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.
c. That’s why evolution is a philosophy and not science. God’s Word is closer to the truth than science!
D. NOAH’S FAITH NEEDED NO CONFIRMATION
1. Noah believed alone, and preached on though none followed him. There were no other believers but his family, eight in all.
2. We all know how inspirational it is to worship in a giant stadium and feel the power of great numbers in unity.
3. But how would you feel if you were alone? Or if you were surrounded by a society calling you a fool? If it daily pulled your faith into pieces, and held it up to ridicule?
4. Noah was not to be moved. His ark would float; the world would be destroyed; he was sure of it.
E. NOAH’S FAITH PERSISTED OVER TIME
1. Noah believed through 120 solitary years! Noah lived two of our lifetimes working and waiting.
2. His ark lay high and dry for a century and a quarter! How few could endure waiting so long!
3. We talk to people who’ve been praying for the last 6 months, and because the Lord hasn’t answered, they begin to doubt whether the Lord hears prayer at all.
4. We aren’t much like Noah; we can hardly believe for 120 days. A Christian praying for something for 20 years sounds daunting, but Noah prayed 6X that long and it still hadn’t occurred. But he believed!
II. FEAR WAS THE “MOVING” FORCE
A. THE 2 POWERS DIFFERENTIATED
1. Faith was the living principle, but fear was the moving power; for the text puts it, "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear."
2. Faith molded him, but fear moved him. How was this? "I thought," says one, "that perfect love casts out fear." Yes, fear of a certain sort; but there is another fear which perfect love embraces and nourishes.
B. WHAT KIND OF FEAR WAS IT?
1. NOT SERVILE FEAR, which cringes, but a realistic fear, which knew God’s power yet knew that God was also merciful to those who lay hold of His mercy.
2. A HOLY FEAR.
a. He feared Him as the King of kings and Lord of lords, and when he travelled through the wicked world Noah often said to himself, "I wonder the Judge of all the earth does not destroy these rebels, who dare to be so vile and violent."
b. When he saw their terrible blasphemies, murders, and oppression of one another, Noah had a holy fear that judgment must come. Thus the holy man of God passed the time of his sojourning here in fear.
c. How awful will the judgment be! It hasn’t come yet; it may not come for years; but, when the Lord begins to deal with men in justice, how will that day burn as an oven! "Who may abide the day of his coming?"
d. Noah by faith heard the cries of men and women swept from their feet by the torrent. He heard the cries of strong swimmers in their agony surrendering to death.
C. WHAT THAT FEAR COMPELLED HIM TO DO
1. Fear made Noah chop down the trees and square the timbers, and wield the axe and the hammer. Fear moved him to diligence and speed.
2. It made him ignore the observations of onlookers, and build for his life in brave defiance of the spirit of the age.
III. OBEDIENCE WAS THE RESULT
A. NOAH OBEYED THE LORD EXACTLY
The Bible repeatedly says, "Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him."
1. If you & I really have faith in God, we should show it by holy fear, which makes us zealous to leave nothing undone which is commanded of the Lord.
2. Noah watched the DETAILS. When God said to him, "Make an ark", he proceeded carefully. He used the right materials. He was careful to build it the way God said. The road to hell is thronged with people who didn’t think the details mattered.
B. NOAH OBEYED AT ALL COST
1. FINANCIALLY. To build the huge vessel called "the ark" must have cost Noah a great deal of money and labor. The patriarch was content to sink all his capital in this singular venture, to put all his eggs into that one basket. Do we do the same?
2. COST TO REPUTATION.
a. Noah obeyed despite daily scorn. The men of that generation mocked him and thought him insane. They castigated his religion as prehistoric. He was decried as "an old fossil."
b. All the genius of their age was employed to make Noah look like a fool, but Noah went on obeying God.
IV. THE RESULTS DID NOT FAIL TO COME
1. 120 years preaching, and no converts!
2. 120 years building a ship, and yet no water to float it!
3. 120 years warning people that God is about to destroy them, and yet no flood!
4. Surely, the good man's life must look like a failure. That’s like the people of today who point out that we’ve been talking about the Rapture for a 100 years, but it hasn’t happened.
5. Remember Church: God's time will come. The storm is gathering, and before long the deluge will descend to stop the mouths of the unbelievers!
A. HE WAS SAVED & HIS HOUSE
1. The first result was, He was saved and his house. Paul said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house" Acts 16:31.
2. Don’t be content with half the promise. Grasp firmly the words, "and your house."
B. HIS LIFE SHOWED GOD’S JUDGMENT WAS JUST
1. Heb. 11:7 says, “he condemned the world.” His righteous life and obedience stood in contrast to that of the people of his time.
2. He showed it was possible to believe God, that the evidence was sufficient for them, but they chose not to believe.
3. As the floods began to rise, the sight of the ark was a sign that condemned the mockers and unbelievers.
4. Many who had no fear of God -- when the water got knee-deep -- gathered around the ark door; but it couldn’t be opened, since God had shut it.
5. When the ark began to float, some of them fled to the sides of the mountains; and what a condemnation the sight of the floating ark was to them! The day of grace was past.
6. If they ever saw Noah look out of the ark, how the face which once pleaded with them would condemn them!
7. My friends, how often have I warned you to flee from the wrath to come! God will judge the world again -- not with water -- but with fire this time! Will you be ready?
8. It will come. If you have faith, then demonstrate it by surrendering your life to Jesus Christ and serving the Lord with all your heart!
C. HE BECAME THE HEIR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
1. The last thing Noah obtained by his faith was that he became the heir of God’s righteousness which is by faith.
2. For God said to Noah, "You have I seen righteous before me in this generation."
3. We can all receive that same righteousness promised through Jesus Christ. Just believe and receive!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: Savior and Judge
1. A young law school student was on his way to class on a cold, blustery day in January. As he was walking to class, he watched a young boy ice skating on a pond.
2. To his amazement, the ice broke and the boy fell through and was drowning before his eyes. Without hesitating, the young law student ran to his rescue.
3. He made his way with bravery to the edge of the hole and saved the boy from certain death.
4. Years went by and the law student became a very successful lawyer and was eventually promoted to judge.
5. One day, a dirty, long-haired man was brought before him for committing some serious crimes. Right away the judge remembered the man as the boy he saved the day at the pond.
6. He called for the man to approach the bench. When he did, the judge said, "One day a long time ago, I was your savior, but now I will have to be your judge.”
B. THE CALL
1. Today Jesus can be your Savior. If you delay, the day may come where He will only be able to be your Judge.
2. Are you here tonight and you want Jesus to save you? Do you want to be forgiven of your sins?
3. If you have faith, how many of you need a stronger fear of the Lord? You want to have the kind of faith that persists to the end?
4. How many of you need to be more careful in your obedience to God? To obey God in the details of your life?
[This a reworked is version C.H. Spurgeon’s sermon on Heb. 11:7]
