Please turn in your Bibles, first to Genesis chapter 5. We're going to be reading a number of verses related to Jonah. Children, you could draw a picture of Jonah and what he does. But also, I'm going to be mentioning something that is found around most homes, and that might be something you could draw as well, and you can listen for that. Genesis 5, 28 and 29. Lambeck lived one hundred and eighty two years and became the father of a son. And he called his name Noah, saying, This one shall give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed. And then going on later on into chapter six. Then the Lord, verse five, the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth. and that are every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry. They've made man on the earth, and it was grieved in his heart. And Lord said, I will blot out man, whom I've created from the face of the land. For man to animals, to creepy things, to birds of the sky. For I'm sorry that I've made them. But no, found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And then going on to read this. No, we're safe. No, it's a righteous man, blameless in his time. No, walk with God and going on to chapter eight, verse twenty. We have the flood in between. And then there's no in his family, leave the ark. Verse twenty says, But Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and every clean bird and offering bird offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled the smoothing aroma and the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth. I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, See, time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the terror of you shall be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky, and everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are given. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And surely I require your lifeblood. From every beast I will require it, and from every man, from every one's brother, I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God, he made man. And as for you, be fruitful and multiply, populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it. Then God spoke to Noah and said to him and to his sons with him, saying, Now behold, I myself to establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and every living creature that is with you. the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that comes out of the earth, even every beast of the earth. And I establish my covenant with you, and all the flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood destroy the earth." And God said, this is a sign of the covenant which I'm making between me and you and every living creature that is with you. for all successive generations. I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come about when I bring a cloud over the earth, and the bow shall be seen in the cloud. I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all the flesh. And never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow and the cloud, when the bow is of the cloud, then I will look upon it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. And God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. Then going to the book of Isaiah, a couple of verses in chapter 54, on page 880 in the Pew Bible. And God is making a promise not to distress the land and his people. As you read, and as he gives this promise, he gives a reminder of what he's done and the promise that he's made before and how it has not failed. For this, and this is a new promise that he gives him, is like the days of Noah to me, when I swore that the waters of Noah should not flood the earth again. So I've sworn that I will not be angry with you, nor will I rebuke you. for the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, but my loving kindness will not be removed from me and my covenant of peace shall not be shaken. So the Lord who has compassion on you and the turning of the New Testament Hebrews chapter eleven. Fourteen thirty. And this is the chapter of faith And verse seven says, by faith, Noah, being warned by God 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. And finally, going on to First Peter chapter two. It's fourteen forty four. Verses four to nine. For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment. He did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. And if you condemn the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to having made them an example of those who would live ungodly to hear after thereafter. And he's rescued righteous lot oppressed by the central conduct of unprincipled men. For by what he saw and heard, that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day and night with their lawless deeds. Then the Lord knows how to rescue the gathered from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment. The Bible is the most published, most sold book in world history, and every year it continues to be a bestseller. It's so much dominates, but it's never put on the bestseller list because it would always be put in first place, and you'd never see anything else except the Bible in first place. And so it's much read. Many people have copies of it, but one of the things about it is it's often poorly understood. Some would regard the Bible, much as they would a newspaper. There's a bunch of stories in it, some incidents that are recorded there, and they're description given, but they seem to be random, and just sort of put together. And as you go through, some are