These are the generations of Noah.
Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations: Noah walked with God.
And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
And God saw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
A light shalt thou make to the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upward; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is in the earth shall die.
But I will establish My covenant with thee; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
Of the fowl after their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
By faith Noah, being warned of God concerning things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; through which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
Our heavenly Father, how we praise and thank Thee that Thou hast given Thy only begotten Son to us, and in Him, and with Him, all things. How we do thank Thee that we may come to Thee this morning to worship Thee and to serve Thee.
We praise and thank Thee that we may be in Thy presence to hear. We pray that the Holy Spirit will quicken Thy word to our hearts, transform us, and lead us in the path of righteousness. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We have been considering together these days the eight persons we find in the Book of Genesis. We would like to say again that Genesis is the first book of the Bible. In this first book we find a book of biographies.
This speaks to us that God is interested in men. He is not so much interested in methods, not even in institutions, but He is interested in man. In these eight persons, we can not only see the original design concerning man; we can also see the work of God in man, and what God will get out of it.
In the first man, Adam, we find the tree. God’s purpose is not only that man should be created in His image, but that man should be a vessel, receiving His own life into him, that man may be joined with God in life and thus fulfil God’s purpose.
But unfortunately, instead of eating of the tree of life, which represents God’s life, man ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That means man rejected God as his life and tried instead to develop his own soul, his own mind, and his own reasoning—to develop himself independently of God.
Now, of course, it is good to have the knowledge of good and evil. But the problem is having the knowledge of good without the power to do good; having the knowledge of evil and yet yielding to evil. That brings in death. So we find in Genesis how, as man sinned, he was driven out of the Garden of Eden.
In the second man, Abel, we find the way to return to God. The way to return to God is through a sacrifice. Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice, and he was accepted.
His brother Cain tried to offer a sacrifice, but not the right kind. He tried to offer the produce of the field, and he was rejected. Why? Because there was no blood. For a sinner to return to God, there is the requirement of blood.
Of course, we know that the Lamb is our Lord. Through the sacrifice—the more excellent sacrifice, the shedding of the blood of our Lord Jesus—we receive the remission of our sins, and we are accepted in Christ. We return to God.
Then, in the third man in the Book of Genesis, we find Enoch. Enoch walked with God for three hundred years, and God took him. He was the only one in all those generations recorded in Genesis 5 who escaped death. He was raptured; he was taken to heaven. Why? Because he walked with God.
So, brothers and sisters, we find that we must not only return to God through the blood of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, but after we have returned to God, we must walk with Him in our daily life.
A Christian life is not just a rush or a dash. A Christian life is a continuous walk with Him. It is a daily thing—to walk in the light of His company. And if we walk with Him, thank God, there is the possibility of escaping death and being taken to stand before Him.
This morning we would like to continue with the fourth person in the Book of Genesis: Noah. Of course, when we think of Noah, his emblem, his symbol, is the ark.
In Genesis 6, we are told that, as men began to multiply, something strange happened. The sons of God looked upon the daughters of men and saw that they were fair, so the sons of God married the daughters of men.
When this happened, God said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man for ever, for that he also is flesh.” There are, of course, different interpretations of this passage.
Some say that the sons of God refer to the godly line of Seth and that the daughters of men refer to the line of Cain. But I personally feel it is different from that. Why? Because when this thing happened, God determined to destroy the earth. So it must have been a terrible thing.
There is another interpretation: that the sons of God refer to angels. We find in the Book of Job that the sons of God do refer to angels. The angels are the sons of God.
They do not marry, nor are they given in marriage; that is not their nature. But somehow these sons of God—these angels—did not keep their proper place and came to be married to the daughters of men. In other words, they were out of their kind, out of order. They did not keep the order that God had established.
According to the law of God, everything must be after its kind. You find that in Genesis 1. But here you find something out of order and out of its kind, something abnormal. When such a thing happened, God decided that the earth must be destroyed.
This was only one symptom of that condition. Man had also become very evil. Even the imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil. The whole earth was corrupt before God, polluted, and full of violence.
Not only were the ungodly descendants of Cain evil, but even the so-called godly descendants of Seth had become evil. The whole earth before God was corrupt. There was only one who found grace, and he was Noah.
He was righteous. He was perfect in his generation. He walked with God. Because of this, God spoke to him and said that the end of the earth was coming. There would yet be one hundred and twenty years, and then God would destroy the earth with all living things upon it.
