Future Grace, Genesis 9:8-17
Introduction
Some years ago several congressmen, who were devout Christians, were taking a walk one evening. Their conversation drifted to the subject of religion and the state of the world. They were not enthusiastic about the outlook and were just about to agree that the whole world was on the toboggan when they chanced to pass a little chapel. From within came the words of a familiar hymn: “There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
As his face lighted up, one said to the others, “As long as people get together and sing that song, there is hope for the world, after all.”
Transition
Today we will discuss that great flood which emanates from beneath the Cross of Calvary; that is, the flood of grace which flows crimson red; the blood of Jesus Christ! We will also look back to a parallel account in the Scriptures; the flood of Noah’s day. Upon examining the biblical account of both, I am compelled to believe that we will see plainly a parallel in God’s dealing with humanity.
Looking back to the flood of Noah reminds us that God is holy and deals with sin. He must deal with it as He can not look upon that which is impure or ugly in His sight. In the flood of Noah’s Day God washed away sin in a great deluge. The message of the Old Testament is not that God is vengeful and desires to destroy humanity. The message is that God must and always does deal with sin.
In the modern Church age – the dispensation of grace – God cleanses sin according to His mercy that has been poured out, flooding the earth, by the blood of Jesus Christ. Both our identification with Christ blood in His death, burial, and resurrection and the great flood of Noah’s day are symbolized in the washing of baptism as our sin is washed away according to God’s sovereign decree.
In baptism is found the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Noah that He would never again destroy the earth as He had done. Rather than again washing sin away in a great deluge that consumed the whole earth; God’s grace now covers the whole earth through Christ’s blood and we identify with that blanket of grace by faith in Christ; even as we identify with His in baptism.
The Lord flooded the earth in Noah’s day just as He floods it in ours!
Exposition
Today’s message is one of parallels. In Genesis 6:9-12 it says, “This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.” (NIV)
The Bible says that in the days of Noah people had abandoned worship of God in favor of violence and corruption. Are these days any less corrupt and violent than the days of Noah? Certainly corruption and violence reins upon much of the world today, just as in the days of Noah. And just as God dealt with the sin of the world in that day He is dealing with in ours.
The Bible also records another parallel with the flood of Noah. There is coming a great day of judgment in which God will judge the nations and all of the peoples of the earth according to their deeds. In that day, just as in the days of Noah, only those who have been called according to God’s grace will withstand the judgment.
In Noah’s day he and his family were spared on the account of Noah’s righteousness. In that great and terrible day which is coming, all humanity will be judged according to their works and unlike in the days of Noah, those redeemed will be those who are found in Christ and judged according to His righteousness. Glory to God! Of that great and terrible day we need not have any fear.
On that Day of Judgment, those people who are found alive in Christ shall be just as the family of Noah, who were shown grace according to faith and escaped judgment. Our hope however, lies not in a boat made of the wood of the cypress tree, but in the power of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ who hung upon the tree of Calvary!
Revelation 20:11-15, says, “Then I saw a large white throne and the one who was seated on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened, and another book was opened – the book of life. So the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each one was judged according to his deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death – the lake of fire. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire.” (NET)
Just as Noah’s righteous life was a witness to the world around him for their need for repentance and faith in God in light of the impending flood, so too we have an obligation to live lives reflective of the righteousness of Jesus Christ so that in us the world around us might see and hear a cry ringing out from the Church to likewise obey God, place our trust in Christ, so that we too might escape the impending flood of God’s judgment upon the earth.
Just as God poured out mercy to Noah and rescued them from judgment according to their faith in God and their obedience of His will, we will be rescued from that impending flood according to faith in the righteousness of Jesus Christ!
