How evident is your faith? Do your neighbors see it? Does your family Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah considers the faith of Noah. And how it impacted the world around him and the people closest to him.
You'll discover why Noah is among the heroes named in what's dubbed the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. Here's David with the conclusion of his message, the performance of faith. You know, Noah is one of my favorite people in the Old Testament. I have preached numerous sermons on his life, and I'm always amazed at the faithfulness and stalwartness of this man who for many years preached without any response at all. And it was only after the rain started that people began to listen to him a little bit, but before that nobody paid any attention to him.
And if you're a preacher and you do what I do, you think about that for a moment. Would I continue to preach if I came to my pulpit every week and realized that nobody was listening to me? What a wonderful testimony it is to Noah's faithfulness and his determination and his willingness to be obedient to God no matter what was happening around him. The story of Noah, as you know, is a great illustration of salvation. We'll get into that today, and I hope you will follow along carefully and let this Old Testament story percolate in your heart and bring blessing to you as it has to me.
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When you ask for this resource, we'll send it to you. Right away. Once again, the title of the resource is Where to Go in the Bible When. It's because of what you do that we do what we do, and we thank God for each and every one of you who are a part of this great family. God bless you as you listen to today's teaching on the life of Noah.
Now, notice what it says about Noah living in this generation, this antediluvian generation of wickedness. The Bible says Noah. Found grace. I don't know how he found it. God gave it to him.
There's no explanation of how he found it, but if you want to know the secret to Noah, here it is: he found grace. The unmerited favor of God was extended to Noah, and Noah became the man that he was. He didn't deserve grace because of his good works. If that were true, he couldn't have had grace. For grace doesn't come to those who earn it.
Grace is the result of God's arbitrary bestowal upon his children of that which we don't deserve. Noah became a good man because of God's grace. He didn't become a good man and then receive God's grace. The Bible puts it this way for all of us: for by grace you are saved through faith. What's the rest of it?
That not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
So we all have something in common with Noah today. If we're Christians, we have found grace. God has given us His amazing grace.
Now We look at Noah in this generation as God's man. He's there not because he received anything from his parents. Remember, his grandfather was Methuselah, his father was Lamech. Both of whom seem to have been somewhat godly people. But how many of you know God doesn't have any grandchildren?
He just has children. You don't get to go to heaven because you were born into the family of good people. You go to heaven only because you have a relationship with God. You can't become a Christian because your parents are Christians. And Noah wasn't a man of grace because he had godly parents and grandparents.
Grace is unmerited favor. There was nothing Noah could have done to earn it. Do you know, we talk about grace, we sing about it, some of our great hymns: amazing grace, marvelous grace of our loving Lord. But I wonder sometimes if we really do understand it. Because you know what we hear as we hang out with the people who don't know Christ in so many words, they say, you know, Christians are some of the most graceless people we've ever met.
That's a terrible testimony. If you claim to be a Christian and you don't treat people with grace, After you've received the grace of God and you found God's grace. I read a story that struck a tone in my heart because I actually know the man about whom the story is told. He experienced what it was to find grace in the eyes of another person. Actually, he lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I started out many years ago.
He was a young politician in the little town of Grable. I lost track of what happened to him until George W. Bush became president, and I discovered that he had worked his way all the way up until ultimately he became the deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison under President George W. Bush. He resigned, as many of you will remember as I tell the story, in 2008.
when it was found out that he was guilty of plagiarism. Plagiarism is taking somebody else's work and taking credit for it yourself. Here's what he said happened. In my time in the White House, I was becoming a very prideful person. This pride and vanity extended to plagiarizing columns for my hometown newspaper.
In other words, he was sending columns back to his hometown. Acting like these were his words, but they weren't his words. He had stolen these words from somebody else, and they found out what he was doing. He said, one morning I came to work at the White House, and when I opened my email, I found a reporter asking whether this was true, that I had plagiarized these columns. And I literally fell to the side of my desk and I prayed, Oh God, oh God.
I knew right away that the world as I had known it was over on that day. By return mail, he said, I told the reporter that it was entirely true, that I was guilty as charged. I had no one to blame but myself, so I resigned from the White House that day, and this was on a Friday. He said, on Monday, I came back to the White House to begin clearing out my desk and taking the pictures off the walls, and I received a call from Josh Bolton, the chief of staff, and he said he wanted to see me.
So I presume that would be the proverbial woodshed experience which I thoroughly deserved. But the first thing he asked when I walked into his office was, How are your wife and boys doing? Then he extended to me his forgiveness, and I was genuinely shocked and deeply moved by this. And before I departed his office, he said, Oh, by the way. The boss wants to see you.