very exciting. And you read the story of David going up against Goliath, or you read about Daniel as he's being thrown in the lion's den, and if you've never read them before, they're exciting, and you want to know what the outcome is. And some are maybe terrifying as you read of the destruction of Jerusalem, or as you read through the lists and the Pentateuch, some of the sins that are worthy of capital punishment, of being put to death if you do them. Other things seem to just be a lot of detail. And maybe an interesting detail of that, the design of the temple and the tabernacle, and some of it is very interesting, of what's in the holy of holy places, but then you get in the description of the pomegranates and how many and all this, how they're to be made, or which tribe is to be located on which side of the tabernacle as they travel around. And so, as people look at it, some of them would look at it as a newspaper. There are all kinds of stories, some of which maybe interest me, some of which don't. And they're all just sort of put together. And it doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason. But as we would understand that the Bible has one author, that God inspired the whole thing, that it would have one message throughout. that there's a structure that holds the Bible together. It's not merely a bunch of stories that happen to occur on the same day and are put in the newspaper. But there's a well-designed plan to it. There is a truth that flows through it. And the structure, and those who are in the adult class should know this, should really know this, the structure is around the covenants. The covenants are what ties all of the Bible together, the Old Testament and the New Testament. First, the covenant of works found in Genesis 1 and 2 and part of 3, and then the covenant of grace, which begins in the latter portion of chapter 3 of Genesis and goes throughout And so, as we would look at the Bible, we need to understand this flow, this covenant of grace that runs through most of the Bible. And we have, as it were, a puzzle that's being developed more and more. Maybe some are familiar with sodokos that appear in the newspaper and other places where You're first given a few clues, and then you fill in more, and you fill in more, until at the end you have all the numbers filled in. Well, as we look at Scripture, we have this covenant of grace revealed, a little in Genesis 3, revealed more in the story of Noah, and then added on with Abraham, and then we could go on and on. And so we have, as we look at Noah, a revealing of more of what God is doing, of how His covenant would be working and being developed as a relationship with man. And at the heart of the covenant is, of course, a relationship between God and His people. And we see that being expressed here in terms of Noah. And there are six features of that covenant of grace that I'd like to highlight for us this evening. First of all, that the covenant, all that we see here is grace. It begins with God's grace. It all rests upon the gracious character of God, until this covenant and the way it's being expressed is all due to God. Now, I mentioned Genesis 6, 9, and it talks about Noah. And Noah's an outstanding man. He's a righteous man, blameless of his time, and he walked with God. Here is someone special, as he's listed and described in the Old Testament. as someone who is outstanding. But we need to notice the context in which we find that verse, because it comes immediately after verse 8. It says, Now Noah found favor. But literally, the Hebrew word is grace. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And so as we see Noah being described, he's first described in terms of grace, of God's grace being upon him. And then we see that, really in the next verse, what the results are of that grace. Noah was not self-righteous. He did not merit salvation any more than any of us do. He wasn't saved from the flood because he merited it in some way. But he had, as you look at Hebrews 11, the righteousness which comes by faith. And we need to notice, as he's described there in verse 8, but Noah found favor with that word, but. There's a contrast. And the contrast is the verses that go before that describe the world, the day in which he was living. Verse 5, the wickedness of men was great on the earth. And then to kind of summarize, every intent was only evil continually. Man had given themselves to doing evil, to being evil. Violence prevailed. Lust was unchecked. Corruption of human heart and mind was complete. And if you look down a little further at verses 11 and 12, it says, there in Genesis 6. Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth and behold, and notice that word behold, he doesn't say underline this, take notice of this fact. Behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh have corrupted their way upon the earth. Now, ever since the fall, mankind, men and women, had been sinners. But what these verses are pointing out is that men had dropped to an all-time low in terms as a corruption. It's described by Jesus in Matthew 24, 38, as Noah's generation was a generation of godlessness, of selfishness, of pleasure-seeking. And we might say, well, if man's a sinner, can he get worse? Well, it's possible to be even worse in that state of sin. And I understand that in certain places in Africa, where there are lions, the tribesmen are rightly afraid of lions and what they can do. But if they become aware that there's a lion who has tasted human blood and human flesh, has acquired an