You say, are you righteous?
Yes, I am. I am righteous. I say this not facetiously or not with pride. I am as righteous as Jesus Christ Himself. You say, is that a practical thing in your life, that you're as holy as He is?
No, it is not. It is simply that the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to me by faith. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Scripture is clear. If you say you believe in God, but you don't obey His commands, then your faith is dead. Put simply, faith leads to obedience, and one of the greatest examples of that principle, and the subject of John's lesson today, is Noah. See how Noah's faith saved him from a worldwide flood, and how you can be sure that your faith will save you from God's coming judgment as John continues his study, The Power of Faith. Now, before we get to today's lesson, there is a letter we received that I want to get to.
It's a reminder of how God is using our Bible teaching not only directly in the lives of those who hear it, but also indirectly in the lives of many others. You've got that note there, John. Please go ahead and read it. I'm glad to do that, Phil.
This is from Dave, and he writes, Thank you, John, and grace to you, support staff. I found the Gospel According to God book and your audio teachings on Isaiah 53 over a year ago. I pored over the book and repeatedly listened to the messages following along in my Bible.
Each time I would get new nuggets of truth regarding our wonderful Savior. When the time came for my church's small group facilitator to ask for study ideas, I was quick to suggest the videos of the Gospel According to God series. The facilitator thought that watching the sermons might not work well for our older adult group, so I offered to teach the material myself by dividing it into digestible pieces.
We have almost completed our study. The group has been growing closer to Christ through this. It has been a wonderful experience to leverage your teaching for this purpose.
Thank you. My friends and I are better off for it, and he signs Dave. Well, thank you, Dave. Thank you for being enterprising enough to figure out a way to get the opportunity to teach the tremendous truths of Isaiah 53. And how wonderful, Dave, that you are an example of what we believe everyone should do who hears the teaching of the Word of God, and that is to find a way to pass it on. I've always said I want to teach the Bible in such a way that whoever is listening can get a deep enough understanding of the text to be able to pass it on to someone else.
You're doing that. You're having a direct and powerful influence on people's lives, obviously for eternity. And very often that influence is a multiplied influence for us. Our radio broadcasts, books, MP3 downloads, commentaries, and more are connecting people the world over, people like Dave, with verse-by-verse Bible teaching that they in turn are using to strengthen others in their families and their churches. So we need your prayers. Thank you for supporting us in that way.
It's vital. And if God leads and enables you to send a gift, know that we are careful stewards of what He provides through friends like you. The Lord is sustaining our ministry through the faithfulness of folks that love the truth and believe we've been faithful to that truth. So thank you for standing with us. That's right, friend. Thank you for supporting us as we spread biblical truth near and far.
And I'll give you more information on how to partner with us before we end today. But now, to continue unpacking Hebrews chapter 11, here again is John MacArthur. Noah illustrates faith that is obedient. He is a classic of all classics of believing God, of saying, I believe God and then doing something to prove it. His faith was not dead because it had works. Noah did what he couldn't see. He obeyed God and he did it because he believed in God's Word and he treated it with great reverence.
And you know something? He believed in God's Word about judgment and he believed in God's Word about promise and he believed in God's Word about everything, apparently. He built that thing like it was supposed to be built. He obeyed God to the very letter.
He took it all and did it all. It says in verse 22, according to all that God commanded him, so did he. He didn't pick and choose his points of obedience. Spurgeon said this, I quote, He who does not believe that God will punish sin will not believe that he will pardon it through atoning blood. There are some people who want to believe God about promise but don't want to believe Him about judgment.
Noah believed Him about both. Spurgeon goes on to say this, I charge you who profess the Lord not to be unbelieving with regard to the terrible threatenings of God to the ungodly. Believe the threat even though it should chill your blood.
Believe though nature shrinks from the overwhelming doom. For if you do not believe, the act of disbelieving God at one point will drive you to disbelieve Him upon the other points of revealed truth. And so Noah believed God that not only was he going to receive a promise but the whole world was going to be destroyed. He believed both.
He believed God fully. The first thing then that validifies his faith is he believed and responded to God's Word. The second thing, he rebuked the world and this is a very simple truth. Look at it in verse 7, it's in Hebrews 11, 7. It says this, Noah being warned of God of things not yet as seen, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house by which he condemned the world. That's the second thing, he rebuked the world. I know he was a man of faith because he was different. The characteristic of the unbelieving world is just that, they're unbelieving.
Whenever you find the man who believes, he is different. Noah was a preacher, did you know that? You say, what did he preach? I'll tell you, I'll give you a sermon outline.
