Righteous & Remnant
In the Beginning: A Study in Genesis • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 34:06
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This story in Genesis 6 is one of the most familiar OT Bible stories. I heard it so many times growing up in church, especially in Sunday School. And it seems we circled back around to it fairly often in Sunday School. I don’t know if the story of the ark and the animals lent itself to coloring pages or children’s classroom decorations or what, but boy do Sunday School teachers love this story. I get it. And I don’t.
The Biblical account of Noah and the Ark even comes with a catchy tune. Sort of. Have you heard this one? [Play Video]
I’m sorry for that. It’s what immediately comes to mind when I read this part of the Bible. It’s unfortunate, because, like most children’s songs, it’s catchy and, at the same time, full of theological errors.
Everything was not find and dandy, dandy—not before, during, or after the flood. This is not a cute, cheery kids’ story. This is horrifying. This is the judgment of the Lord upon all living creatures, with the exception of the animals in the ark and the 8 people—only 8 people—who survived God’s judgment.
>If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), follow along or just listen as I read, not the entire 3 chapters, but sections within Genesis 6-8 this morning. Listen and see if there is anything even remotely kid-friendly or cheery in this story:
9 This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits., 21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
13 By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”
18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
22 “As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”
This is the word of the Lord.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s far from cheery. It’s dark. The Biblical message of the flood is not really fit for kids’ ears; it’s certainly not cheery, happy, rhyme-y fun. If this was accurately depicted in a movie, we wouldn’t let our children watch it. It’d be too dark for most of us to watch.
The true message of the flood is threefold:
There is great wickedness on the earth; every person’s heart is full of evil continually.
God is patient, but His patience comes to an end and He destroys unrepentant sinners.
Even in this, God does not surrender His purpose in creating man. Judgment is real and horrible, but it will not be the last word.
We spent time last week in the first 8 verses of Genesis 6. Those verses make clear the pervasiveness and intensity of sin—sin that grieves God and will be judged by God.
5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Come to verse 11-12, and we see this breaking out everywhere:
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
The first point of the flood, the cause of the flood, the reason behind the flood is sin in the human heart.
I never remember—not once—whenever my Sunday School teachers taught this story, them teaching about sin and judgment. It was always, “Let’s color a giraffe and a rainbow and sing that song and then head into the sanctuary for church.”
The reason God brings a flood is because of wide-spread sin on the earth.
And notice, the flood doesn’t fix the problem. It’s not that one good flood will be the remedy. No.
21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
God is not so naive as to think Noah and his descendants are without sin.
Noah himself, falls after the flood. We’ll get to this in more depth next week (or possibly the week after; you see, I’m always thinking about you. When a sermon goes much past the 30-minute mark, I find a way to divide it into two sermons. You’re welcome. It’s because I love you; Happy belated Valentine’s Day).
After the flood, just like before the flood, Noah sins. Noah is a sinner, like the rest:
20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.
Before the flood and after the flood, human nature is corrupt. ]
We don’t need a clean slate, a second chance, a new start. We need a Perfect Savior, a Spotless Substitute, a New Heart.
I love visiting with people after worship and throughout the week. Often times, after worship there are comments and questions about the text that get me thinking, that jumpstart the sermon for next week.
Last Sunday after church, one question was this (I won’t be able to word it exactly as they did). The gist of it was this: “Was Noah really the only one who was worthy?” “No one else was good enough to escape judgment?”
It’s a really good question. It’s an important question. We have to consider:
Was Noah righteous all on his own, good enough, better than…was he the only one? Out of all the people living at that time, only Noah? Really?
Here’s what we read about Noah:
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
9 This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.
Righteous? Yes and No.
Righteous? Yes and No.
It sounds pretty good for Noah. That’s quite the spiritual resume. A righteous man, blameless… [he] walked faithfully with God.
This really is something. Noah stands out from the crowd. He is righteous, blameless, faithful; full of integrity.
But does that mean Noah is sinless? No sir.
Blameless in the OT doesn’t mean sinless. A man is blameless if he doesn’t persist in his blameworthy actions, if he hates them, turns from them, and goes to God seeking mercy.
Neither does righteous mean sinless. In the OT, a righteous man is a sinner who hates his sin, turns from it, trusts God, pursues obedience, and enjoys acceptance by grace.
Noah was not an exception to the rule of universal sinfulness.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Noah was righteous—not in the sense of being perfect—but as one who trusted God.
By grace, Noah walked faithfully with God.
We read in Genesis 5 that Enoch walked faithfully with God. And now, Noah.
The pattern of Noah’s life was his relationship with the Lord—intimate and close. It was a daily walk, a pattern of behavior.
Biblically, the idea of walk has to do with an habitual manner of life, a constant relationship with God. Noah’s pattern of life was markedly different, in stark contrast to the rest of the peoples of the world at the time.
Walking describes Noah’s relationship with God; Enoch’s relationship with God—their close relationship with their God and their obedience to His commands.
Does this describe you? Are you, Christian, walking faithfully with God? Is it a once-a-week thing? An every-now-and-then behavior? Or is it the habitual pattern of your life?
Throughout the Bible, believers are called to walk with God daily, abiding in Him completely.
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
6 whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.
Noah was righteous, yes (in the sense that He hated sin, trusted God, pursued obedience—righteous by faith).
So, back to the question from Sunday: “Was Noah really the only one who was worthy?” “No one else was good enough to escape judgment?”