appetite, they know that it's even worse. And they'll immediately stop everything to hunt down that lion, because that lion has become so debased, so horrifying, that all it will seek for prey are humans. And they know that it's become worse. in the hearts of men and being described here are like that. They're not only sinful, but they're filled with wickedness, given to us. And in that generation where the wickedness was so great, God puts His grace, His favor upon one man, Noah. Now Noah, being the seed of the woman, coming from, ultimately, from Adam and Eve. And even having that promise, that one who's getting rest, that look that this is, God has made this promise, that looking, would He be the one? Now, He's not the one that brings that rest, but He is the one that God determines to use to produce that seed that's coming to produce that rest that eternal rest that Jesus Christ. So God say no one is family. We can also see God saving action being described in chapter seven verse sixteen. As you're reading along, you come across this of Lord closed it talking about the arc behind Noah. And it may strike you as strange, why did he do that? All the animals and Noah and his family enter the ark, but it's God who closed the door and seals it up. Well, it's really a gracious act on the part of God of sealing Noah in there to be able to preserve and save him. Because what would have happened once the rain started? Well, eventually the floodwaters would have gotten to the extent where, you know, the people are used to it, but they kept rising. And it would still be raining. And the floodwaters would be getting higher and higher. And the places of dry ground would be fewer and fewer. And even those would begin disappearing. And maybe you're in a land where the water is now up to your waist. and you remember, or maybe it was one of your daughters that went on that ark, and you remember that ark, and you wait over to it, and you start pounding on it. And Noah would want to open the door, would want to bring in as many as he could, and how many could he safely bring in and be part of that group to trust him? How would you choose in that situation? And of course, with the lawlessness and the violence, what would happen is that no one in his family would have been killed and others would have tried to take their place. And so God, in sealing them in, was protecting them from that danger, was keeping them safe. We're setting out outside for destruction all those who have given themselves over to wickedness. It's an act of grace. God's grace is also seen in chapter 8, verse 1, where we said, but God remembered no one. Now, that word remember is used here about God carries much more meaning in our normal English thinking of remembering, and I might say I remember my parents, or you might say, well, I remember 9-11 and what happened on that day. When God remembers someone, it means that he thinks of them and intervenes on their behalf, because he's committed himself to them. And thus, as God remembers Noah, he is remembering him, intervening on behalf of Noah and his family, keeping them safely in the flood. And even as this ark would be full of ground, the currents What would be going on would be tremendous, but God had committed himself to Noah. Where did he do that? Well, if you go back to chapter 6, verse 18, God says, I will establish my covenant with you and you shall enter the ark. God had committed himself at that point to be the covenant God of Noah and to preserve him and to preserve alive that remnant of humanity. a covenant that was reaffirmed and expanded in chapter 9, verse 9 that we read, where God says, Behold, I myself. But it's really, literally, I. Behold, I. It's emphasizing God is the one who's doing this. I establish my covenant with you. And again, it's all the action of God. It's God's covenant. He establishes it with Noah and his descendants. God takes initiative and God does it. It isn't that God and Noah had entered into the covenant, or that Noah had come up with a covenant relationship with God who had done it, and fulfills the covenant. Well, secondly, we see that God's grace showed in Noah's life in terms of a life that was changed. A life that produces change in conduct and character. We can see this clearly as we look at Noah in Hebrews 11, 7. It tells us really, as God's grace entered into Noah, he became a man of faith. A man who acted according to his faith. And so we read there, by faith Noah in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household. Think what it would have meant for Noah to build an ark roughly the size of a football stadium. To build that massive boat in the middle of dry land would have taken, you know, incredible hard work. You know, how many weeks and months and maybe years did he have to construct it? Think about the outlay of materials and the cost that would have involved. and acquiring all the wood and the other things that would be used. The courage that he would need as he would be in a generation of mockers that would be ridiculing him for what he was doing. But especially think of his faith. That he had to believe God and he had to believe what God had said. Being warned, we're told in 11.7, by God about the things not yet seen. The flood hadn't even begun. The first drop of rain hadn't fallen. But God had warned him. And Noah believed God. And Noah acted upon that Word of God. There's a saying that goes something like, plan ahead. Because it hadn't started raining when Noah began the ark. But I think a better way of saying