Noah

[0:00] If you guys have a copy of the Scriptures, I want you to open up to the book of Genesis chapter 6.! And we are going to complete chapter 6 this morning, but we're not going to finish the story of the flood.

[0:12] That's going to take us a couple of more weeks. But I do want us to begin where we left off last week. We're going to start in verse 9, read all the way down to the end of chapter 6. So you guys stand with me, if you would, as we read God's Word.

[0:24] So Genesis chapter 6 verse 9 tells us that these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.

[0:37] Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence.

[0:47] 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 him.

[1:00] Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and covered inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it.

[1:12] The length of the ark, 300 cubits. Its breadth, 50 cubits, and 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.

[1:24] Make it with lower, second, and third decks. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.

[1:37] But I will establish my covenant with you. And you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you.

[1:51] They shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds. Of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive.

[2:03] Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them. Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him.

[2:16] Father, help us to see not just a story here in your word, but help us to see you revealing yourself through the events that took place these many centuries ago.

[2:28] We pray in Christ's name. Amen. You guys take a seat. I'm not sure if you guys are aware of this, but there is coming out pretty soon. I don't know the actual dates.

[2:39] It's within the next few weeks, I think, but there's coming out another movie, or I don't know how many movies have been made in the past, but a movie, a big budget movie on Noah and the flood.

[2:50] Pretty soon it's coming out. I'm not sure how I feel about Russell Crowe as Noah. I don't know. But then again, I don't know what a guy looks like when he's 500 years old. Maybe he looks like Russell Crowe when he's 500 years old, so maybe he's the best person to cast.

[3:04] I don't know. I don't have high hopes that the movie will be incredibly accurate and stick all that closely to the biblical text, because usually when Hollywood makes movies based upon the Bible, they end up being not based so surely on the Bible.

[3:21] But nevertheless, there's a movie coming out. But this is a particular story that most of us feel like we know, I think. Most people will probably go to the movie and be able to walk out and point out at least two or three things that the movie got right, and two or three things maybe that the movie got wrong.

[3:37] But I also think that because many of us are familiar with the story of Noah and the flood, many of us also think that there are things in there that are not in there, and would be surprised by some of the things that are found in these chapters, Genesis 6 through 9, that pertain to this particular event in history.

[3:56] So I want us to take a few weeks to spend looking at the story of Noah and the flood. In fact, up to this point in the book of Genesis, Noah and his exploits receive more attention than anyone else has so far.

[4:12] In fact, in the entire book of Genesis, the only people that have more chapters devoted to telling their lives' story are Abraham and Joseph.

[4:24] Noah gets four whole chapters. I mean, Adam only got two chapters, and in one of those he was messing up the entire time. But Noah gets four whole chapters. So since Moses slows down as he writes this book to cover the flood, we're going to slow down as compared to what we've been over the last few weeks to spend some time looking at the story of the flood.

[4:45] Now, before we even move through here through the rest of chapter 6, though, let me just give you a summary of the basic story so that we're all on the same page and we know where things are headed.

[4:55] Of course, we saw last week the cause of the flood was mankind's sinfulness, mankind's depravity and wickedness. You can just look up a few verses in verse 5, where we're told that the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

[5:15] That's a great summary of human depravity in the state of the human heart after the fall. We see something very similar. God, once again, we're told, sees.

[5:26] If you look in verse 11, 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.

[5:37] God looked twice here in chapter 6. We're told that God looked, He saw the earth, and it was corrupt, or it was filled with violence. That's significant because the last time before these two instances that we see God looking down upon the earth is in chapter 1, where God looks at the end of that.

[5:58] He looks at everything that He has created. He looks, and He says that it's all very good. Contrast the very good creation of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 now with a fallen world in Genesis chapter 6.

[6:13] It was very good in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, and now it's all corrupt. In fact, that word corrupt is a really interesting word. Probably the best way to translate it would be ruined.

[6:26] It's ruined. It's an interesting word because it's not only the word that God uses to describe what people have done to the world, it's the same word that He uses to describe what He's about to do to the world.

[6:39] So look back again at these verses. I want to read them to you again, but I'm going to insert the word ruined instead of corrupt and destroy. So verse 11, once again. Now the earth was ruined in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence.

[6:53] And God saw the earth, and behold, it was ruined, for all flesh had ruined their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, I've determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them.

