GET OUT OF YOUR ARK.

Genesis 8.16 – “Go out of the ark…”

A quick comparison of Genesis 7.11 with 8.14-16 indicates Noah spent one year and ten days on the ark.  With the destruction of the wicked, God was now making all things new.  Noah was to take the animals from the ark so that they could be fruitful and multiply (v. 17).  The ark had been a place of refuge from the storm.  Now it was to be left behind to begin the work of populating the earth and rebuilding society.  Once the animals were disembarked,  Noah built an altar to make sacrifices to God.  God saw Noah’s worship and sacrifice and was pleased (v. 21). 

For Noah there was both work and worship.  1 Peter 3.20-21 tells us,

“In the days when God waited patiently while Noah built the ark, eight

people were saved from the destruction of the flood.  And that water is a

picture of baptism, which now saves you, not by removing dirt from your

body, but as a response to God from a clean conscience.”

In other words, Peter tells us that the ark was a “type” of baptism through which eight souls were saved.  He makes it clear, however, that salvation does not come from the water but that the waters of believer’s baptism are entered to signify a clean conscience before God.  Thus, after Noah’s “baptism” there was work to do for God and worship to render to God. Romans 6.4 says,

“We were buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that as Christ was

raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Ephesians 2.8 and 10 adds,

For by grace you are saved through faith, not of yourselves; it is

the gift of God ... We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus

for good works, which God prepared beforehand for us to do.

Like Noah, once we are saved, we are commissioned to “go” out into a life of work and worship – work which God has already prepared for us to do and worship which keeps our hearts connected to the heart of God.  Noah would have forsaken God’s plan for his life had he clung to the safety of the ark.  Jesus prayed that God would not take the disciples out of the world in which they were to work but that he would protect them from the evil one (John 17.15).

From the waters of baptism, God intends for the salvation of His people to result in work and worship.  Like Noah, they must go out from their places of safety and comfort in order to be salt and light to a dying world (Matthew 5.13-16).  Get out of your ark!

MERCY OF JUDGMENT...MERCY IN JUDGMENT

“…and the Lord shut him in…Only Noah and those who 

were with him in the ark remained alive.”  (Genesis 7.16, 23)

According to the genealogy of Chapter 5, Methuselah lived 969 years, 369 of those before Noah was born.   Then God’s judgment fell on mankind in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, the same year that Methuselah died.  People in Methuselah’s day watched as he surpassed 800 years, then 850, then 900, then 950.  Perhaps they thought he would never die.  Perhaps they thought they would never die.  But the day came when God’s judgment fell and the entire world perished except Noah and the seven family members he carried into the ark.  The flood of Noah’s day raises a crucial question: 

Who will survive God’s judgement?

When God’s judgement falls, it is too late to make decisions – too late for those who would perish and too late for Noah and his family to help.  Noah was helpless to help any of his family and friends because God shut him in the ark.  In Revelation 3.7, Jesus says that He alone is able to open so that no man can shut and shut so that no man can open. 

“It is appointed unto man once to die; after that, the judgment.”  (Hebrews 9.27)

But just as certain as impending doom for the ungodly, God’s protection of His own will not falter or fail.  Not only were they saved, they were safe – safe from the torrential and all-encompassing judgment on every side outside the ark.

Jesus referred to the flood of Noah’s day as a reminder that when God’s timeline for grace and mercy expires, judgment will come without warning:

"But as the days of Noah, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.  For in the days before the flood, they were eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day Noah entered the ark. They [had no warning] until the flood came and took them all away, so it will also be with the coming of the Son of Man.”   (Matthew 24.37-39)

God’s love and future plan for the world would not have come to pass with the wickedness of mankind in Noah’s day, a day when those who were known by name to be godly intermarried with those who were known to be ungodly.  Sad is the fact today that – today – as in Methuselah's day, many feel their time will never come to an end.  Yet God’s love and mercy requires Him to deal with the sinfulness of mankind through judgment.  That same love and mercy compels Him to guide His children safely through the time of worldwide judgment.  

The blessed comfort – blessed hope – of God’s people is this:  When Jesus returns, God’s love for those who will inhabit His eternal kingdom will again bring a worldwide judgment that will destroy the wicked.  Yet, His people will be saved and safe from the worldwide storm that rages.  (1 Thessalonians 4.13-18)

Intermarriage versus Godly Homes

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”

Genesis 6.8

In Genesis 6.7, God says that He was “sorry that He had made man”.  What a dreadful change since 1.31:

“Then God saw everything that He had made and it was very good.”

Chapter 6 portrays widespread sin, defying of God and serving self.  But one bright spot appears:  Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord.  What went so wrong?  In a word, “intermarriage”.  How did it become right again?  Grace.

Chapter 4 details the genealogy of the murderer, Cain, and a corresponding expansion and development of culture and commerce – a city (4.17), tending livestock (4.20), music (4.21) and metalworking (4.22).   Chapter 5 gives us the godly chronology of Adam and Eve’s third son, Seth, whose story reaches a zenith when Enoch is taken from earth without dying on account of his close and continual walk with God (5.24). 