it is to trust God's Word. Because when God spoke, Noah began. And the rain hadn't even started. But he believed God and started working on the ark. We also can see Noah's character As he's described in chapter 6 verse 9, which you've already mentioned, comes after verse 8. After he finds grace with God, then we see the results of that grace. That Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time, and he walked with God. God's grace was working effectively in him. And that's going to be true for anyone. When God's grace comes into your life, you're going to be changed. You're no longer going to be the same person. Noah was a righteous man. And it's not saying that he was a sinless man, but rather a godly man who lived a consistent life before God. And just as we do today, it was by grace that Noah was regarded as righteous before God. He was blameless, a perfect that word could mean really well-balanced or well-rounded, that in all aspects of his life there was a living according to God's grace. No great lapses in his character and who he was. He walked with God, and he's used early in Genesis of Enoch, and it points to a pious man who lives a godly life in this world. And we can paraphrase it by saying that Noah was a saved man, saved by the grace of God, who showed it by mature Christian character and conduct. And so Noah is described as being faithful in his generation, despite the lawlessness and the vileness and the sin that was around him. And I wonder if we would be described as that same sort of faithfulness. That as we live in a generation that is often very cynical and skeptical, that is very prone to evil, do we have the courage to look to God and to trust him? Well, thirdly, we see that having been given God's grace, Noah preached good news to his 2 Peter 2 verse 5 says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. A preacher whose message would have focused on righteousness and the need for righteousness because God's judgment was coming upon that generation. And how would he have done that? Well, of course, his life would have spoken volumes. Here in a corrupt generation, a generation that's given over to violence and wickedness, was a man who was upright, a man who walked with integrity. He would have stood out, he would have shone forth in the darkness of his generation. And his actions would have spoken loudly too, as he's building this ark. And the natural curiosity of those who would be near him would be that, Noah, what are you doing? And it would give him an opportunity to point out that judgment was coming. But even more so, as you look at 1 Peter, as it talks about preacher, that's a word that could be translated, the idea of herald. That official spokesman who brings an official message from someone higher up. And it implies the communicating of God's truth to those around. And as Noah would have known of the coming judgments, how could he not help but want to share with the families of his daughter-in-laws, of his neighbors, of the people he met, that there is a judgment coming. You need to be ready for it. You need to turn away. You need to be seeking after God. And how true that should be for us. As we have experienced God's grace, we would want to be saying to our co-workers, and to our friends, and our neighbors, and maybe even to our family members, you need to turn away from your worthiness and seek after God's righteousness. No, he did not have a huge impact on his generation. And we may not either, but he was faithful in preaching of God's righteousness. Fourthly, we see that grace in Noah produced the start of a worshiping community. As you go to chapter 8, verse 20, it says that Noah built an ark to the Lord and built an altar to the Lord. It's the first time the word altar is used. in the Old Testament. And literally, it's a place of slaughter. It's a place where the animal sacrifices that were at the heart of the Old Testament worship were to take place. And we see as he begins this worship that God is pleased with Noah's act and with the motivation that prompted it. And think about the time. It comes right after Noah and his family leave the ark. We have essentially a new start to the human race, a new beginning. And what's the first act of that human race as it begins again? It's an act of worship. Noah would think about what God had done for him with salvation. that he and his family enjoyed a chosen terms of worship, profound and deep worship, considering he took one of the seven clean animals. Now, the Hebrew says, literally, when the animals, the clean animals entered, they entered seven, seven. That could be understood as seven females and seven males, but it could also mean seven of each kind, seven sheep, seven oxen, and all the rest. And I think it's maybe likely the second. And what an extraordinary thing it is, that you have these unclean animals and there's one pair of them, and as you have these clean animals, there'd be seven of them, you have three pairs, and then you have this extra one, for some reason. And why? Well, God was providing for that time when no one in his family would leave the yard. He was providing the sacrifice that would be necessary to be worshipped the way the Lord would want to worship it. And of course, I would point us to Jesus Christ, who is the sacrifice, who is the one who enables us to worship. Well, fifthly, God's grace can also be seen in God's covenant promises that are given to Noah. First, we can see it in terms of repeating what is called the creation mandate, to fill the earth. 