[7:05] Behold, I will ruin them with the earth. You see how that goes? God looks upon the world. He sees that through man's sinfulness, the entire world has now become ruined, spoiled, corrupted, messed up, and God looks as if to say, they want to ruin the creation?

[7:27] I will finish the task for them. I will ruin the earth that I have given to them since they have ruined it already. The flood is not a product of God's capriciousness.

[7:40] It's not a product of God just one day deciding, well, I don't like the way things are going. It's not going the way that I want it to, so I'm just going to kind of hit the reset button. I'm going to start all over. I don't like these things.

[7:50] The flood is the result of human sinfulness and the response of a holy God. God always responds to sin with anger and wrath. Even when God forgives sin, He only forgives our sin because He has poured out His wrath on our sin on the cross.

[8:08] So that God always responds to human sin with wrath. And this story begins with human sin and God's holy, righteous, wrathful response to it.

[8:22] And then, of course, the story goes on. And we're going to look this week at Noah himself and the kind of man that Noah was. God commands Noah to build an ark to specific dimensions, and He builds the ark.

[8:33] And then the flood actually comes. The flood begins to fall in chapter 7. And in chapter 7, we have an account of all the days of the flood. And then when you get to chapter 8, you have an account of the flood subsiding and going away.

[8:48] All told, Noah and his family spend about a year shut up in the ark. About six months with the water rising higher and higher, and about six months with the water going down and down, until finally, resting on the side of a mountain, finally the earth is completely dry.

[9:08] And God permits them to leave the ark, and He opens the door for them. But then immediately after they leave the ark, the first thing that they do is that Noah builds an altar, and he offers up worship to God.

[9:20] And then the story of Noah ends in a strange way. As Noah plants a vineyard, grows grapes, makes wine, and gets drunk.

[9:31] What a way to end the story of Noah. In fact, I saw just on TV, that Ali and I were watching TV the other day, and on some show they were talking about the movie that's coming out with Russell Crowe, the Noah movie.

[9:44] And they said that people were upset because Noah is portrayed in the movie as getting drunk. And how could they possibly portray Noah in that way? They forgot to read the rest of the story.

[9:56] Because the story ends on a low note, with Noah sinning, breaking God's law. That's the story of Noah though. The story of a man called out by God, rescued from God's wrath, who is a man who worships, but also a man who's flawed.

[10:14] And that's going to be extremely important this morning, as we look at exactly the kind of man that Noah was. So I want you to turn back to chapter 6. And we're introduced to the story of Noah, the way that most of the book of Genesis starts off a new section, with the phrase, these are the generations of.

[10:30] That's how Genesis breaks itself up. These are the generations of. So you have, these are the generations of the heavens and the earth. These are the generations of Adam. Now these are the generations of Noah. These are the generations of Noah.

[10:42] The beginning of Noah's story. And here's what we know from the outset about Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. And then we're told that Noah walked with God and he had three sons.

[10:59] He's a righteous man. What are we to make of that? What does this mean? What does Moses mean when he calls Noah righteous? I think most of us, when we hear the word righteous, especially when we hear the word righteous in the context of the Bible, we think of sinlessness.

[11:16] We think if someone is righteous, they must be without sin. I mean, after all, the word righteous means that you do what's right in God's sight. You live according to God's standards.

[11:28] That's essentially what it means. You're a person who does what is right. And to be called righteous would seem to imply imply that perhaps you're a person who does right all the time. In fact, that is sometimes the meaning of the word righteous.

[11:42] I mean, when the Apostle Paul says, there is no one righteous, we understand what he's saying. We understand that he's saying there's nobody who's deep down really and truly a righteous person.

[11:53] So what are we to make of Noah being called righteous? Well, it cannot possibly mean that Noah himself was perfect because, as I just said, we see Noah at the end of the story, at the end of the account of his own life, we see Noah drunk on wine.

[12:11] I don't have a problem with somebody having alcohol and having a drink every once in a while, but Noah's not having a social drink. Noah's drunk, so drunk that he passes out naked. That's really drunk.

[12:23] That's not okay to do that, all right? Just in case anybody's wondering, it's not okay to do that. And that's how Noah ends his story. But probably even more importantly than that, look at the last verse of this chapter.

[12:36] We're told in verse 22, Noah did all this. He did all that God commanded him. So he's obedient. That's how chapter 6 ends. But that's not how the story of Noah ends, with his obedience.