It's very, very simple. In 2 Peter chapter 2, I like this. For if God spared not the angels at sin but cast them down to hell, delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment and spared not the old world but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness.
Now you say, wait a minute. What was his sermon? You know what his sermon was?
One hundred plus years building a boat. That was his sermon. Every time they saw him, every time they heard him chop a tree down, every time they saw him walking along with planks on his back, every man and he must have hired some who worked for him was hearing his sermon, judgment is coming, judgment is coming, judgment is coming, judgment is coming. And I'm sure after years and years and years they became totally indifferent to his sermon. He preached with his life. Every time he felled a tree, every time he sawed a plank, every spike he drove, preached the sermon, judgment is coming, believe God for refuge.
For 120 years there wasn't any response to his sermon. Yet he rejected discouragement and by faith he went on with a living rebuke of his world. He rebuked his world just because he was a man of faith. The world doesn't believe God.
If you do, you'll rebuke it by just believing God. It's amazing to think that I'm sure Noah had many of the men in the town that he paid to work with him because his sons and he could never have carried the massive kind of planks and things that would have been needed for the beams and other things in that ship. He must have had some help and it's interesting to think that the men who were helping to build that thing never were secured in it. Just as those men assisted Noah and his sons in building the ark which was to save the human race from total destruction, they took the money and they perished in the flood.
So today and always there are people assisting in building the church by their labor and by their gifts who are lost and will perish in the doom that comes because they are not secured in Christ. But old Noah preached the message. In Genesis chapter 6, look at his life in contrast, verse 5, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Now that's a bad situation. They had nothing but evil going all the time. God looked down and said, this is the verdict, they're rotten, that settles it. Human eyes can see the wicked actions of men but only God can tell what goes on in his heart. Verse 5 again says, every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Not only his deeds but he was vile on the inside. And God gives us the verdict right there. Only God could write a sentence like verse 5 because only God could say, as Ezekiel 11 5 says, I know the things that come into your mind. God reads the heart. Verse 6, and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart. Now God is not taken by surprise, nor does God really change his mind.
But here you have an anthropomorphism or you have a statement about God in human terms. From a human standpoint, it appeared as if he repented. 1 Samuel 15 29 says, the glory of Israel, a name for God, will not lie or repent, he is not a man that he should change his mind. And so from God's eyes nothing changed, but humanly it appeared as though God had changed his plan. And now he decided to destroy men. I like the fact too that it was not only his justice that was offended in verse 6, but his heart was grieved. Don't you like the fact that God is a personal feeling God? Verse 7, and the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them.
Oh, what a terrible, terrible resolution. The race was largely demon possessed. I believe that the sons of God that came down and cohabitated with the daughters of men were none other than fallen angels, demons, and God came in destruction against that generation. Go to verse 12, and God looked upon the earth and behold, it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
Watch that. They had corrupted his way, which means they knew it and they corrupted it. Romans 1, right? When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God but were foolish, vain in their imaginations, worshipped the creature more than the Creator, turned their backs on God. They corrupted His way. Before you impugn God, remember that God gave them every chance, every chance. But they went their own way.
The shortest definition of sin in the world is two words, I will. And man went his own way. Verse 13, and God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
I'm going to wipe this thing out, God says. They've all gone their own way. Isaiah 53, 6, all we like sheep have what?
Gone astray and we've turned every man... Where? To his own way. The world was rotten and God said, I'm going to judge it. You know, throughout the Bible we find God telling His special people, His chosen people about coming judgment.
Amos 3, 7 is a wonderful verse that says, Surely the Lord does nothing without revealing His secrets to His servants the prophets. God inevitably would tell somebody that it was coming, a gentle and yet a forceful kind of reminder and warning. You say, well it still appears to me that God is awfully tough to just come down and wipe out the whole world. I mean, it seems a little bit like that's the end of mercy and His justice has all of a sudden overwhelmed Him. But it isn't so.
Listen to this. The fact that God's time of patience will end...watch it... and that He will strike out injustice is the only hope for a sin-cursed world, you see? If God doesn't act to destroy, then we face an eternity of sinfulness. People say, well how could God come in judgment? How could Jesus come in judgment?
My friends, that's my hope. It's my hope that sin gets judged. I don't want to live in a world eternally sinful and vile.
I want the world that Jesus Christ has promised. God is holy and just, thus He will destroy. For me, He has already destroyed my sin in Christ. But don't you ever think for a minute that there isn't mercy and grace and destruction and judgment.
