Noah's Big Obedience

There we go. Well, we were trying that this week to see if we could see the musicians a little bit better as we changed the furniture, realizing there's certain spots you can sit and really can't see some of the things that are going on. But it is, man, such a joy, honestly, every week to open the scriptures with you.

And it is not contrived. I feel like every week my anticipation is just full on what we're going to discover. Somebody asked me this morning how it was going and I just was saying, man, I feel like there is so much every week and every one of these passages that is so necessary for edification.

And this morning is no different. Somebody should take your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis chapter 6. And we're going to continue to make our way through this narrative. Last week, we looked at really what we termed as the lead-in to the flood judgment.

We saw the favor and the fury of Yahweh, that the Lord punishes sin and yet He also is gracious to Noah. And He is moved to action as He looks at sin and He is grieved by it. And yet He also shows favor, particularly to this one family in the midst of the flood judgment.

And so, this is most assuredly God's plan. It is His provision. He orchestrates it.

He communicates it. And we're going to see today that He is behind Noah's deliverance. And yet, as our Lord often is, He's committed to means in the process.

And so, He actually requires certain things of Noah and His involvement in the text before us this morning. Entitled this morning's message, Noah's Big Obedience. Noah's Big Obedience.

And I want to read our text before us this morning, and then we'll make our way through it. We'll begin reading in verse 9 this morning. I'm reading out of the LSB.

These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among those in his generation. Noah walked with God.

Noah became the father of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.

Then God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. And behold, I'm about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood.

You shall make the ark with rooms, and you shall cover it inside and out with pitch. Now this is how you shall make it. The length of the ark, 300 cubits.

Its breadth, 50 cubits, and its height, 30 cubits. You should make a window for the ark and complete it to one cubit from the top and set the door of the ark inside of it. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.

As for me, behold, I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life. From under heaven, everything that is on the earth shall breathe its last. But I will establish my covenant with you.

You shall enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.

Of the birds after their kind and of the animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing on the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible and gather it to yourself, and it shall be for food for you and for them. Thus Noah did according to all that God had commanded him, so he did." If you're keeping an outline this morning, we're going to be unpacking Noah's big obedience.

There's a lot that's happening in this chapter. We're going to see a number of pieces as we work through it, and yet I believe that one of the primary lessons in the midst of God's grace and deliverance is focusing on the man Noah himself. Our first point this morning is going to be Noah's character.

Noah's character, and this is really what predicates his obedience. The text says in verse 9, these are the generations of Noah. Okay, so that kind of brings us back to Genesis, these genealogies that we've been seeing.

Back in Genesis chapter 5 verse 1, we had Adam's genealogy, and that kind of extended through, so Moses here is picking up with Noah's genealogy, his family line. It's going to be very important soon, but then he takes and gives an editorial note and begins to describe Noah. He says that Noah was in fact a righteous man, blameless among those in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

I want you to think about this for a minute. If you were to be asked to kind of rank the greatest people in the history of the world and the godliest people in the history of the world, where would you put Noah? I don't know exactly. I mean, it's a bit subjective of a question.

Surely top 100. Would he make the top 40? I don't know, maybe top 10. What we're going to find this morning is that he is an exceptional and outstanding and exemplary individual, and he's given a place of prominence in the Scripture.

If you think of Adam, Adam was the natural father of all the living. Noah now again is going to be the natural father of all the living. Everything is going to start over with this man.

And so we read it, the description of him, that he was a righteous man and he was blameless among those in his generations. Noah was a good man. He was a godly guy.

We read those words righteous and blameless, and automatically our minds go to how righteousness is typically used in the Scriptures. And we think of Jesus was the righteous one, or maybe he was the spotless lamb. He was blameless.

That's not exactly what's being talked about here. I mean, it is true that there is none who are righteous and that Noah's righteousness is based on God showing him favor. We already saw that in verse 8, that God looks upon Noah with favor, and on the basis of his faith, He justifies him.