[12:48] End of chapter 6, Noah's obedient. Now turn over the end of chapter 9. After the flood, Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years.

[13:01] And he died. Does that sound familiar? If you've been here the last few weeks, it should sound somewhat familiar, because in chapter 5, over and over we heard this.

[13:12] So-and-so lived X number of years, and then they had a son. And they lived X number of years after they had that son, and then he died. Over and over in chapter 5, leading up to Noah, in Noah's genealogy, we hear this refrain, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died.

[13:30] And I reminded you that that tells us that the effects of the fall in Genesis chapter 3 are still taking place, even in this supposed godly line of Seth.

[13:41] death. Even among those who believe, even among those who trust in the promises of God, death still reigns. Why? Because sin is still a reality in this world, and sin is still a reality in our lives.

[13:56] And even for those of us who've trusted in Christ, and we have been ultimately delivered from death, nevertheless, physical death still awaits us. And Noah's end is no different from all the other sinners that led up to Noah.

[14:08] At the end of his life, he died, which reminds us that Noah is much like us. He's fallen.

[14:20] He's sinful. He's not perfect. So what does it mean for him to be righteous? Well, if you continue to read, it helps us to better understand.

[14:32] We're told that he was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. blameless in his generation. Now, if Noah were simply called righteous and blameless, if that's all we heard, we would probably be right to say, it sounds like the Bible is saying that Noah was sinless.

[14:49] It sounds like Noah never did anything wrong and that he was perfect. But it doesn't just say that he was righteous and blameless. It says that he was blameless in his generation. Which I think means that in the midst of a decadently sinful people, in the midst of a world that has grown so distant from the promises of God, that has grown so cold in its heart and so disobedient in its lifestyle, in the midst of that kind of world, in comparison to that, Noah appears to be blameless.

[15:20] I mean, in the midst of his generation, he looks like a perfect person. He's righteous and blameless in his generation. And I wonder if that could be said of very many of us.

[15:33] That in the times in which we live, in the people that we are surrounded by at work or in our families or in our neighborhoods, among those people, would we stand out just relatively, just in comparison to them, not in comparison to the standards of, say, God's Word, but just relatively in comparison with our generation, with the people that surround us, would we stand out as righteous and blameless in comparison?

[15:58] Is that how we would look? And what would it look like? What would a person like Noah, what would that kind of person actually look like day to day?

[16:10] The surprising thing about these four chapters here that cover the story of Noah is that very little information is given about the day-to-day life of Noah. What's really strange is that Noah doesn't ever talk until the end of it.

[16:24] Noah doesn't say anything. We just read all of chapter 6. Noah doesn't say a word. We read all of chapter 7 next week. Noah doesn't say a word. Chapter 8, Noah doesn't say a word.

[16:34] Noah doesn't say anything until chapter 9. Not a word from Noah's lips. We don't know a whole lot about the everyday Noah. We don't know the kinds of things that he would have said because they're not recorded.

[16:49] We don't know the kinds of things that he did all the time. Apparently, he spent a lot of time building a big boat. It was probably his primary job. But we don't know a whole lot about Noah's sort of everyday actions.

[17:01] So what would a man like Noah, what would a person blameless in their generation, what exactly would they look like? I want you to turn over to Ephesians chapter 4.

[17:12] There are a lot of passages that we could turn to to find a good biblical description of a righteous person. But I think this one is probably one of the most helpful.

[17:23] Ephesians chapter 4, I want you to just, we're going to pick up in verse 24 where we're given a command. Paul tells us, to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

[17:37] True righteousness and holiness, and now we get a description of that. Verse 25, Therefore, so since you've put on the new self, there's a new you now that you're saved. Here's what the new self, here's what the new you should look like.

[17:51] Therefore, since all that's true, this is how you should practically live your lives out. So here we are with a good description of the righteous life. Therefore, first thing, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbors, for we are members of one another.

[18:12] So the first characteristic that the Apostle Paul describes of a righteous person, a person like Noah, is that he's a truthful person. He doesn't lie all the time.

[18:23] He's not inclined to lie. He just speaks the truth. He puts away falsehood away from himself, and he just, very practically every day, just being a truthful person, just speaking the truth whenever you can, whenever the opportunity arises.

[18:38] Now, one of these days I'll preach a sermon series through the Ten Commandments, and we'll talk about what it means to lie. But I don't think it necessarily means that you're technically always saying what's technically 100% accurate.