And that could only have meant one person, the president. He said, I expected other people to be in the president's office when I showed up there the next day, but when I got to the old office, the only other person there was the executive assistant. And I thought I must have come on the wrong day, but the president called me in. I thought, this is going to be really bad. I went in and I closed the door.
I turned to him to apologize, but I barely got the words out before he looked me in the eyes and he said, Tim, I forgive you. To say I was stunned would be an understatement. I tried again to apologize, but he wouldn't let me. He said, Tim, I've known grace and mercy in my life. I'm extending it to you.
You're forgiven. I said, you should have thrown me out into Pennsylvania Avenue, Mr. President. He said, My friend, you're forgiven. We can talk about all of this, or we can talk about the last eight years and what you've done for this administration.
He said, I turned to sit on the couch in the Oval Office, but he directed me to sit in the seat of honor beneath the portrait of Washington where heads of state sit. I sat there, and he and I had a conversation about two remarkable presidential campaigns. We embraced and I thought this was the last time I would see George W. Bush. As I turned to head out, he said, I want you to bring your wife and your boys here so I can tell them what a great job.
You have done. I was stunned and speechless. The leader of the free world, the most powerful man on earth, wanted to affirm me before my wife and children. Sure enough, my wife and boys came, and the President gave them a great amount of time in the Oval Office, and he actually gave them gifts. We were invited back to the White House as a family on subsequent occasions.
We were there at Andrews Air Force Base for his departure. I've seen the President a number of times in Texas, and he's never mentioned it again. Here's one man showing grace to another man.
Now, let me say something to you folks. I don't want you to miss this point. To be the recipient of grace. is one of the most defining moments in anyone's life. It's true when we're saved.
That God gives us grace, changes everything about who we are. But it's also true in other occasions in our life. As recipients of grace, we must also be providers of grace. The story of the unfaithful servant in Matthew 18 illustrates how easy it is for us to receive grace. And then deny it to other people.
In fact, I've made a little discovery that maybe some of you have made, and that is. that often those who have received the most grace are the very ones who refuse grace to other people. Noah. found grace. in the eyes of the Lord.
Now we have a picture of what that meant. He found Grace. And because of the grace of God in Noah's life, He became the champion that he was, the man who lived by faith. Noah's faith was expressed in a wicked generation, and it was established on grace. But thirdly, Noah's faith was effective in his family.
But I want to tell you something. I know who your ancestors are. Shem or Ham or Japheth. That's the only possibility there is. The Bible says God wiped out the whole world and only three came out.
And it actually says in Genesis 9, 19, these three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.
Now, Noah's faith was not transferable. His faith wasn't because of his grandfather's faith. And his children did not become godly people because he transferred his faith to them. His faith wasn't transferable, but it was contagious. And while it is true to say that Noah preached for all these years and nobody was converted, it's really not true to say that because there were some who were converted.
The Bible says. All of Noah's family. Were converted. Noah's sons and his sons' wives, they all went into the ark. And they were saved.
Jay Vernon McGee, who I love to read on just about every occasion I can, said: the most important thing you can do is witness to your own family. not just by everlastingly giving them the gospel. But also by living it before them and letting them see that you have reality in your life. He said, Whether you are a preacher or not, if you're a child of God and have a family, that's your congregation. God gave you that congregation.
Noah won his family. No one outside his family believed, but his family did. And when the doors were closed on that final day of the ark, look around, there's a lot of animals in there, but there's also eight people in there, all the result of the fact that Noah lived his life out before his family, and they were saved. You know, I hear people say all the time, Pastor, my family's not saved, but I don't know how to talk to them because every time I talk to them, they just say, I don't want any more of that God talk. Don't give me any more of that religious stuff.
And let's face it, talking to our family about Jesus Christ is maybe the hardest thing we can ever do. And I like to share with people every time I get a chance that oftentimes when we talk to our parents, especially about their faith, what they hear from us is that we don't think they were good parents. And what we need to do is say something like this: Dad, you were the greatest dad I could ever have asked for. You were the most wonderful father I could have wanted in every way, and we did so many wonderful things. There's just one thing I wish we could share together, and that's My faith in Christ.
Dad, I want to spend eternity with you. And I'd love for you to be able to know Jesus as I know him.
Sometimes when we affirm them as people, they'll open their hearts to let us share with them the faith that we have. Noah's faith was effective in his family. And then Noah's faith was evident to his neighbors. He worked by faith. He was a just man, but he also witnessed by faith.