We know that that righteousness is a foreign righteousness that Noah has. We know that he's ultimately saved by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. The Scripture here uses the word righteous, not in the ultimate sense of being perfectly righteous or perfectly blameless, but categorically so, categorically so.

Noah genuinely was a righteous man. What it means is that his life was ordered by that which is right. So, if you engaged with Noah, you'd find he's an honest man.

He plays by the rules, and he fears God, and he has integrity because he is a righteous man. When you read that he was blameless, it has this idea that there was a wholeness to his life where what he professed to believe with his lips was demonstrated in his conduct. Those matched up.

You could say that the hypocrisy gap in Noah's life was not significant. And that doesn't mean, of course, that Noah did not sin, but rather he dealt with sin in his life. So, if you want to think what it means to be blameless, you're not someone who lives with undealt with sin, unconfessed sin, sin that you're not fleeing from or battling, sin that you're unwilling to repent of.

And so, Noah when he would sin would do what? He would make amends. He would seek forgiveness. He would turn away from it.

He would battle it. And so, Noah could be said then to be a man who was righteous and a man who was blameless. Now, it's all the more impacting when you read about the very next descriptor, among those in his generations.

So, Noah was not a hermit. He didn't live on a holy hill all by himself. Rather, he was associated with the people around him, likely a contemporary of Lamech who we already saw.

He was a violent polygamist. So, Noah is living among a crooked and perverse generation, yet he is unblemished and unstained. He's a non-conformist, if you will.

About chapter 7 verse 1, we read, he always said to Noah, enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before me in this generation. So, Noah is in and among a perverse culture, and yet the testimony of Scripture is that he's a man who is righteous, a man who is blameless. And that strength for living righteously, that strength for living blamelessly, is the very same for Noah as it is for you and me.

It does not originate from us. It doesn't come from within. So, we read, unsurprisingly, that Noah walked with God.

Noah walked with God. So, how did Noah develop all of these rock-solid convictions to live righteously in a perverse culture? He spent time with God, very simply. He loved God.

He knew Him intimately. We could say his life was quorum Deo. He lived in the conscious presence, the conscious awareness of God day by day.

And so, before we even get to Noah's big obedience that is coming, we need to understand the soil of his heart, that before that big ask was the daily giving of himself as an offering to God. See, his big obedience doesn't come in the context of Noah suddenly seeing that there's a lot at stake, and so he kind of rallies and he pulls it together. No, rather, this is out of the moment that he's been training for for years before it happened.

It was a long pattern of obedience that precedes this big act of obedience that we see today. What would that have meant? Well, day by day, learning to trust God. Day by day, learning to walk with God.

Day by day, developing his convictions. Day by day, courage. Day by day, learning to be the odd man out.

Day by day, learning to take a stand when it was costly. Learning to not follow the crowd. Learning to restrain his fleshly desires.

Learning to walk by the Spirit. And so, Noah's daily conduct, the warping move of his life, was that he walked with God. He was winning the little battles.

Let me tell you this, you will not live righteously, and you will not live blamelessly if you are not battling in the little areas, the unseen areas. Noah cared about the integrity of his heart before his God. He walked with God.

You know, and sometimes we're just so foolish, are we not? We think, I'll definitely have what I need to withstand big moments of temptation while giving into little areas. It doesn't work like that. One of my kids will often tell me, in effect, dad, here's the issue.

You need to trust me with the big things, and then what you'll see is I'll rally. That's not how it works. The Scripture is very clear that faithfulness in the little is the starting point.

And so, Noah was a man, before we get to this big act of obedience, who was faithful in the little. He didn't excuse the little stuff. As John Owen would say, there's to be that rising up against the first inclination toward sin.

That was where he drew the battle lines. And so, Noah, as we'll see, is a man who was vigilant. He had a sense of urgency about his spiritual condition to be said, to be righteous and blameless.