[18:53] Let me give you a good example. You guys know the story of Rahab in the city of Jericho? Rahab the harlot. That's how you want to be known for all of human history.

[19:04] But Rahab did some good things, all right? Rahab, in the city of Jericho, when Joshua sends his spies over to Jericho to check out the city, and they go, and they check things out, and they have to hide in the city.

[19:19] And they're hidden by Rahab. Because the people of the city are looking for them to kill them. And they come, and they knock on Rahab's door. She lives along the wall, so that's a suspect place.

[19:31] They knock on her door, and she's hiding the spies, and what does she say? They're not here. Well, I don't have them. And then we're told that she was righteous in having done that. So she technically lied, right?

[19:45] She technically said something that wasn't true, and yet we're told that she was righteous in doing it. So when we talk about a person who's truthful, we need to be realistic and practical here.

[19:59] If you're in your home, and an armed gunman comes into your home, and you hide your children in the closet, would you feel guilty about telling the gunman, I'm the only person here? Of course not. That's not a violation of what it means not to lie.

[20:11] That doesn't mean that you're not truthful. To be truthful means practically, just in everyday life, that you're not a person who's prone to misrepresent the things around you. You're not a person who's prone to misrepresent themselves.

[20:23] So that you may technically say things that are true. You may technically give people the right facts, and yet be a liar, if your intention in everything you say is always to mislead people around you.

[20:38] To make them think that you are someone that you're not. That's not what the righteous person does. The righteous person is not concerned so much with what other people think that they would try to hide away certain things, try to word things in a certain way, try to carry themselves in a certain way when they're around this group as opposed to that group, so that certain things will be thought of them.

[21:02] That's not the way the righteous person lives. The righteous person puts away that kind of falsehood, and they speak the truth with their neighbor. Just a truth-telling kind of person.

[21:14] That's what it means to be righteous. I think the person who was blameless in their own generation. We live in a world that is just coated over with lies. You cannot look at a magazine with a picture of a celebrity and really have any clue what that celebrity really looks like.

[21:31] You have no idea. You see them in the grocery store, you see them on the shelves up there when you go to checkout, and you assume that those are photos of famous people, and yet we all know that they've been so photoshopped that that's not what the person really looks like at all.

[21:45] I mean, everything today has sort of a veneer of falsehood on it. Everyone wants to present themselves as something that they're not, and we should be better than that.

[21:58] We should be different from that. We should, in the midst of this generation, we should stand out as people who are honest and truth-tellers and wouldn't mislead anyone for anything.

[22:09] It's not the only thing, I think, though. The Apostle Paul goes on and he says, you can be angry. He says, be angry, but do not sin and do not let the sun go down on your anger.

[22:22] Give no opportunity to the devil, he says. So righteous people are not calm, serene people who never get upset about anything. You follow that? I don't picture Jesus.

[22:33] We always have this picture of Jesus meek and mild, but Jesus turned over tables. Jesus got upset with people. Jesus had a tendency to call religious leaders snakes and dogs, so he got upset.

[22:44] He got angry at times. He got mad sometimes. All of that is true. None of that is sinful. But he never sinned. And we are called to be people who are passionate about things, passionate about the truth, passionate about caring for people around us, really passionate, really care, really get irritated and upset when things are done wrong in the world around us, and yet who, in the midst of that irritation and being upset, we don't sin.

[23:13] We don't allow anger to linger so long that it turns into bitterness. We don't allow it to stay within us so long that the devil begins to get a foothold and he begins to be able to use that anger to turn us toward things that are, in fact, sinful in and of themselves.

[23:32] You see, our generation, the age in which we live is an age in which so long as you're sincere in what you're doing, so long as you really care about the cause, oftentimes the ends justify the means.

[23:55] So that if you, if you have to do something in order to do something that's not right, do something that's not, that's not along the righteous path, but that'll, that'll get you toward the thing that you're passionate about, it'll help you achieve the goal that you have out there, that you really care about, that really matters to you, then that's okay.

[24:15] And yet the Bible says it's okay to be, to have the emotions, it's okay to be angry, it's okay to be passionate about things, and yet in all of that, we don't sin, and we don't stay angry so long that it provides an opportunity for temptation to work its way into our hearts.