The Bible says. He was perfect. in his generations. What that means is that the generation in which he lived wasn't perfect, but as far as God was concerned, God looked down at Noah and saw in him a man who would be willing to stand for whatever it is that was important, even though nobody else was following. Time and time again as we read the Bible, we are told that that's our Task in this world today.
Let me read to you what Peter said about this. Listen carefully. But you, speaking of Christians, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles.
Now, watch this: that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they have seen, glorify God in the day of visitation. There's two things that are powerful and almost inescapable, and that is True speaking. and true living. If we live without speaking, Nobody knows why. There's an old saying that some of you have heard me use.
In some context, it may be good, but I'm just about ready to take it out of my vocabulary. It says: preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words. You remember that?
Well, that's a great thought because it means you can tell people a lot by your life. But I have never heard of anybody who's ever come to Christ without words. You can live your life in front of people in such a good way, and they're going to say, Well, boy, that's a good person. I wonder why he is the way he is. And if you don't take what you do with your life and marry it to the words, to the gospel, people won't know what it is.
On the other hand, if you say a lot of words and your life doesn't match it, you might as well keep your mouth shut because nobody's going to listen and nobody's going to care. In fact, you'll do more damage than you'll do good. Noah had a perfect balance. He lived his life in a just way. And he told the story.
that God had given him to tell.
So Noah's faith was effective in his family. It was evident to his neighbors. What a powerful witness it was. And then Noah's faith. Also was exact in its obedience.
In fact, there's a lot of exactness in this story. I mean, everything about it is exact. Remember when God said, no, I want you to build an ark. He had no clue what an ark was. There had never been one before.
And Noah, here's the blueprint, and here's the instructions, and I want you to do it exactly like I tell you. And the Bible tells us that Noah did what God told him to do, he did everything the Lord told him to do.
Now, let me set the stage for this. Noah and his family lived in the center of Mesopotamia, about as far away from any body of water as you could ever be. The Tigris River wasn't near, the Euphrates River wasn't near. Here he is, kind of like in a desert place, and God says, Here's what I want you to do: I'm going to destroy the earth by a flood, and I want you to build an ark. And this ark wasn't some little boat, it was a monstrosity of a construction.
Built kind of in the shape of a coffin, and if you're going to have two of every kind of animal in the world in it, it's got to be a big place. God gave him the dimensions. God gave him the instructions down to what he should put on the inside of the ark and on the outside of the ark, including the door and the window and all. And the Bible says Noah did exactly. what God told him to do.
Then God told him to preach the gospel. To all those who would listen.
So every day I look at Noah, he was building the ark and he was preaching the gospel. The Bible says he did it for 120 years. Every day he preached the gospel and he built the ark. He did exactly what God called him to do. And then God told him exactly what was going to happen.
God said at a certain time It's going to rain. And there's going to be a flood, and the whole earth and all of its inhabitants, and every beast. is going to drown.
Now stop with me and think about this. It had never rained before. Noah did all the things God asked him to do, and there was no precedent for it whatsoever. None. It had never been done before.
Can you imagine how foolish he must have felt? in the middle of the Mesopotamian desert, building a boat. When nobody had ever heard of rain or a flood, and every day they'd come by and ask him, Hey, old man, what are you doing today?
Well, I'm building the ark. And if you don't get saved and get in this ark, you're going to die in the flood. Sure, sure we are. But he kept building. And he kept preaching.
Every time I preach and nobody gets saved, I think of Noah and I feel a lot better. That old boy priest all those years, the only people got saved were his own family. But he kept preaching, didn't he? What that teaches us is this, we're only responsible to do what God has said, He's responsible for the result. I can't ever preach and make anybody come to Christ.
I know some guys try to do that and they try to shanghai people into heaven. I've never been given that instruction. I preach the gospel the best I can and leave the results to God. What's happened over the years by doing that, we've just had a steady stream of people coming to Christ all the time in God's own time, in His own plan, His own way. That's what we do.
Noah preached the gospel for 120 years, and the only people that got saved were his own family. But he did what God called him to do. He was a man of faith. What is faith? Faith is taking God in his word and doing what he asks us to do, even when it may not make sense to us or anybody else.
We just do what God calls us to do day in and day out. And you know when the payday came? When Noah shut the door of that ark, and all the people he loved were on the inside, and all the people who rejected the gospel were on the outside, Noah looked at his family and said, You know what?
Sometimes I wondered if it was worth it all, but here we are, God has saved us. and we're going to be okay. I'm often intrigued by the fact that the gospel isn't just a New Testament doctrine. Isn't it interesting? We've talked about Cain and Abel.