And he had been allotted a portion of faith by God with which he was able to take on the world. I mean, it's just a marvel. It's a wonder to understand Noah's faith.

And I think a great implication, just as I was thinking about this, is would those people who are closest to you, if asked, say, oh yeah, I would totally describe him or her as righteous, blameless, and someone who walks with God. It's not the people who know you best would say. The people in your own home, the people that work with you, that's a righteous, blameless person who walks with God.

Noah's friends would have been able to attest to that. And Moses goes on and he writes in verse 10, Noah became the father, then, this great man of character, of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We'll tuck that away for later.

We're going to circle back to it in chapter 10. But there's this like little detour that Moses needs to deal with first, and there's some flooding, okay, that's going to take place. So, he kind of parks it in genealogy here.

He just introduces the sons. He's going to come back to that later. But verse 11 brings us to our next point in unpacking Noah's big obedience.

Not only do we see Noah's character, but we see Noah's context. We see Noah's context for his obedience. And I think this is very important in understanding both Noah's integrity as well as God's purpose in the flood, the cultural surroundings that Noah found himself, the wickedness that he found around himself.

Verse 11, we read, Now the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.

Here in verses 11 and 12, there's a reiteration and an expansion upon what we read in 6-7. And Yahweh said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals, to creeping things, to the birds of the sky, for I regret that I have made them. And if you notice, there's words that are repeated here in verses 11 through 13.

Corrupt, filled with violence, all flesh. Four times we read the earth. And the point here that's being made is that things are really, really bad right now.

Okay? It's universal. It's all flesh. It's unimaginably bad.

And what this begins to demonstrate for us is the human heart, apart from the restraining grace of God, this is where it ends up. Man turns inward, and it always results in destruction. Man destroys himself.

Man destroys others. He destroys creation. And the word here is corrupt.

It has been ruined. I say this a lot. Corruption always makes me think of the fridge.

Right? Once food has become spoiled and contaminated, it needs to go in the garbage. Right? I mean, that's why it's an exercise in God's grace to not freak out when there's not a date to put on something that's been opened. I need to know if the salsa is seven days old, or 10 days old, or 14 days old, because it's going to impact my decisions.

The picture here is that the earth is contaminated. It's polluted. It's corrupt.

It's spoiled. Sin has sullied it. And that is the result.

That is the effect of an earth that has been filled with violence. And you probably know this word for violence, hamas, should ring a bell. It's a day of physical violence, harsh treatment, injurious language, ruthlessness, and a hatred toward others.

The picture of the earth being filled, if you think back to the wonderful, hopeful command given in Genesis 128 was for man to be fruitful and to fill the earth. And so now we see man is reproducing. Man is filling the earth.

And what's he filling the earth with? Violence. Okay? That's what man fills the earth with. It is there's no place that you could go to get relief from the violence.

I mean, this is humanity apart from the restraining grace of God. Adam's race has polluted the earth. And the righteous remnant now is then down to one single family.

I mean, oh my word, just think about this for a second. Right now, Oregon, we have about 4.3 million people living in the state. Easily, the math works out, pencils out that there could have been 4.3 million people on the earth with no, we have no idea exactly how many, but it's not far-fetched to think it could be that many.

Could have been more, could have been less. But it took me for a moment in our example. Imagine that you live here in the state of Oregon and your family is the only family who loves and fears God.

I mean, instantly, I think that's terrifying, that's lonely, that's grievous. And so when you picture Noah, you need to have in your mind's eye that it is Noah versus the world. Noah cannot find fellowship outside of his family right now with those who love and fear the Lord.

And so God says to Noah in verse 13, now speaking directly to him, Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me for the earth is filled with violence because of them and behold, I'm about to destroy them with the earth. Can you imagine hearing that message from God that had to have been arresting? I mean, just God speaking to you audibly obviously would be arresting. But the message is it's the end of all the living.

It's the end of flesh. If you look carefully at the detail of the text, it says, I'm about to destroy them with the earth, the end of verse 13. And God is telling Noah, I'm going to undo creation in effect.