[24:31] Another aspect, we're told in verse 28 here, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

[24:43] Now pause there, I don't know how many thieves we have among us. I don't know. I don't know how many of you, I don't know how many of you are experts, I don't know how many have broken into stores and done all those sorts of things. I don't know how many of you are thieves in that sense, but I suspect that most of us at some point in time have taken things that don't belong to us, but more importantly, Paul makes a connection here between working hard and stealing.

[25:09] And essentially what he's saying is that the person who does not work hard, but just takes, is a thief. He's a thief. We're called to be a people who are at work, constantly working hard to earn what we have, and then if we have stuff left over, what's that for?

[25:27] That's to be given to people who actually have real needs and are unable to provide for themselves. That's the biblical pattern. You work hard if you're able to, and whatever you have left over after working hard and taking care of your family's needs, you give that to people who cannot work hard, who are unable to take care of themselves.

[25:45] That's the biblical pattern here. And if you don't follow that biblical pattern according to the Apostle Paul, it's as good as stealing. It's as good as being a thief. The person who's blameless in a generation that is just swelling with laziness, swelling with a refusal to do real hard work, always waiting on the ideal job to come along, always waiting on something that I deserve.

[26:14] I deserve a better job than that. I know that I can get that job, but I deserve a better job. That's our world that we live in. And the Apostle Paul says, that's not righteousness.

[26:28] You put on a new man, you're in Christ, that's not how you live. You don't steal from everybody around you because you refuse to go out and work hard for what you have.

[26:40] Don't be a thief. Be a hard worker. I think Noah demonstrates himself to be a hard worker. Take a look back at Genesis 6.

[26:51] We'll come back to Ephesians 4, but just take a look back at the dimensions of this boat that he's got to build. It's massive. Now we're told here that it's 300 cubits long.

[27:02] That's about 450 feet long, so a football field and a half. It's 50 cubits wide, 75 feet wide. 30 cubits high with various levels and decks in it.

[27:15] It's about 45 feet high. This is a massive boat. Just to kind of give you an idea of how big it is, in the ancient world, the largest boats that were built, and this is well after the time of Noah, but in the ancient world, the largest boats that we know of that were built were built by a Roman emperor named Caligula, and he built these huge boats that measured roughly 250 feet long.

[27:41] 250 feet long. This one's 450 feet. Now by modern standards, that's not enormous. It's about half the length of the Titanic. It's much smaller than our modern aircraft carriers, but in the ancient world, this is massive.

[27:55] There's nothing else like it. And we don't know how many decades it took Noah to build this boat. He was 500 years old when he had Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

[28:06] He was 600 years old when the flood came. At some point in there, he was warned about the flood and began work on the ark. I don't know if it was the full 100 years or 80 years or 50 years or 20 years, but for a long time, Noah worked on this massive boat.

[28:23] Worked hard. Worked all the time. Worked as people made fun of him, probably. I mean, what sense does it make to build a big boat on the land when it's never rained before?

[28:35] I mean, it hasn't ever rained before. There's no rain. They don't have a concept in Noah's day of rain. I mean, they've got rivers and streams and all those sorts of things that they need to supply water, but they don't have thunderstorms.

[28:49] They're not used to the rain coming by, and here's Noah working every day building an ark for a big boat for apparently no reason at all in the eyes of the people around him.

[29:00] But nevertheless, constantly at work, working hard. Because that's part of what it means to be righteous and have put on the new self.

[29:11] There's more to it than that. Verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.

[29:25] God's sake. So it matters not only in our work lives, it matters not only in our truth telling, it matters not only in how we handle our emotions, but the righteous person is careful with his words, careful about what he says.

[29:39] Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth. Don't say anything that's going to be intentionally harmful to other people. That's the point. Don't let it come out.

[29:50] Don't let it be a part of how you talk, but instead say things that build other people up. This is something that we're not very good at. We might, some of us, might be good at avoiding the offensive things, at avoiding corrupting talk, things that just upset people for no reason whatsoever.

[30:09] But most of us are not very good at saying things that build other people up. It's just not a skill a lot of us possess. It's just not something that we're used to doing.

[30:20] But within the body of Christ, that should be a constant. We should constantly be recognizing the good things that we see other people doing, the work that we see the Lord doing in their lives, and we should be people who point those things out, who are encouraging to other people.