But Noah and his family were found safe. So God told him to build an ark of gopher wood. Through that ark, he and his family were to be preserved through the flood.
After the flood was over, the old earth and the old creation were destroyed. When Noah came out of the ark, he was to inherit the earth. As we find in Hebrews, he was to become “heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”
Of course, we all know what the ark represents. It is evident: the ark represents our Lord Jesus.
The ark was made of gopher wood. Gopher wood is a kind of hard wood, incorruptible, and that speaks of the humanity of our Lord Jesus.
He Who was equal with God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, and yet He emptied Himself. He took upon Himself the form of a servant, even the likeness of men. But when He took upon Himself the likeness of man, there was something different: He was incorruptible.
He is not like the rest of mankind. Scripture often uses wood and trees to represent mankind. But we are corruptible; not only corruptible, but corrupted. That is human nature. Human nature is depraved, corrupted, sinful, and degenerate.
But when our Lord Jesus took upon Himself the likeness of man, even though He was a man and possessed a human nature, He was a perfect man, a man like we are. Yet there is one difference: He was like gopher wood. That is to say, He was incorruptible and uncorrupted.
The human nature of our Lord Jesus was perfect. That is the reason why He had to be born of a virgin. He did not inherit the corrupted human nature of Adam. He is the holy Seed. He knew no sin.
Yet He was tempted in all things like we are. If we can think of any temptation to which human beings are exposed, our Lord Jesus underwent it. But there is one difference: He was tempted in all things, yet He did not sin. He could not be corrupted. He is incorruptible.
He said, “The prince of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in Me.” The enemy came, but he had no place, no footing, in Him. He is above all evil. That is our Lord.
The ark of gopher wood was pitched both inside and outside with pitch. Of course, we know the reason for this: it was to make the ark watertight, because it was to float upon the waters.
But there is a deeper meaning, because the word pitch in the original can be translated atonement. In other words, the reason our Lord Jesus came into this world and became a man was to atone for the sins of the world.
He Who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Our Lord Jesus came into this world to atone for the sins of the world. Through Him we are saved, our sins are forgiven, and we are brought into oneness with God.
God commanded Noah to build the ark. At the time of Noah, the earth had never experienced rain. Before the flood, the earth was watered by a mist. Man had never seen rain, much less a flood.
Yet God commanded Noah to build an ark. It was something never seen before. There had never been a boat before, never rain before, never a flood before. It was something that could not be conceived in the thought of man.
God commanded Noah to build an ark—a boat, the first boat built in the world. Noah built that great vessel for one hundred and twenty years. There was no rain, no flood, and no previous experience to explain such a construction.
People had never seen such a peculiar construction before. Yet Noah, by faith, feared God. He believed that what God had said was true, and he obeyed.
Just by the way, it is very interesting that the Chinese character for a boat is said to contain the picture of a vessel with eight mouths inside. A mouth represents a person. There were eight persons in the ark.
But Noah’s ark was not a boat in the modern sense. If you look at it, you see that it was like a floating house. Its purpose was not to navigate, but to float. It was a giant floating storage vessel: its purpose was to contain things and to remain afloat, not to travel from place to place.
I believe you are all familiar with the story, so we will not go into the story this morning. But we would like to see the basic thought in this experience of Noah.
I believe the basic thought that the Spirit of God wants us to see here is the thought of abiding in Christ.
Enoch walked with God. Walking with God is an outward conduct; it is a testimony to the world. A person who walks with God has an outward living that is a testimony, a witness, to the world. It is a life different from the world.
But abiding in Christ is the inward secret of the outward walk. In other words, you will not be able to walk with God if you do not have a life of abiding. If you abide in Christ, then you will walk with God. That will be the natural result.
So, on the one hand, in Enoch we see walking with God. On the other hand, in Noah we see abiding in Christ.
Why was the ark built? The ark was built that Noah and his family might enter into the ark and be preserved. They were to be in the ark.
It was a huge, three-dimensional construction. Noah was not only to enter into the ark, but to stay there through the whole period of the flood. Noah and his family stayed in the ark for a year and ten days.
On the seventeenth day of the second month of Noah’s six hundredth year, he and his family entered the ark. They did not come out until the twenty-seventh day of the second month of his six hundred and first year. They were in the ark for a year and ten days—the whole period of the flood, the whole period of judgment.