I don't know what Noah felt when he heard this. The text doesn't say, but I can imagine just a little bit. Surely grief would have filled his heart at some measure.

I mean, these are his kin. He has family members that are going to be destroyed. And so there would be one side of certainly compassion, I think would be a natural response of a godly person.

At the same time, probably a measure of relief to some degree, because as he's looking out on the wickedness of the earth, righteous people are grieved by unrighteousness, grieved by all the suffering that is caused. So God here does something that is so typical of him. He comes and he speaks not to all of humanity, but he comes and he speaks to one man.

He speaks to Noah. He gives special revelation to Noah. Noah's going to serve as then a prophet, a mouthpiece, a preacher who receives a divine message from God and then is responsible for it.

Who's able to convey it to others around him. And Moses doesn't elaborate. The Lord just simply states that the earth is filled with violence because of them, because of all flesh.

And I think it'd be helpful to just pause for a moment and just remind ourselves of the Bible's description of mankind apart from God's grace. What did all flesh look like at that time? So once you take this in, these are just from familiar passages. What would have all flesh have looked like on the earth as the earth was corrupted? Here it is.

That time people would have been lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, without gentleness, without love for good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. They would have given themselves over to sexual immorality, to impurity, to sensuality, even practicing every form of impurity with greediness, always wanting more, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition from which would flow disorder and every evil practice. They would have been affected by demonic influences and characterized by dissensions and factions, envying, carousing.

They would have been foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending life in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another, crooked, perverse, unrighteousness. And there would have been many adulterers and effeminate and homosexuals and thieves and greedy and drunkards and revilers and swindlers walking in the futility of their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. Hard-hearted, ungodly, untrustworthy, without understanding, suppressing the truth and unrighteousness filled with wickedness and evil, slanders who hate God, violent, and inventors of evil.

It would have been unprincipled, lawless, unmerciful, self-willed and daring, despising of authority, creatures of instinct, reveling in the daytime in their deceptions, having loved the wages of unrighteousness, being slaves of corruption. And not only would they do those things, but they give hearty approval to those who practice them. I ask you, what goes on in your heart and mind? Just hearing God's diagnostic of the human heart.

I don't know how you read that list and not be impacted emotionally, not be saddened and grieved, not hate sin in your own life. And if there was any of you that were thinking, well, you know what? I heard that list and I can't really relate to it. And the scripture indicts you too and says that you're without excuse.

Oh man, everyone who passes judgment, for that which you judge another, you condemn yourself because you who judge practice the very same things. Paul would ask, are we better? Not at all. We've charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin as it is written.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are in the law so that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God. I mean, the evil on the earth at that time is imaginable to us because it's not all that different from the evil on the earth today. I mean, it's atrocious.

It's not just atrocities that happened generations ago at wartime. It happens in our country today. It happens all around the world of the most violent and dark kinds of sins.

And so in the midst of that appetite for increasing iniquity, the refrain of scripture is to tell the church you were by nature the same. Such were some of you for we are two selves, ourselves once were. Your former manner of life.

So when you and I read that list, we're on the one hand to recognize this explains all that's wrong with the world. And this is man's natural condition apart from grace. And then the Bible tells me to often be reminded that that is me too.

But God, but God being great in mercy with the great love with which he loved us. Apart from that kind of mercy and grace, you and I are dead in our trespasses and sins and we look just like this list. And so God here is doing the very best, very good thing that he could do, which is to restore creation.

I mean, ultimately that's coming in Christ, but to do a mini version of that right now through Noah and to say, the earth has been spoiled. Creation has been spoiled. Mankind has gone too far.

I'm going to start over now. I'm going to do this with a single family. I'm sure that Noah wanted to see God work in this way.

It's no different from us in the church today who would cry out, come Lord Jesus. We want you to come and rescue us. We want you to come and save us from destruction.