[30:35] Or as parents, we should be that. That's one of my biggest failures I often feel is I don't encourage my kids enough. I'm very quick if they mess up. I see it. I point it out. I let them know. Why did you do this?

[30:46] You did this. What happened here? I'm very quick to point out when things go wrong when they disobey, but I'm so slow many times to recognize when they do something good or right.

[31:00] I just, oftentimes I treat it as, well, they didn't do the bad thing. Okay, good. Rather than pausing to see, they did something really good here. They worked hard. They avoided temptation.

[31:12] They went the right way. As parents, we just, oftentimes, we just don't do that. We don't catch on to that. Whether your kids are grown or whether they're little, we're just not really good at saying the things that are building up and edifying to others.

[31:25] And yet, that's a part of what it means to be a righteous person. That's a part of what it means to have put on the new man. The new man is the kind of person who is encouraging to others, not discouraging to others.

[31:39] And then when you add to that something else that he says later down towards the end of the passage, verse 31, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

[31:51] He says, But instead, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Do you recognize how many of these things that he lists here about righteousness have to do with how we treat other people?

[32:08] Whether or not we lie to other people or speak the truth to other people. Whether or not we allow our anger to cause us to sin against other people. Whether or not we work hard or we steal from other people instead.

[32:20] Whether or not we build people up or we have corrupting talk come out of our mouths. And now finally to sum it up, just be nice to people, he says. Be kind to one another. I mean, that's what it looks like to be righteous.

[32:35] To be blameless in the midst of your generation. To not give in to the pessimism of the day. To not give in to the constant sarcasm of the day.

[32:45] To just not give in to the corrupting talk that breaks others down rather than builds them up. You want to know what kind of man Noah was and why he stood out above the others.

[32:58] A lot of it had to do with how he treated others. Because one of the problems of the day back then was that the world had become filled with violence.

[33:10] We see that refrain over and over in Genesis chapter 6. Filled with violence. What does that mean? It means, I think, two things. Number one, I think at this point in time, mankind had become violent in their behavior to the world around them.

[33:30] There was a violent, corrupting influence of humanity upon the whole world. It's there. Which is why after the flood, when God makes a covenant with Noah, He gives them some specific commands.

[33:46] One of the commands that He gives them is about not murdering. The other command that He gives them sounds very strange. He tells them not to eat meat with the blood in it.

[33:58] What sense does that make? I mean, you can't have a rare steak? Is that the point? No, that's not the point at all. I think the point there is that prior to the flood, the violence that filled the world had people, had men acting like animals.

[34:14] What do animals do when they kill something? They just, the lion pounces on an animal, kills it, and just eats it right there in the middle of the field. Nastiness, gross blood everywhere. And people were behaving like that.

[34:26] Just rampant inhuman behavior, I think, among the people. I think that's a part of what it means for the world to be filled with violence. And of course, the other side of the coin is even worse. That's why there's a command also beside that one not to murder.

[34:40] Because man had been violent toward other people. That characterized the world. Just violence. Constantly. Turn on the news. It's a violent world that we live in.

[34:53] It was a violent world that Noah lived in. And in the midst of a violent world, Noah stood out as a righteous man.

[35:04] And we need to be people who in the midst of a world filled with deceit, laziness, violence, unkindness, we need to be people who stand above that.

[35:21] In the place where you work, do people know that you're a Christian? And I don't mean just because you're the guy who's always proposing that you have Bible studies before or after work.

[35:32] That's fine. That's good. I encourage you to do that. But I don't mean that. They know you're a Christian because they always see you praying at lunchtime. I don't mean that. I mean, if you didn't do any of those overtly Christian things, if you weren't about the business of sharing the gospel with your coworkers, and you should be, but subtract that from the equation, would anybody, based on just your character and the way that you handle yourself in the midst of other people, would anybody have any clue that you were a follower of Christ?

[36:05] Would you stand out as being any different than anyone else in your workplace? I wonder. If you live in a family in which most of the people in your family are not followers of Christ, do you stand out as a person who is kind and loving in the midst of your family?

[36:24] Is that how you stand out? You see, oftentimes, we will excuse our unrighteous behavior by appealing to the few overtly Christian things that we do.

[36:41] We will excuse our rudeness. We will excuse our refusal to help people around us. We'll excuse all those things because, well, because we invited them to church.

[36:57] Why are they going to go to church with you? You're mean. You know, why would they do that? You're lazy at the office and you don't do all of your work or you're lazy out in the yard and they see that you're not working as hard as everybody else.