When they came out, they inherited a new world. So I believe the whole idea is to teach us this matter of abiding in Christ.
Abiding in Christ is an experience. Being in Christ is a position. We have the position of being in Christ; therefore, we need to have the experience of abiding in Christ.
Thank God, we do not need to spend one hundred and twenty years building an ark, because God has already provided that ark. God has given that ark to us. All that we need to do is enter into that ark.
When did we enter into that ark? It happened at the time when we believed in the Lord.
When we believe in the Lord Jesus, a number of things happen. Sometimes we think that only one thing happens—that our sins are forgiven. Thank God, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, our sins are forgiven. That does happen. But a number of things happen.
One thing is this: when you believe in the Lord Jesus, the life of God in Christ Jesus comes into you and becomes your life. In other words, you are born again. You are born of the Spirit. You receive a new life.
The very life of God in Christ Jesus becomes your life. You receive Him into you. He is in you: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” You have Christ in you. You have His life in you. He is your life.
That is a tremendous thing. It is far more precious than having our sins forgiven. Now, having our sins forgiven is great. We who were under condemnation and under the burden of sin find that all our sins have been forgiven. That is great.
But, dear brothers and sisters, there is something much greater than that: Christ has come into your life. You have Him as your life. He is in you, the hope of glory.
But there is another thing. Not only has Christ come into you to be your life, but God has put you into Christ.
He is in you, yes, but you are in Him.
In 1 Corinthians 1:30, it says:
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.
“But of Him”—that is, of God—“are ye in Christ Jesus.” We are in Christ Jesus. How are we in Christ Jesus? Of God.
In other words, when you believed in the Lord Jesus, God did something to you. Not only did the Holy Spirit regenerate you and bring the life of Christ into you, but at the same time God translated you out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
God took you out of Adam and put you in Christ. That is something you do not do yourself, cannot do yourself, and do not need to do yourself.
Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking, “If only I could get into Christ, then every problem would be solved.” Hudson Taylor had the same problem.
When he was a missionary in China, after God had already used him greatly, he discovered that his life was not as it should be. He felt tempted, he felt that he failed, and he felt that his testimony was not what it should be. He was deeply troubled.
He sought God with prayer and fasting. He thought, “If only I could get into Christ, then every problem would be solved.” But how could he get into Christ? He tried to get into Christ, but he did not know how. He thought, “Well, I need faith,” so he prayed for faith; but faith did not come.
Then he discovered what Scripture says: you are already in Christ. If you are already in, there is no need to get in again.
He said, “What am I praying for? I am already in. He is the vine, and I am the branch. For a branch to pray all the time, ‘Oh, that I may get into the vine,’ is ridiculous, because the branch is in the vine and the vine is in the branch. They are one.”
Dear brothers and sisters, there is something very precious that we often miss. On the day when you believed in the Lord Jesus, not only did God put Christ in you, the hope of glory, but at the same time God also put you in Christ.
You are in Christ. This is your new position. He has taken you out of Adam, out of the Adam order, and has put you in Christ. In Christ, we are made alive. This is our position. Everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus is in Christ.
What a tremendous thing this is! Christ is the ark, and we are in the ark. We are in Christ.
Noah had to be in the ark because that was the only way for his life to be preserved. That was the only way to escape judgment. Anyone outside the ark would be drowned. Only those in the ark passed out of death into life.
But the ark was also a spacious place. It was three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. A cubit is roughly the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger—about a foot and a half.
So the ark was approximately four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. It was a tremendous structure.
It had rooms—many kinds of rooms. Since it had to take all kinds of animals, there were large rooms, small rooms, and rooms of different dimensions. There were three stories, and every kind of food was stored there.
So Noah, in the ark, was not only preserved from judgment and from the flood; in the ark he was able to enjoy all the food that had been stored. It was spacious; it was gigantic; it had many rooms and three stories. There was room for progression—you could go higher and higher.
All this speaks of abundance and riches. What does it mean to be in Christ? God has put you in Christ. That is a tremendous thing, because in Christ we escape judgment.
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. All things are of God. The old creation was destroyed by the flood, but in Christ we are a new creation.
In Christ we enjoy all the fullness that is in Him. Colossians 2 says that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, and ye are complete in Him.
Who can fathom the fullness of God? Who can measure the love of God, the righteousness of God, the light of God, the purity of God, the strength of God, or the wisdom of God? All the fullness of the Godhead—everything that can be said of God—dwells in Christ bodily.