There is. Barnhouse said, and I quote, "'Hell is as much a part of the love story of God as heaven is.'" I don't want to live in a continual earth of sinfulness. But God's judgment is so slow, He's so patient.
Watch this, this is a point that just thrills me. Look at verse 21 of chapter 5. And Enoch lived sixty and five years, just a kid, and he begot Methuselah, he had a son.
That's great. Now you say, what's the significance of Methuselah? Well, his name is significant.
Listen to this. His name means when he is dead, it shall be sent. Hang on to that one.
That's worth at least a quarter. When he is dead, it shall be sent. Isn't that an interesting thing to name your son? When he is dead, it shall be sent. In that name is divine revelation. It was as though God said to Enoch, you see that baby Enoch? That baby you just had? The world will last as long as he lives.
Are you with me? The world will last as long as he lives for when he is dead, then it shall be sent. What shall? The great deluge and destruction that came. So the world was to last as long as the son of Enoch lived. 1 Peter 3, 10 says this, 3.20 says, the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. What was God waiting for? He was waiting for Methuselah to die. And God said, I'm not going to send judgment by the very name of Methuselah until he dies. How long did Methuselah live? Longer than any man in the history of the world ever lived. Does that tell you a little bit about God's grace?
Does it? 969 years. So before you impugn the justice of God, look again. He was so merciful. It should impress us to know His grace is that way.
What an exhibition of mercy. He waited almost one thousand years for men to change. They only went further and further and further away, you see. And God knows when a man crosses the line, doesn't He? God knows that. You see, but they never had a chance to know the truth.
Oh, yes they did. Romans 1.19 says in verse 20 also that there's enough knowledge of God in a man, there's enough knowledge of God from the visible creation so that every man is without...what?...excuse. They had the revelation of a Redeemer in Genesis 3.15, the promised seed of the woman to bruise the serpent's head. The institution of the expiatory sacrifice as the way to approach God was already given from Abel on. They knew how to come to God. The mark of Cain placed on Cain was a constant reminder of what God thought about sin. Adam lived 930 years himself and spent perhaps most of that telling men the truth about what sin brought to him. The preaching of Enoch was warning. The preaching of Noah was warning. Genesis chapter 6 verse 3 tells us the Spirit was striving with men. Don't tell me they didn't know they knew.
They just became hard and rejected. So it was this wicked black world against which the life of Noah stands as a shining white condemnation. You don't know how black the black is until you put white against it. And the man of faith stands up and he rebukes his world by his faith alone. Alcibiades, who was a brilliant but rather wild young man of Athens, used to say this to Socrates, Socrates, I hate you because every time I meet you, you show me what I am. There's a danger in goodness, you know that? For in the light of it, evil stands condemned. And just living the life of faith in deeds like Noah, working the work of faith is a living rebuke to a corrupt world. Noah threw into bold relief by his faith the unbelief of the human race and they laughed at him. And they still do. You know something shocking? Matthew 24, 37 it says this, but as the days of Noah were, so shall also be the coming of the Son of Man.
You know, it's not going to be different. What were the characteristics of Noah's day? Well, they laughed at the preaching of the gospel.
It's coming. In Noah's day there was a multiplication of men. Genesis 6, 1, came to pass when men began to multiply in the face of the earth. Some say that that's duplicated today in the population explosion and so thus were near the coming of the Son of Man. In Noah's day, God was dealing patiently with a sinful world and so is God dealing patiently in grace now. In Noah's day, God had His preachers and He does today. In Noah's day, God's Spirit was striving with men and yet it said God's Spirit shall not always strive with man, with the striving was a threat of the Spirit's removal. So there is today as the Spirit is here but the promise of 2 Thessalonians 2 is that the Spirit of God, the Restrainer, shall be taken away. In Noah's day, God's message was rejected, it is today. But in Noah's day there was a remnant of found grace, there is today. And somebody said, in Noah's day Enoch was miraculously translated, a picture of the rapture of the saints before the judgment. In Noah's day there was demon activity on the earth, there is today.
It's no different. God's going to come in judgment, not by water, but by what? Fire. So we see the man of faith and we know he had real faith because one, he responded to God's Word and two, he rebuked the world and his faith stood out as a shining light against the black world, thirdly and last. His faith was real because he received God's righteousness.
Oh, I love the end of that verse in Hebrews. Let me just read it to you, it says this, he became the heir of the righteousness which is by faith. There's only one way to get the righteousness of God, how's that?