Illustration
Some years ago in Northwestern University, near Chicago, a rescue crew was organized. Their purpose was the rescue of the drowning on the lake. One day the news came that a magnificent vessel was wrecked just off the shore. The young men hurried at once to the scene of the disaster, and plunged into the angry waters to rescue those who were going down. Soon they all returned, but one. Finally he came in bringing one man with him. Immediately he returned, and soon brought another, and then another, and so on until he had rescued ten. During this time his mates had built a fire and were warming themselves, all the time trying to persuade the young hero against his conviction of duty. By the time he had brought the tenth man he was completely exhausted, and had to rest for a while. Regaining sufficient strength, he again plunged into the water and brought another man. Now he was completely overcome. During the night he died from exposure. It was a sad scene. While friends stood around weeping, and his fellow students were regretting that they had not forced him to do as they had, he called one of them to his bedside, and said in a low subdued tone, just before he died: “Did I do my best?” Instantly his friend said: “Yes, I should think you did do your best.
You saved eleven, but you have lost your life.” “But,” said he, “did I do my best, my dead level best?” “Yes, you did your dead level best.” Then a smile seemed to come over his face as if to say: “Then I am satisfied to die.” Oh, my friends, this will be something of our experience when we are in the presence of God in eternity! “Did I do my best, my dead level best?”
This is just what Christ has done for us. He has given His dead level best so that we might have life. He laid down His life at the Cross to offer unto us the hope of salvation, the promise of eternal life, and to provide for us a means of escaping that impending flood which the world must soon face.
It is also what we must do for others in declaring the coming judgment and the way of salvation just as Noah did to his generation. Though many did not listen to the voice of Noah, his call was not to coerce them to repentance or to faith but simply to be faithful to the command of God.
So it is with us. God will not do what He has called us to do and we can not do what only God can do. He has called us to be faithful witnesses to His grace so that He may use that witness in gathering the nations unto Himself. We are the seed planters; He is the Lord of the Harvest.
There are a lot of folks who dismiss the value of the consideration of both the past grace that God demonstrated in rescuing Noah and his family from the great judgment which sin brought upon the earth. There are just as many people who dismiss the value of looking unto the future grace of God that will be poured out to His elect during that great and terrible impending judgment.
Indeed, at the top of the heap of hotly contested biblical doctrines to be sure the literal nature of the great flood of Noah and a literal interpretation of the book of Revelation are at the very top. Many secular progressives and I am sad to say, a fair number of Bible scholars, Pastors, and teachers, regard the great deluge of Noah as myth and the prophecy of revelation as merely ancient literature.
I would suggest to you this morning, however, that beside the immense weight of evidence as to the literal nature of Noah’s flood actually occurring, it is a wise task for the child of God to consider the past grace of God because “past grace is the down payment of future grace!” (John Piper, Future Grace, p.102)
“No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and did not remember the LORD their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.” (Judges 8:33-34 NIV) “Baal-Berith was a local manifestation of the Canaanite storm god. The name means, ironically, “Baal of the covenant.” Israel’s covenant allegiance had indeed shifted.” (NET)
How quickly to the children of God in Israel, how quickly does His Church and each one of us, forget what God has done for us, how he has delivered us, and how fast do our feet run to return to the worship of Baal! How quickly does our heart forget all that God has done for us when the time of trial passes! Indeed, our fickle human constitution is so fast to let go of the passion of the time of recue. How fast the steadfastness of our heart does fade in the face of comfort.
Deuteronomy 4:9, “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” (NIV)
Deuteronomy 6:10-12, “When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you – a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant – then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (NIV)
I would submit to you today, that we are living in a land, very much like that of which the word of God warns the Israelites not to become. Because of our prosperity, as a result of our relative wealth and comfort, we have eaten and become satisfied and forgotten the Lord; the one who gave birth to the very freedoms which men and women now abuse in order to not only forget but to attack the grace of the past in God’s sovereign provision for this land. “The wicked return to the grave, all the nations that forget God.” (Psalms 9:17 NIV)
I would further suggest to you that the spirit driving an age which rejects any account of the miraculous accounts, historical nature, or trustworthy prophetic teaching of the Bible does so in an effort to dismiss the sovereignty of God not only for the past but for today, because for a decadent society it is much easier to reject God’s provision than to accept His authority. It is more comfortable to dismiss the law than to give an account to the law-giver.
Conclusion
“For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand – with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.” (1 Peter 3:18-22 NIV)
Dear Saints of God, let us be those who remember the past grace of God that we may be reminded of His grace this day, and the coming redemption that is found in Jesus Christ alone! Amen.