9-1, and he repeats it down a little later also, God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? like in chapter 1 and chapter 2, to Adam and Eve. And we might wonder, given the great wickedness, the great judgments that have taken place, has God's purpose for mankind somehow been diminished, somehow been changed? But here it is being reaffirmed. And he goes on to give other commands, and especially about the blood, and I don't have time to deal with that. But God again finds himself in a covenant, never again to destroy all living flesh by a flood. And he gives the rainbows a sign of that covenant, a promise that he gives. And as we read there, it's really a covenant of peace, a covenant of preservation, and that's brought out in Isaiah 54. And as it mentions at the end of chapter 8, the record, the rarity of the days, of night following day, of months and seasons and years, all point to God's faithfulness, to His covenant promise. When we wake up in the morning tomorrow and the sun comes up, it's a sign of God's covenant being fulfilled yet another time. nor becomes an heir. Hebrews 11, 7, he became an heir of the righteousness, which is according to faith. Of course, as we look at the New Testament, we find that heir that it becomes, you know, the things in which he's an heir are all the things that we have in Jesus Christ, especially eternal life, adoption into God's family, a future being with God, in heaven forever. These are things which are given to us through Jesus Christ. In Hebrews 1 and 2, it talks about how Jesus Christ is heir of all things. Everything good thing has been given to Jesus Christ, and as we're joined to him, we can be co-heirs and receive those things. Noah became an heir by faith in the Promised One. we become an heir as we trust in Jesus Christ. Lastly, the covenant which we see here being established was guaranteed by Jesus Christ. We can see that if we go to Isaiah 54. If you look at verse 9, that verse that we read a couple of times, it uses that word for. And there's a comparison, really identifying two things and saying, just as I poured my wrath and promised not to do it, I'm again promising not to pour out my wrath ever again. And the point that's being made, just as God had one time sworn not to again flood the And Noah's day, he again swears he's never going to do to his people what he's planning to do in Isaiah's day and later on with the coming of the enemy to destroy, to take them captive, to burn Jerusalem and all the rest. And we could ask why? On what basis? Why do we know that these things are so certain? where you look back at Isaiah 54. You need to go back to Isaiah 53. As a beautiful chapter, what Christ is all about. The grace that's going to be founded in. And ultimately, all the promises of Scripture, those promises that are found in Chapter 54, go back to the suffering servant and what he's accomplished. The promises that were made generations before to Noah really go back to that suffering servant and what he has done and rest upon the work of Jesus Christ. Lastly, we see that God's grace. Is in the midst of judgment that as we look, we can see simultaneously, at the same time, both judgment and salvation taking place. The story of Noah demonstrates both judgment and salvation at the same time. The salvation of Noah and his family and judgment of the world and its wickedness. And as we read in 2 Peter 2, he gave several of how God could preserve. The Lord knows how to rescue the godly and keep the unrighteous for the day of judgment. It's not too hard. It's not too difficult for God to do both those things simultaneously. And sometimes in this world we can wonder what's going on. Are the righteous winning out? And the answer is no. God is shown time after time. He can preserve the righteous and will judge the wicked. And it, of course, points us to the second coming of Christ, that time that will be a salvation, a complete deliverance for the people of God and the judgment falling upon the wicked. And we live in many ways in a world similar to that of Noah, a time filled with corruption, a time which boundaries are being torn down and anything goes. And so we see greed being praised, sexual perversions of all types abounding, ungodliness becoming the cultural norm, abuse rampant, violence becoming commonplace so much so that as we hear about events at Virginia Tech, the questions being asked in the media is, are we becoming numb to a time when thirty-two people are being killed? We need to be heralds of righteousness. We need to be assured that God knows how to save in such a time and rest upon the salvation that looks forward from the time of Noah to the time of Christ and to the world, which he did as a suffering servant this spring. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for the many lessons that we see in the life of Noah, about your grace, that as he, in many ways, was the first one to really receive a new administration of your grace, of that promise, that we can see how you sovereignly bestowed your grace upon him, what it meant in terms of his life and the way you lived. We pray for that same grace to be active in our lives. That we would be men and women who would be upright. Who would be blameless in our generation. Who would be known for walking with you. And for preaching to the world that needs to hear of your righteousness. That there is a judgment to come. And all need to flee to Christ. in order not to be shut out. Your kingdom to your glory. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.