And you are complete in Him. In other words, everything of God is in Christ, and God has put you in Christ. Therefore, everything that is in Christ is for you to enjoy.
Turn to Ephesians 1. In the letter to the Ephesians, the phrase in Christ is repeated again and again. God is trying to show us what a blessing it is to be in Christ.
Ephesians 1:3 says:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Paul blesses God. Why does he bless God? When he thinks of what God has done, he says that God has blessed us. He has blessed us—not merely that He is going to bless us, but He has blessed us—with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm with which God has blessed us is in Christ. Outside of Christ, there is no blessing. Outside of Christ, God has nothing to bless us with, because He has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus.
Why do we sometimes not receive the blessings? It is because we get out of the experience of Christ. There is no way to exhaust what is in Christ. It is infinite because God is infinite.
Paul goes on to say that God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” Do you know that we were chosen even before the foundation of the world? Where were we chosen? We were chosen in Christ.
If it is not in Christ, we are not chosen. He chose us before the foundation of the world in Christ. He knew us before we were born, before we were conceived in our mother’s womb. In eternity past, God had already chosen us in Christ.
He chose us that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love, having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ unto Himself.
The word adoption actually means sonship—the placing of sons. What God has in mind for us in Christ Jesus is that we should not only be saved and not only be babes in Christ, but that we may mature, grow up, and come to the place of being sons of God, able to bear responsibility with the Father.
It is only in Christ that this is possible.
God has taken us into favour in the Beloved. Why does God accept us? Not because of what we are. Of ourselves, we are unacceptable. He accepts us because He accepts His Son.
Today we have favour with God, not because we are better than anyone else, but because we are in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of His grace.
In Him we have also obtained an inheritance. As Peter says, our inheritance is incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading. Everything in this world that you may inherit is corruptible and fading, but in Christ we have obtained an incorruptible inheritance.
In Christ, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, and having believed, we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
What does it mean to be sealed? It means security. In the old days, when you put your seal on something, it meant that the thing belonged to you. We are sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit of promise.
The Holy Spirit in us is a pledge. On the one hand, He shows that we belong to God. On the other hand, He is the earnest, the guarantee, that we shall receive our full inheritance.
All these things are in Christ. In Christ, we who were once far off have been made nigh by the blood of Christ. We could go on and on. In the New Testament, to be in Christ is the most precious thing.
God has put us in Christ, and in Christ we receive all these blessings. They are all ours. This is the position that God has given to us. What a position!
The story of Noah gives us more than the message of being in Christ; it gives us the impression of abiding. Why? Because Noah did not merely go in; he remained there. He continued there. He rested there during the whole period of the flood.
The word abiding simply means to stay, to continue, to remain, to rest, to endure, to stand firm, or to make one’s home. The ark was Noah’s home during the whole period of judgment.
Is not Christ our home?
In one sense, it is true that judgment is coming upon this world. But in another sense, judgment has already come. The whole world is under wrath. But thank God, during the whole period, we may make Christ our home. This is our only protection and our only security.
Abiding in Christ is a command. In John 15, the Lord says:
I am the vine, ye are the branches.
Abide in Me, and I in you.
He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit.
Being in Christ is what God has done. You do not do anything to be in Christ. God did it. He put you in Christ. He gave you that position and that potential.
But abiding in Christ is our response. As a matter of fact, it is God’s command. He says, “Abide in Me.” You whom God has put in Christ must remain in Christ. Stay there. Do not come out. Continue there. Make your home there. If you do, then you will bear fruit.
If we abide in Christ, we will discover and experience all the riches that are in Christ. But if we do not abide in Christ, we will not know how rich our Christ is.
The problem today is with our abiding. If we only abide in Christ, we will find everything there. All things are ours to experience and to enjoy.
Perhaps the question is: Why do we not abide? Or how can we abide?
Once I asked some young people, “Tell me, how can we abide in Christ?” They gave various answers. Some said, “To abide in Christ, spend more time before the Lord in prayer.” Others said, “Read the Bible more.” They are all right.
But, to simplify the whole matter, I think there is one verse that is very precious. It reveals the secret of abiding. How can we abide in Christ?
1 John 2:27 says:
And as for you, the anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as His anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.
You shall abide in Christ. How? By the teaching of the anointing.
The apostle John tells the believers that they have the anointing. The anointing which they have received from Him abides in them.