And so we've seen Noah's character and we've seen his context, this dark world that he's living righteously as a part of. And now in verse 14, we come to Noah's commission. Noah's commission.

This is our third point as we unpack Noah's big obedience. God comes to Noah, this man whom he has chosen to set his favor upon, who's in the midst of a dark and crooked world that God is about to wipe out, and he gives Noah a project. He commissions a ship to be built.

He gives him a charge, if you will, a construction project. So he says in verse 14, make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. You shall make the ark with rooms and you shall cover it inside and out with pitch.

When I put myself in Noah's footwear, who knows what they were wearing back then. I would just say, man, I didn't, Lord, I didn't see that one coming. Told me you're going to destroy the earth.

And then you assign me a construction project and you want me to build an ark. What is an ark? Well, an ark is basically a chest, okay? It's a vessel. Here's one other time in scripture, Moses was put in a basket and the word is used there as well.

So it's going to be in scripture then, an object that rescues and deluge of water. For those of us who like aesthetics, this is not a very pretty vessel, okay? That is not the point. This is function over form.

It's not a yacht. It's not going to be finished in that way. You could think barge.

And I wonder what was going through Noah's mind when he got these instructions. I've assembled a number of things over my life. You start out as a little kid and you build like Lego sets and you build model cars and you get all these different, you know, things given to you at Christmas that you build and you put together.

And all of those instruction manuals make sense. And then you grow up and you buy something from Ikea and someone decided that it would be clear if we put no words in the instruction manual. We just drew pictures that don't really help very much.

I read Noah's instructions here and I wonder how he felt getting these plans. I wonder if there's more that God said outside of divine revelation. Because the instructions here are pretty basic.

Here it is, the outer dimensions, the wood type. By the way, I want a window and a door, put some pitch on it and make it three levels. It would seem not outlandish to think that Noah probably had a knowledge of shipbuilding.

He probably understood things like engineering, possibly understood animals pretty well, like a zoology background. We don't know. He'd lived a long life.

He'd been on the earth for hundreds of years. It's possible the concept of an ark had already been understood based upon what technology had already existed in ancient shipbuilding. But this was a massive project.

It's a big boat even by today's standards. It's absolutely enormous. Here in the text, it's measured by a cubit.

Verse 15, 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. Cubits measurement we're given, you're probably very familiar, it's from the elbow to the fingertip. It varied based on where you went, how long the cubit was.

There was a Babylonian cubit, Egyptian cubit, Hebrew cubit. There were long ones and short ones. So we don't know the exact dimensions of the ark, but more or less, it was probably around 450 feet long and about 75 feet wide and about 50 feet high.

So just for reference, this room is about 100 feet long. So you just picture this room multiplied by about four and a half, maybe five. You're getting about the length of the ark.

And then I don't know the other part. I think that you double about the width here, and then this height maybe is 20 some odd feet, I think 22 feet. So you a little more than double the peak of this.

And believe it or not, we actually worship in an ark-shaped building. So it would have looked pretty similar to this, kind of a large boxy structure, very similar to the shape of a barge. And there's all kinds of questions, of course, that immediately pop into our head.

Like, what about ventilation? And what about fresh water? And where did the food get stored? And where did all the solid and liquid waste go? It's a long time to hold it. Like, how did all of this work? And there are many ideas that have been put forward to kind of recreate and answer how these things could have come about. They're very fascinating.

I want to give you just two words of caution as you explore the curiosities regarding the ark. First and foremost, what is to be the convincing proof in the heart of the believer is the testimony of Scripture. Okay? So whether we can answer exactly how all of these things happened in a way that satisfies all of our questions is really not to be the basis of our faith.

That's not to increase or reduce your faith. And secondly, I'll just say as you dive into these, you're going to find many speculations. And I don't have a problem with speculations per se, but you need to make sure that your Bible is open and you're aware kind of what's speculation and then what's actually from the Lord in Scripture.