Remember? Cain and Abel: two ways to God: one way that works and one way that doesn't. We've talked about Enoch, who walked with God in such a way that God took him for. He was raptured right to heaven. And now we have Noah, and I believe Noah is the earliest and most perfect illustration of the gospel you will find in the Bible.
It is a visual aid that we can never forget. Here's a world that rejected God and has fallen into incredible evil and sin, iniquity, and violence, and indifference to God. And here is God and his man preaching that if you will trust me, if you will come and get into Christ, you will be saved. Here's the ark. And one day Eight souls got into the ark, and God shut the door, and the day of opportunity was over.
Can you imagine the screams of desperation that came from the men and women of that generation when they finally understood that what that old man had been preaching for all those years was true? But it was too late. And the rains came down and the floods came up. And the ark was the salvation of those who believed the message that Noah preached. And today, the gospel is just the same.
The world is filled with people who are indifferent to the things of God. They don't want to become Christians. One guy said to me one day, it'd be downright inconvenient for me to become a Christian. I'd have to stop doing all the stuff I'm doing. And they just go on with their life as if nothing is going on, nothing's happening.
But just as surely as there came a day when the ark was no longer available to those who wanted in. There will come a day when if we don't accept Christ, we'll be left behind. And just as the ark was God's plan of salvation for the generation of Noah, Jesus Christ is God's plan of salvation for us today. Noah and his family got into the ark, and the Bible talks about us being in Christ Jesus. When you're in Christ Jesus.
the flood of judgment that's going to come upon this world cannot touch you. Because the Bible says, when Jesus Christ went to the cross, he took all the judgment upon himself. For there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
So the question is, have you gotten into the ark? Have you walked into the door? You know, Noah could have said, well, you know, this is a great plan God has. This boat is really something. Look at all of the architecture of this boat.
He could have been enamored with it. He could have described it probably. He remembered just about every nail that was pounded into that thing or however they put it together. Listen to me, friends. Knowing about it didn't help him.
He actually had to walk through the door, didn't he? The end of the story is this great invitation. Where Noah is encouraged to come into the ark. The word come is found 600 times in the Bible. First, here in the story of Noah, and clear at the end of the book of Revelation, where it says, Let him come.
And you know what you have to do if you want to be a Christian? You have to come to Christ. Just like the people of Noah's day, if they had wanted to be saved, they would have had to walk into the door of the ark. And by making that step of faith, they would have said to Noah, We believe what you said. We may have some doubts about some of the particulars, but we believe that what you have preached is true.
If they had believed and walked into the door, they would have been saved. And today it's the same with us, isn't it? We hear the gospel that if you put your trust in Jesus Christ, you'll be forgiven of your sin. You will not spend one moment in hell. You will be in heaven with God forever and ever.
You can believe that with your head. You might even be able to give the message better than I can. But until you walk through the door by faith and do what God has asked you to do, until you do that, you cannot be a part of God's salvation plan. And if He should come before this day is over to take home those who've believed in Him, you would be left behind.
So let me ask you to take this picture from the Old Testament and transport it right up into your own life and say, Jesus Christ is my ark. Have I come to Jesus? And if you haven't... This would be a good day for you to do that. And you know, friends, we often present the gospel like this and give people the wonderful opportunity to pray a simple prayer that says, Dear God, I know I'm a sinner.
I know I need salvation. I know I can't get to heaven by myself. I believe in Jesus. I believe he's the Son of the living God, and I want to ask him to be my Savior today. When you pray that prayer, the Bible says God hears you and He sends Jesus Christ to live within your heart and you become a new person.
And the Bible describes what happens: it says, old things pass away and all things become new. You start to become a new person from the inside out. Don't let me forget to tell you that I have watched that happen in thousands of people over the years of my life and ministry. And it can happen for you if you'll just make that decision today. Tomorrow we're going to talk about Abraham, one of the great heroes of the Old Testament.
Be sure to join us as we continue our study on the heroes of faith from the book of Hebrews. Yeah. The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr. David Jeremiah, the senior pastor. If you're growing because of this ministry, we'd love to hear from you at Turning Point PO Box 3838 San Diego, California 92163 by visiting our website at davidjeremiah.org slash radio or calling 800-947-1993.
Ask for your copy of David's newly updated scripture reference guide, Where to Go in the Bible When. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also view over 1,200 of Dr. Jeremiah's sermons on any screen, anytime you like, on our Turning Point Plus streaming service for a monthly gift of any amount. Visit TurningPointPlus.org for details.
This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Ordinary People: Extraordinary Faith on Turning Point.
