Moved With Fear

MOVED WITH FEAR

Heb. 11:7

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR: We’re talking about Noah & the Ark tonight.

1. What animal could Noah not trust? The cheetah.

2. What kind of lights did Noah have on the ark? Flood lights.

3. Why couldn't they play cards on the ark? Noah was sitting on the deck.

4. Who was the first canning factory run by? Noah - he had a boat full of preserved pairs.

5. Which animal took the most baggage into the arc? The elephant took his trunk.

6. Where did Noah keep the bees? In the ark hives.

7. Who was the best financier in the Bible? Noah. He floated his stock while the whole world was in liquidation.

8. Why couldn't Noah catch many fish? He only had two worms.

9. When is paper money first mentioned in the Bible? When the dove brought the green back to the ark.

B. TEXT

"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 which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Heb. 11:7.

C. THESIS

1. Noah was a kind of contrast to Enoch; Enoch was removed from the evil to come while Noah had to go through it.

2. Noah is also a picture of the believer. We have to “die out” to our old life and then be born again to the new life of Christ.

3. The ark was, so to speak, like a coffin to Noah. He entered it and died out to the old world. Within it (like being in Christ), Noah floated into a new world, and when he came out, he was born into a new world.

4. Paul said, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” Rom. 6:4.

5. Tonight we’re to look at what motivated Noah to build the ark. We need this same motive to live in the day we do.

6. The title of tonight’s message is, “Moved With Fear.”

I.FAITH WAS THE UNDERLYING POWER

A. HE HAD FAITH EVERY DAY

1. Verse 7 begins, "By faith Noah." Note that at the back of everything was his faith in God. His faith begat his fear: his faith and his fear produced his obedience.

2. Notice, that Noah believed in God in his ordinary life. Before the great test came, Noah believed in God.

a. He was "a just man, and perfect in his generations," and the Bible elsewhere says, "the just shall live by faith."

b. Noah served God for 500 years before God spoke to him about the flood. In all that time he exercised faith in his work, his home-life, his prayers, and in his difficulties.

B. HIS FAITH ACCEPTED ALL GOD’S REVELATION

1. Noah believed in God’s goodness but also believed in His wrath & judgment.

2. There’s a lot of people today who believe only in “Daddy God,” that God’s only sweet and loving and works for our good.

3. They think that people who believe that God hates sin and will judge the world probably had a twisted childhood or a poor self-image.

4. You can’t pick and choose what parts of the Bible you’re going to believe. You can’t accept the promises without accepting the warnings and threatenings of God.

5. He who won’t believe God will cast unbelievers into hell, can’t be sure that God will take believers to heaven.

6. A faith which accepts one word of God and rejects another is evidently not faith in God, but faith in our own judgment.

7. People won’t prepare for judgment unless they believe that there will be a judgment. Beware softening God’s message!

C. NOAH BELIEVED WHAT SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE

1. Furthermore, Noah believed what seemed highly improbable, if not absolutely impossible.

2. There was no sea where Noah laid the keel of his ark. He was to prepare a sea-going vessel, and construct it on dry land.

3. “Poor insane man! His insanity is so gigantic that it drives him to build a gigantic three-decked vessel of vast dimensions where no waters can ever come!”

4. But Noah knew the floods would fill the valley, rise up the hills, and prevail above the tops of the mountains. Noah believed because he served a big God, "for with God all things are possible."

5. Ever been asked, "How do you reconcile your faith with science?"

a. Much of science DOES agree with the Bible and the areas where science disagrees I believe it will eventually come to agree with the Bible.

b. Evolution requires as much faith – because of its lack of evidence – as believing the Bible, so it’s no more difficult to believe the Bible account than to believe Darwin’s theory, if you believe in God.