And that way you keep clear in your heart and speculations don't get muddled into your beliefs. So here the text is pretty limited on what we know about this giant floating chest, but God gives the dimensions. He gives a couple of key features, namely the window and the door.

And he says in verse 17, as for me, behold, I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall breathe its last. I mean, look at the language in verse 17.

Behold, Noah, I want to draw very pointed attention to this statement. I want you to highlight this in your thinking. I am bringing, I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth.

This is my flood. I'm responsible for it. And in one sense, we know that God is responsible for any flooding that takes place at any time.

And we know that he's designed the hydrological cycle and he's designed the climate and the moon and the oceans, and he's put it all together to make it work. Noah would have known that. And yet the Lord here is drawing particular attention to his intention that he is the one that is bringing about the floodwaters upon the earth and the purpose is to kill everyone, to destroy, to annihilate all the flesh in which is the breath of life.

You say, is it really all flesh? This double marker here from under heaven and everything that is on the earth shall breathe its last. So, he is piling on the specific language here to make it clear. Why is this important? Well, sometimes people are like, well, maybe we'll concede that there was at some point a pretty bad flood, but it wasn't cataclysmic.

It wasn't worldwide. That's too extreme. Doesn't even make sense.

And yet the Lord here is saying, I'm going to bring it about. And my expressed purpose and intent is everything that has breath is going to breathe its last. And that is poetic.

And it's very sobering. Drowning is formally defined as the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion or immersion in liquid. Creatures that breathe air can't live without air.

And so, God says, I'm going to take away the breath of life. I'm going to remove it. And I don't know about you, but as I ponder that, I think, well, why a flood? Like, why not a plague? God wipes people out with plagues in the Bible.

Israel would get hit with them and fail to learn a lesson and then get hit again. Why not some kind of disease? Certainly have the angel of the Lord coming and wiping out the entire Assyrian army in one night. Why not just wipe everybody out with the angel of the Lord? Seems a little bit simpler.

Seems a little bit less expensive for Noah than building an entire ship. The earth swallowed up Korah. That could have worked.

Why not just swallow people up? Well, the text doesn't tell us. But I think there's a clue back in verse 7, where Yahweh says, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth. From man to animals, to creeping things, and to birds of the sky, for I regret that I have made them.

What am I going to do? I'm going to wipe them away. See, what does the flood do that a plague doesn't? It not only kills the people, but it wipes away all of their achievements. It wipes away all of their memories.

The cities get destroyed, the landmarkers get destroyed, the accomplishments, the institutions, any temples. It is a fresh start. You can't go find the remnants that were left behind and then just pick up where things were left off.

I remember they used to worship under that tree over there. Tree got wiped out. Not only that, but the flood testifies to future destruction.

See, the flood would come upon the earth suddenly. And it was unavoidable. It was worldwide.

That was by design. And there are passages that urge us to make the connection to the flood judgment with the future judgment that God will bring upon the earth. Not that He's going to flood the earth again, but that it's going to come upon the earth suddenly.

In fact, our Lord would say in just as the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. What do you mean, Jesus? How's it going to be the same when you come as it was in the days of Noah? It goes on and explains, for as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. So they're living life, not expecting judgment.

And then Jesus says, until the day that Noah entered the ark and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away. So will the coming of the Son of Man be. See, this was a picture of a testimony to future destruction.

The flood shows the severity of God. It's going to wipe away any memory of man from the earth and all of his achievements. It testifies to coming future destruction.

And the flood then beautifully also pictures God's salvation. Go back to the construction of the ark. A lot of these things mean very little to us in terms of the actual specific dimensions and how many cubic feet there would be and all of these calculations that we can do.

But if you notice in the middle of verse 16, Noah is to put a door in the side of the ark. A door in the side of the ark. And that door is going to serve as the entrance point into God's ark of salvation.

I mean, very simply, if you enter through that door, when the flood judgment comes, you live. And if you don't enter through that door, the flood judgment comes and you perish. You understand there's one access point.