Noah might have been the only one among the generations of people still living who walked with God. That’s possible. Even probable. But, was Noah worthy? Was He deserving?
Is anyone good enough? Is anyone good? Was Noah really the only one?
The Bible makes clear, from Genesis 6 to Psalm 14/Psalm 53 to Ecclesiastes 7 to Romans 3—and many other places besides—that:
“There is no one righteous, not even one…there is no one who does good, not even one…there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.”
Was Noah righteous, or was Noah (along with his wife and kids) a remnant? Chosen by God to evidence His undeserved grace?
It’s not that Noah was sinless or good enough or deserving; it’s that God was maintaining for Himself and for His glory a remnant, a people for Himself.
You remember, don’t you, the Lord cursing the serpent and what the Lord promised the tempter?
After Adam & Eve fell in the garden, after the serpent tempted them to take and eat the fruit of the tree they were commanded not to eat from, the Lord cursed the serpent and said:
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
That is God’s promise, God’s Word, that One would come from the line of the woman who would crush the head of that crafty serpent.
So, even though all people—ALL PEOPLE—deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth, the Lord would do as He said. He would preserve a remnant.
Remnant: A people for God
Remnant: A people for God
Noah (along with his family) is that remnant. 8 people. Noah and the missus, and their three sons and their wives. The remnant, those who would survive this judgment, number only 8.
So, to answer the question about whether Noah is the only person worthy of being saved from the flood, I believe the answer is probably: “Well, not exactly.”
Not even Noah is worthy. Noah is a sinner, a deeply flawed and wicked human being, just like everyone else.
But God has preserved Noah and his family as a remnant—people who survive the judgment of God in order to declare His grace and mercy and those from whom the Snake-Crusher will come.
In a sense, I guess this is a children’s story in that its lessons are plain enough for a child to understand:
God hates sin.
God punishes unrepentant sinners.
>Let’s notice, though, how God’s judgment of the flood tilts very quickly to God’s mercy.
God is absolutely right and just to judge sin, to flood the earth. But, full of mercy, God instructs Noah to make an ark. God remembers Noah after the flood. God saves a remnant from the flood. God makes a covenant with all living creatures.
The heavenly Judge has seen the evidence of diabolical evil and pronounces sentence. The gavel has come crashing down. The crime = sin. The sentence = death.
But even God’s judgment is infused with redeeming grace.
God will save a remnant. Noah, his family, a selection of animals will be saved in an ark—a huge wooden vessel 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high.
The flood is judgment, and yet seasoned with mercy. The Lord tells Noah:
18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.
In His grace, God saves a remnant to continue His good kingdom on earth. God covenants with them (come back next week).
>I really appreciate the question regarding Noah. It helped frame this sermon. And I think it’s important to consider. It brings up questions of goodness, of God’s justice; questions of eternity and salvation.
This is important to think about. The number of times I’ve asked a group of people the question: “What does it mean to be a Christian?” the answer I most commonly receive is “It means you’re a good person, a righteous person.”
Ask that question this week, and see if you don’t that answer from most people: “Being a Christian means being a good person.”
That is absolutely NOT what it means to be a Christian.
If that’s true, if that’s the right answer, all one has to do to be a “christian” is to be, in their minds, a good person.
What’s clear from the Bible is that there is no one righteous, no one good, not even one.
You yourself are not good. You, on your own, are not righteous.
In Christ, when you belong to God by faith in Jesus, you are righteous. To be a Christian means to be IN CHRIST.
What does it mean to be a Christian? It means to be in Christ, to be in a relationship with Him, to have given your life over to Him, surrendering to Him as Lord & King. To be a Christian means that you have faith that Jesus has done for you all that needs doing, to trust that Jesus has exchanged His righteousness for your sin, to believe that His death and resurrection is what justifies those who believe.
Those who believe in Jesus love Him supremely, follow Him willingly, are obedient to Him fully—and when they fail at all those things routinely—repent of their sin, their falling short, and turn back to Him.
Are you a Christian? And I don’t mean, “Are you a good person?”
Are you a Christian? Do you believe that only Jesus saves you? Do you believe that your so-called “goodness” contributes absolutely nothing to your salvation?
If you have not trusted Jesus alone, united yourself with Jesus, if you are not walking with Jesus, let me tell you: you are not a Christian. You are not and could never possibly be good enough.
What you can be is forgiven, covered with grace, washed white by Jesus’ blood.
Some of you need to make the decision to follow Jesus today. You need to admit that you’re a sinner and repent. You need to confess your belief in Jesus as Savior. You need to make that decision today, here this morning.
It’s time for some of you to be immersed, following Jesus in the act He set for us. You need to proclaim that you have been saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and illustrate that by stepping into the water, dying to the old self, being buried beneath the water, and raised to new life in Christ.
There is no more powerful picture of what Jesus has already done inwardly in a believer’s life than to illustrate it through being immersed—dead, buried, raised.
We’ll hop right in the water this morning. Empty your pockets, slip off your shoes, and follow Jesus outwardly.
You see, God will always have a people for Himself, a remnant. And His people, in Christ, will possess an alien righteousness, a righteousness not their own.
Those who escape the judgment of God’s wrath against sin will do so, like Noah, not in their own goodness or self-righteousness, but they will, like Noah, survive as a remnant because of God’s Grace shown to them.
Friends, be found in Christ. Be united with Him. Trust His righteousness in place of your sin. Do so today!