Why is the word used here anointing? We know it is the Holy Spirit, but instead of using the title “Holy Spirit,” John uses the word anointing because there is action in it. In other words, it is the Holy Spirit in action.
Do you not know, brothers and sisters, that on the day you believed in the Lord Jesus, another thing happened? The Holy Spirit of God came into your spirit—your regenerated spirit—and made His home there.
The Holy Spirit came into your life to dwell, to live, to remain, to continue, and to make His home in you. Do you know that?
In Old Testament times, David prayed in Psalm 51, “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.” Sometimes you hear Christians praying that prayer today: “O Lord, take not the Holy Spirit from me.”
In the Old Testament that prayer was understandable, but under the new covenant it is not so. Under the new covenant, the Holy Spirit came into your life to make His home there. You can grieve Him; you can quench Him; but you cannot drive Him out.
Thank God, the Holy Spirit came to stay. He abides in you. He makes His home in you.
Sometimes you make your home disorderly. You make your home defiled, and you make Him uncomfortable. That is true. But no matter what you do, He will not leave. He abides in you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He is always there.
He is such a diligent Teacher. He is in you, teaching you in all things—great things and small things, everything. He is responsible for your spiritual growth.
Whatever He teaches is true and is not a lie. Sometimes there is a conflict: the Holy Spirit, the anointing, is teaching us, while our minds and our so-called rationalism offer another theory. The two begin to argue with one another. But which is true? Whatever He teaches is true and is not a lie.
Even as the anointing has taught you, ye shall abide in Him. Oh, if we will only listen to and obey the anointing within us, we will abide. We will make Christ our home.
God has given us all the provision. He has given us the Holy Spirit for this very purpose: that we may abide in Christ, that we may make our home in Christ. How we need to honour the anointing, listen to Him, and obey Him.
Why is it that we do not abide in Christ? Because the flesh is very unhappy. The flesh is very uncomfortable in Christ, and that is why we want to get out.
But we need to abide. “Abide in Me, and I in you.” Do you think Noah and his family were in the ark simply to eat, drink, and sleep through a year and ten days? That would have been very dull. No.
During that year and ten days, Noah, his three sons, and their wives were not only kept from judgment; they were also able to enjoy life in the ark.
The ark was not a dark place, because there was a light at the top. Some versions use the word window and some use the word light. The word elsewhere in the Old Testament is translated noonday light. In other words, there was light in the ark.
Not only that, but they were busily occupied during those year and ten days. They had all the animals to care for. There was much work to do. God never intended that we should be lazy. It is good for us to work.
But work in the ark was not merely occupation. It was work for the preservation of life. It was service.
Brothers and sisters, do not think of abiding in Christ as some mystical kind of life, as though a person who tries to live an abiding life is a hermit, a good-for-nothing, super-spiritual person. Not at all.
Abiding in Christ results in useful service. Oftentimes we are active, but our activities may be only dead works. The more active we are, the more dead we may become. But if we abide in Him, then whatever we do will be life unto others and will produce fruit.
When the flood was over, Noah became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. The judgment passed, the old creation was destroyed, and those who remained in the ark inherited the new world.
Sometimes people use Noah’s entering into the ark as a type of Christians being kept through the great tribulation. They refer to Matthew 24: “As were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man.”
I personally believe that Noah’s entering into the ark is primarily a type of our being in Christ. If we are in Christ, then we escape judgment, and we inherit.
So I do want to encourage brothers and sisters. Actually, it is the same story as Enoch. If we walk with God, if we abide in Christ, then we will escape the things that are coming upon this earth and stand before the Son of Man.
Our heavenly Father, how we praise and thank Thee for Thy word. We thank Thee for the ark that Thou hast prepared for us. We thank Thee for putting us in Christ. We thank Thee for all the riches we find in Christ.
We thank Thee for giving us the Holy Spirit for this purpose: that through the teaching of the Holy Spirit we may really abide in Christ.
O our Father, Thou hast made all these provisions for us. Help us to avail ourselves of what Thou hast provided for us. We ask that in our daily life we may learn how to abide, that we may not grieve the Holy Spirit, that we may not despise Him, but that we may respect the Lord Jesus.
Lord, we pray that our life on this earth may be an abiding life and also a fruitful life. We do realize that the days are becoming more evil and that judgment is coming. Lord, help us to abide in Christ and to look for the coming of our Lord. Amen.