And this is a timeless lesson that we learn here in this narrative and how God designed the flood and the ark of salvation. In fact, Jesus, centuries later, would say in John chapter 10 verse 7, that He is the door of the sheep. What did He mean by that? John 14 6, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father, but through me. He would say in the Sermon on the Mount, enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. And there are many who enter through it.

For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life. And there are few who find it. So God here is testifying to Noah and to the earth, that He's the one that provides the salvation.

Yes, Noah's going to have to build the ark. I mean, it would have been nice if the Lord just dropped it prefab out of heaven for him. Or it was a modular, maybe he could just go get the pieces and kind of clamp them together.

So Noah's participating in this work, but God is the one who has selected Noah and said His favor upon him, verse 8. God is the one who has sought out Noah and He's speaking to him. He's the one that is warning him of what is coming. He's instructing him in how to build the ark.

And Noah will be saved simply by entering through the door. It is a reminder that God provides salvation and that He provides access through His prescribed means. And so for us in the new covenant, we understand the only way to God is through Jesus Christ.

It's through believing in the death, burial, and resurrection of the Son. It's relying fully upon His finished work. And so the flood testifies to God's salvation amidst imminent judgment.

There are certainly many people who are scoffing. We don't read about that here in Genesis chapter 6, but we get a little bit of a taste for what Noah was experiencing on earth in a couple of other passages. I want to draw your attention to one of them.

Turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 3, excuse me, 2 Peter chapter 3. It's like, man, that does not look like where we're supposed to be right now. Moses doesn't tell us what was happening around Noah, but Peter provides additional insight. It says in verse 1, this is now, beloved, the second letter I'm writing to you in which I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder.

You should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles, knowing this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. When they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water through which the world at that time was destroyed, being deluged with water. But by his word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some consider slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be found out.

Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord, because of which the heavens burning will be destroyed and the elements will melt with intense heat. But according to his promise, we are looking for new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells. Peter is writing to hearers who are experiencing those who are mocking, saying that judgment isn't really going to come.

How long has it been since Christ was on the earth? We're not being punished right now. And so you guys are foolish for even believing that. Peter says, this is the same old story.

This is the kind of thing that they were saying in Noah's day as well. And what happens is they misread the signs of the times. That the delay was not meaning judgment isn't coming, but rather it was just a sign of God's patience, the sign of his mercy and his grace.

He's leaving opportunity for men to repent. And so in that regard, Noah is a preacher of righteousness amidst a crooked generation. In fact, Noah is said to have condemned the world in Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11 says, and without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who draws near to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. By faith, Noah being warned 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's big obedience is really an astounding act of faith.

I mean, the amount of time the cost that this would have taken, the implications for what it meant for him in society, the fact that he was banking on a promise of God and a word of revelation, that there was nothing with his eyes that would have told him we can corroborate all of this work that we're doing. And yet he entrusted himself to his faithful creator. He believed God.

And the ark is, of course, for the Lord. And now salvation is exclusively through the person and work of Jesus Christ. So next week, we're going to see further about God's specific promise to Noah, the covenant that he makes with him.

And then we're going to see in greater detail how Noah approached this project and the testimony of his faithful obedience, which is going to be a challenge to all of our hearts. Let's pray. Lord, for any of us who have read the Bible a number of times, certainly for those of us who have grown up in church, we've heard the story of Noah and the ark so many times.

Certainly there's even flood accounts and arcs that have been depicted all around the world, even in places that the scriptures have not gone. It is so good for us to pause and reflect upon these details, Lord, and the significance of them for our lives. I thank you that you care enough about your creation, that you do not allow sin to go unpunished.

And Lord, I thank you that you care enough about your creation to orchestrate a plan of redemption. Thank you for saving Noah. Thank you for preserving us today through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Father, I pray that we would not take that for granted, Lord, even today to be clinging to Christ and Christ alone for our salvation. We praise you and we love you. Amen.