace
Grace Imputed Righteousness
Grace Imputed Righteousness
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
Noah’s righteousness didn’t come from his good works; his good works came because of his righteousness. Like Abraham, his righteousness was God’s gift in response to his personal faith. Both Abraham and Noah believed God’s Word “and it was counted to [them] for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; see Heb. 11:7; Rom. 4:9ff; Gal. 3:1ff).
The only righteousness God will accept is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, His Son (2 Cor. 5:21); and the only way people can receive that righteousness is by admitting their sins and trusting Jesus Christ to save them (Rom. 3:19–30; Gal. 2:16). Noah must have learned this important truth from his father Lamech (Gen. 5:28–29), who learned it from his father Methuselah, who learned it from his father Enoch. How important it is to teach our children and grandchildren how to trust the Lord!1
1 Wiersbe, W. W. (1998). Be basic (p. 93). Chariot Victor Pub.
Grace That Developed A Relationship With God
Grace That Developed A Relationship With God
Genesis 6:9 (KJV)
These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
Noah was a man who walked with God (Gen. 6:9). His great-grandfather Enoch had “walked with God” and was suddenly taken to heaven and rescued from the impending judgment of the Flood (5:24). Noah walked with God and was taken safely through the judgment. Enoch modeled a godly way of life for Methuselah. Methuselah must have passed it along to his son Lamech who shared it with his son Noah. How wonderful it is when generation after generation in one family is faithful to the Lord, especially at a time in history when violence and corruption are the normal way of life.
The life of faith and obedience is compared to a “walk” because this life begins with one step: trusting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This step of faith leads to a daily walk, a step at time, as the Lord directs us. He commands us to “walk in love” (Eph. 5:2), “walk as children of light” (v. 8), “walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16, 25), and “walk circumspectly [carefully]” (Eph. 5:15). A step at a time, a day at a time, we walk with the Lord; and He guides us into His will and blesses us with His wisdom and strength.1
1 Wiersbe, W. W. (1998). Be basic (p. 94). Chariot Victor Pub.
Faith That Would Follow God’s Escape Route
Faith That Would Follow God’s Escape Route
To see things as God sees them.
The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
To understand that Judgment is coming.
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Romans 6:23 (KJV)
For the wages of sin is death...
To follow the instructions to escape that Judgment.
Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
Earliest boats were made of skin, reeds, or dugout logs. These were small rivercraft. A boat of the size of the ark would have to be made of planks throughout (rather than using a dugout foundation as the earliest planked boats did). Planks in the earliest ships were not joined by nails (much later technology). Rather, they often used wooden pegs to join planks, which were then sewn together with cords of some sort.208 The plank skin was built first, then the frame was built inside, and finally the decks were added.
The earliest evidence of even basic plank ships with decks is from Egypt in the middle of the third millennium. In Mesopotamia, larger planked ships appear in the latter half of the third millennium, but the largest known would have only had a capacity of 11 tons. The dimensions of the ark (figuring eighteen inches to a cubit) measured 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet. It would have had a displacement of approximately 43,000 tons and a capacity of about 15,000 tons. The largest ships known from the last half of the first millennium b.c. from Alexandria carried no more than 4,000 tons and were considered of remarkable size—wonders of the classical world and testimony to their technological advancement.1
1 Walton, J. H. (2009). Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (Old Testament): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (Vol. 1, p. 46). Zondervan.
300 Cubits = 140-170 yards
50 Cubits = 24-28 yards
The ark had a ratio (length × width × height) of 30 × 5 × 3. According to modern shipbuilders, this ratio represents an advanced knowledge of shipbuilding since it is the optimum design for stability in rough seas. The ark, as designed by God, was virtually impossible to capsize—to do so, it would have to be tilted over 90 degrees.11 Freeman, J. M., & Chadwick, H. J. (1998). Manners & customs of the Bible (p. 9). Bridge-Logos Publishers.
With the shorter cubit the ark would have an internal volume of 1,518,750 cubic feet, or the equivalent of 569 standard railroad boxcars. If the average sized animal was the size of a sheep it means the ark could hold over 125,000 sheep. (Assuming the shape of the ark to be rectangular there would have been over 100,000 sq. ft of floor space!)
It took Noah 100 years to build the ark—he was about 500 years old when he started (Genesis 5:32), and 600 years old when he finished (Genesis 7:6). (Some say he was 480 years old when he started the ark, which would mean it took 120 years to finish it.)1
1 Freeman, J. M., & Chadwick, H. J. (1998). Manners & customs of the Bible (p. 10). Bridge-Logos Publishers.
To escape wrath and gain salvation
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
John 3:16 (KJV)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:
Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
To Escape The Day of Christ’s Wrath
Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
Remember Lot’s wife.
Faith That Would Sound The Warning
Faith That Would Sound The Warning
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.
When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.
But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
Saving Noah and his family Gen 6.17-18
And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
Saving the animal kingdom. Gen 6.19-22
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
Condemning the unbelievers. Heb 11.7
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
Conclusion:
And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
Most of the world was oblivious to the gathering clouds of judgement. Yet there was a man who accessed grace through faith, received the warning, acting on the warning, and proclaimed that warning. Today the signs of Jesus’ coming are plain to anyone who has the faith to believe what God has told us. It is very possible that the preparations for the prophesied war of Gog and Magog are playing out on the news. Israel is being hated and slandered world wide. The preparations for the events of Daniel’s 70th week seem to be lining up. What should we do?
Trust Jesus as Savior and have a relationship with God.
Heed the Warning… Jesus is coming back… there will be a day of reckoning.
Sound the warning! Take every chance to give the gospel and be like Noah, a preacher of righteousness that is imputed by grace through faith.
This is the hope of the ages. In spite of the gathering clouds of judgement, it is Grace to the Rescue.
Welcome to Evangelical Baptist Church
Welcome to Evangelical Baptist Church