[37:09] Why would they want any part of whatever seems to be energizing that kind of work ethic? They wouldn't want to be. We need to be people who constantly share the gospel.

[37:23] We need to be the people who have the Bible fixed in our minds ready to dispense biblical wisdom to people but we're never going to have real opportunities to do that if we don't stand out in the midst of this generation as righteous people.

[37:41] Last thing that we hear about Noah here in Genesis chapter 6 other than him having three sons. We're told that he was righteous, that he was blameless in his generation and here's the key to all of it.

[37:54] Noah walked with God. It's the second person in the book of Genesis that we're told he walked with God. In chapter 5 Enoch walked with God and now Noah walked with God.

[38:08] The key to righteousness, to practical everyday holiness is not effort. The key to actually being a kind person, a loving person in the midst of a world that's not filled with kindness is not to try harder.

[38:25] It's not to make a list. Well, you know, Paul said all those things in Ephesians 4 maybe I'll write them out on a card and I'll stick it in my pocket and I'll read it all day long and it'll just remind me. It's not to make a list.

[38:36] That's not the key to real practical righteousness. Because Paul says right before that since you've put on the new man, since you're now in Christ, since you've now trusted in Christ, the key to Noah's righteousness is that he walked with God.

[38:52] That he had an actual real relationship with God. That's what caused him to live the way that he lived. That's what made him stand out among others. In Hebrews chapter 11, we read this about Noah.

[39:06] Hebrews chapter 11 verse 7, By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household.

[39:19] By this, he condemned the world, and, here it is, by his faith, he became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

[39:33] All Noah's do-gooding, all Noah's righteousness, was not the kind of righteousness that you need to survive judgment. Judgment was coming in Noah's day, and all his external righteousness would not have been the kind of righteousness that he needed to survive judgment.

[39:54] And it's not the kind of righteousness we need to survive judgment. The kind of righteousness you need to survive judgment is the kind of righteousness that you inherit through faith in Jesus. It comes to you as a gift.

[40:06] His obedience, his perfection, counted as yours by faith. Noah had that. Noah walked with God, and because he walked with God, he was righteous and blameless in the midst of his generation.

[40:22] Because he walked with God, because he trusted in the promises, Noah had favor with God. He found favor in the eyes of God.

[40:36] And you and I are no different. Judgment will come to this world, not in the form of a flood, but in the form of fire. It will come.

[40:49] I'm not the kind of person who gets all caught up in sort of end times mania and madness. I'm not convinced by the Bible that we ought to be that way.

[41:01] We live in the last days because the last days started with the coming of Christ and they'll go until he returns. We're in the last days. Are we in the last day?

[41:11] Is Jesus going to come back now, tomorrow, this week? Maybe. Maybe a thousand years from now. I don't know. But what I do know is that we are to live as people who really believe he could come back at any moment.

[41:26] Which means that for us, whether the judgment happens tomorrow or a thousand years from now, the judgment is imminent. It is as imminent for us as it was for Noah. It's coming. It is coming. And you'll survive that judgment.

[41:39] And you'll be an heir of righteousness if you trust in the righteous one, Jesus. And if you trust in the righteous one, Jesus, there ought to be such an outflow from that that you've put on a new man.

[41:59] And you're righteous and blameless in your generation. Let's pray. hard to measure ourselves by Noah.

[42:14] He was flawed, but it's hard to think of a man in the Bible who was more righteous than him, other than Christ. So pray that we wouldn't try to measure ourselves by Noah, but that we would instead walk with the God he walked with.

[42:32] trust in the promises in which he trusted. Believe in the Savior in whom he believed. And because of those things, it might be said of us, he or she was blameless in their generation.

[42:51] Not perfect, not flawless, not sinless, but genuinely walking with God and seeing the fruit of faith in every area of our lives.

[43:06] Father, I also pray though that if there are those among us, and I believe there are, who are relying on an external righteousness rather than receiving it as a gift.

[43:18] those who believe that they go to church and they do good things, and that ought to be enough to put them in the category with Moses and escape the judgment, that they would realize Noah didn't escape the judgment because of those things.

[43:37] He escaped the judgment because he knew you and he walked with you and he trusted in you. I pray that nobody would leave today without trusting in Christ. I pray in his name.

[43:50] Amen.