The godly and ungodly coexisted in the fallen world until their intermarriage begins in 6.2 – a sin which was forbidden by God for his people in the Old Testament (Exodus 34.15-16) as well as for the Church in the New Testament (2 Cor 6.14).   And what were the tragic results of this widespread intermarriage of the godly and ungodly?  Wickedness was great, every thought of the heart was evil continually and God was sorry in His heart and grieved that He had made man (vv.5-6). 

In contrast, what a heritage it was for Enoch’s son, Methuselah, to share his father’s story with his family.   Methuselah lived until the year of the flood, possibly dying on the very day the flood began.  It was under this godly grandfather’s influence that Noah became God's man.

The solution for this world’s problems is not for God’s people to join the world but to stand apart from the world so that – as God’s people – they can make their mark on the world.  

Noah was a righteous man, blameless before his world (v. 9) and did all God command him to do (v. 22).  We who are saved by grace are saved for the purpose of living rightly before God and man, fulfilling God’s call on our lives.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  And we are His workmanship who have been created for good works, which God foreordained that we should do.  (Ephesians 2.8-10)

The intermarriage that concerns God has not to do with the color of one's skin but the condition of one's soul before God in Christ (Ephesians 2.14-19).  Sin multiplies in the world when those who follow Christ marry those who don’t – alliances overshadow faithful living.  The world’s hope does not come from a broader, more open mind that meets God's judgment but from those who have found grace in the sight of the Lord.  The world needs godly homes like the one in which Noah and Timothy were raised:

"..from a child you have known the holy scriptures through which you may be saved."  

2 Timothy 3.15

Can a Christian Lose Salvation?

The vital importance of this question is only second to one other:  "What must I do to be saved?"  But having experienced salvation, the importance of the question of one’s eternal destiny cannot be overstated.  The position held by some that says one cannot lose his or her salvation is said by others to promote a license or excuse to sin.  In a similar manner, the position which some hold that says one can lose his or her salvation leads to uncertainty in the spiritual life.  It focuses on the necessity of human efforts to prevent its loss.  What does the Bible have to say about this important question?

Near the end of his first epistle, the Apostle John states:

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the 

Son of God,  that you may know that you have eternal life…  (1 John 5.13)¹

It was clear in the Apostle’s mind that one can know he or she is saved.  Perhaps John had the words of Jesus in mind which he (John) recorded in his gospel account.  In John 10, Jesus makes a detailed and definitive statement about his sheep, those who belong to Him through faith.  Speaking to religious Jews of His day who did not possess life-giving faith, Jesus said:

 "…you do not believe because you are not of My sheep…”  (John 10.26)

While these religious leaders were members of the family of God in name, they did not truly belong to God.  Their faith was a faith of words rather than reality.  Jesus then addresses those who possess the reality of saving faith: 

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.  And I

 give  them eternal life, and they shall never perish...”   (John 10.27-28a) 

Those who are saved have been given eternal life.  Jesus uses a very emphatic double negative in the Greek language which can literally be translated, “They shall not, repeat, shall not ever perish in the slightest.”² Jesus states this same truth emphatically in a number of ways as opposed to a conditional promise of salvation.  In John 8.51-52 Jesus says the same thing from a negative perspective – “…shall never see death…shall never taste death…”  And it John 11.27, “…shall never die.”  Jesus’ own strong words preclude any conditions upon salvation.

Back again in John 10, Jesus says, "No one can...

...snatch them out of My hand.   My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater 

than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.”  (John 10.28-29)

The picture Jesus gives us of the person who is saved is one in which the saved person is safely held in the hands of Jesus with no one able to take them out.  Further, the hands of Jesus are surrounded by the hands of God the Father with no one able to take them out of the Father’s hands either.  Concerning these verses, Dr. Vance Havner, the famed country preacher said, “That’s what’s called having the situation well in hand.”

The Apostle Paul’s teaching clearly emphasized this “eternally safe” description of the future for Christians:

“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is our

 life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”  (Colossians 3.3-4).

To the power of Jesus Christ and God the Father, Paul also adds the power of the Holy Spirit:

“…you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.”  (Ephesians 1.13)

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you

 were sealed for the day of redemption.”  (Ephesians 4.30)

The eternal security of the believer is kept intact by the power of the Trinity – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

One key point to remember is summoned by the question, “How does a person get salvation in the first place?  Where is its source?”

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; 

it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”   (Ephesians 2.8-9)

The Bible makes it clear that salvation is a gift of God; further we could not save ourselves if we wanted to do so:

“You were dead in your trespasses and sins … but have 

been made alive together with Christ.”  (Ephesians 2.1, 5)

As in the physical life, so in the spiritual life:  those who are dead are not capable of doing any thing.  And finally, Paul says that he is confident that,

“He who has begun a good work in you will complete 

it until the day of Jesus Christ.”  (Philippians 1.6)

Salvation is a gift initiated by God.  It is a position kept safe by the Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit.  And it shall be carried to completion all the way until the day when Christ shall consummate the end of the age.

Notes:

1.   Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from the New King James Version.   Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville, TN.  1999.

2.  Erickson, Millard J.  Christian Theology.  Baker Books: Grand Rapids, MI.  1985.