What is it? By faith. Can you do it on your own? Can you drum up your own righteousness? Sure you can. You know what it is?
Filthy rags. There's only one way a man can ever enter into God's presence and that's when he has God's righteousness. The only way you can have the very righteousness of God is by faith.
Now if you want to work for your own, you'll get it but it's worthless. Noah is the first man in the Bible to be called righteous. He's called a just man. In the Greek it's the same word, dikaios, righteous. The only way you can ever become righteous is by faith. So if Noah...if it says of Noah he became the heir of righteousness, there's only one way to get righteousness, by faith, then he must have been a man of faith, right? So the third way we know he was a man of faith was he was declared righteous. You say, are you righteous? Yes I am. I am righteous.
I say this not facetiously or not with pride, I am as righteous as Jesus Christ Himself. You say, oh, MacArthur, that ends it all. That is true. That is true. No matter what my wife says, that is true. You say, is that a practical thing in your life that you're as holy as he is?
No, it is not. It is simply that the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to me by faith. Tremendous principle, oh, tremendous. The Jews ran around trying to establish their own righteousness and Paul says to them in Romans chapter 3 verse 20, listen to what he said, therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. You can't get there doing it that way. Verse 21, but now the righteousness of God.
What about it? Verse 22, it is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe, you see. Now if you look through rose-colored glasses, everything has a rosy hue.
If you look through blue glasses, everything looks blue. You know how God looks at you? He looks at you through the holiness of Jesus Christ and you come out holy. God was looking at Noah through the glasses that revealed the holiness of Jesus Christ. He sees every believer the same way in Christ. So you see, Noah illustrates the life and the walk and the work of faith in every way. He is a model of a man of faith.
You know something? God needs more men and more women like Noah. God helped me to be like him, to really believe God. To really obey God, no matter how bizarre or how strange or how difficult or how out of my routine the command might be.
God helped me to obey. I want my faith to obey God's word, no matter how difficult. I want my faith to stand as a rebuke to a corrupt world.
I want my faith to be that which establishes me in the sight of God as righteous. Beloved judgment is coming. I stand here today as an out of context Noah, saying Jesus is coming.
And I'm not sure we have anywhere near 120 years. And He's coming in great judgment. Judgment's coming. Now you can believe it or not believe it.
You can count your life the way it is and keep going that way or you can change. It's up to you. Judgment is coming. The only security is refuge in the ark who is Jesus Christ.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you that we've learned a little about faith from Noah, that we only come to you on the basis of faith. We have nothing of ourselves to offer you, but in ourselves we are valueless apart from Christ. God make us people of faith.
Oh God, may we really believe you and live like it. Even those of us who are Christians, seeing that we know these things, what manner of persons ought we to be? Oh, in all holiness and blamelessness. Looking to and hasting unto the great day when our Lord comes.
Even found in Him without spot, without blemish, living in peace. God help us to so order our lives like Noah did. Help us to spend ourselves doing the things that will get us ready and the rest of the world ready for the day that judgment comes. Even we think of Paul who said, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Oh Lord, help us to live with the real knowledge that judgment comes. Father we pray also for those who may not know Jesus Christ, that they might turn their life over to Him, that they might put simple, trusting faith in Him, that they might enter into the ark of safety, they might live by faith.
Oh, how good it is to believe you. You've proven yourself worthy of faith. May no one go who hasn't put their faith in you. Our Father, we pray speak to hearts and that you'll move people out and forward, that they might really acknowledge you. Father, speak to all of our hearts, do your perfect work, we thank you, Jesus. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current study is titled, The Power of Faith.
Going back to the letter John read before the lesson from a man named Dave. If you, like Dave, have been encouraged by John's verse-by-verse teaching, remember that this broadcast is reaching people in communities like yours because of the support of listeners like you. To partner with us, contact us today. You can donate online at gty.org, or you can express your support when you call us at 800-55-GRACE. Again, that's 800-55-GRACE, and for regular mail, write to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. And thank you for standing with us as you're able. Thank you especially for your prayers. And keep in mind, we want to hear how John's verse-by-verse teaching is encouraging you. Perhaps John's current series is helping to deepen your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, or you know someone who has repented of their sins and turned to faith in Christ.
We love hearing stories like those. You can email your letter to letters at gty.org, that's our email address one more time, letters at gty.org, or for U.S. mail, you can write to P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. Now for John MacArthur and our entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You Television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378, and be here tomorrow as John shows you what lessons you should apply from the exemplary faith of Abraham. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
