In this sermon, the preacher starts by emphasizing the importance of understanding God's love towards humanity. He refers to the passage in Genesis chapter 5 as a basis for interpreting the Bible. The preacher highlights that despite the blessings and the picture of salvation, the earth still remains under a death sentence. He emphasizes the need for individuals to be rightly related to Jesus Christ in order to receive salvation and forgiveness. The sermon concludes with a reminder that everyone will be held accountable for their actions and must give an account of their lives to God.

A little earlier on this year, I was doing some studies at Reading, some Saturday evening studies, and I chose the book of Romans. And someone asked me why I'd chosen Romans, and pretty much the answer was Romans chapter 5, verse 8, which I think is my favourite Bible verse. And it's the verse that you need to understand is written over every other page of the Bible. If you're going to understand God, you need to understand this above everything else, that God demonstrates His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That is the banner text. That is the statement of God's attitude towards me, in which I must understand every other thing that I don't understand. There are many parts of the Bible that I don't understand, but I try to understand them and interpret them in the light of that text, that God has demonstrated His love toward me. And the tenses are so vital. God demonstrates present tense. God commends His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, past tense, Christ died for us, past tense. What it tells me is that the death of Christ wasn't some high point of God's love from which He has slowly deteriorated. It tells me that God has always loved me like that. It tells me that at this present moment in time, God is loving me with the love that He demonstrated when Christ died for me on the cross, right now. You've just sung one of my favourite hymns as well. I also made my first responses to the Lord, singing, O Lamb of God, I come. And I do something every time I've sung it. I don't know how many times I've sung it since. But at the end of every verse, I come. I come. In fact, you sing it twice in the verse. Sometimes you can come twice in the verse. I keep on coming, because I know the love of God is unchanged. And it doesn't matter what I've done with it. It doesn't matter if I've squandered it or blown it, misused it. It doesn't make any difference. God's love is unchanging. It stems to that sixth point in time and eternity. Christ died for me, the sinner, loving me, and loves me with the same passion now. You need to have that verse, almost, at the beginning of any explanation of why does a God of love permit so many things to happen that seem to be so evil? I can't give a slick answer to that. But my answer always begins with this statement. I know that God demonstrates his love to me, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for me. In other words, I interpret God's dealings with me in the light of that overarching statement. He loves me. He continues to love me with the same unchanging love. Sometimes parts of the Old Testament in particular are quite a puzzle. You read things and you say, well, how could God do this? How could this happen? And there's a couple of phrases that the Lord Jesus Christ used that I would commend to you. It's that a part of the Old Testament, particularly parts with the giving of the law and the outworking of them, and some of God's dealings that seem to be very ungracious. There was a time when some people came to the Lord Jesus and they asked him. They were really trying to trap him, but I guess there were some who were puzzled as well. And they wanted to know how they were to understand or implement some of the laws of Moses. Is it right that a man should be able to divorce his wife for any reason at all, they said. And before the Lord Jesus even began to expound the Old Testament, he made this statement. He said certain things about Moses. He said Moses had only permitted it, and then he said this. Moses permitted it because of the hardness of your hearts, but from the beginning it was not so. That means that whenever you read the Old Testament, you need to understand that from the beginning it was not so. In other words, we're looking at a fallen world, we're looking at a world in crisis and distress. We're not looking at things as they originally were. And we need to understand that God has done many things because of the hardness of men's heart. It was not his first plan, it was not his first thought, but it was the best that he could do in given circumstances. That's sobering, isn't it? From the beginning it wasn't like this, Jesus said. But because of the hardness of men's heart, this route was permitted. And many of the things in the Old Testament are not the way they would have originally been. They were not like this from the beginning. But because of the hardness of men's hearts, God had to work his way through in certain ways, and he doesn't always explain himself. Why should he? Where would faith be if he explained everything to us? So some things we just have to take and trust. I want to go to one of the most sobering events in human history, that you'll know well, way back here in the Old Testament, I want to go back to Noah. Genesis chapter 6. I was at a little church in Watford a couple of weeks ago, and I was preaching on some other part, I think, of the Scripture, and a lady came to me afterwards and she said, I'm always glad, she said, when you preach in the Old Testament, because I don't understand any of it. I think she meant the Old Testament rather than my preaching. It may have been both, I don't know. There are some puzzling things in this particular story. And I'm not saying that I understand them all. I would say this though, that God has given us this book so that we should begin to understand God's ways, and particularly understand some of the words that God uses, and some of the principles by which he works. And I want to do something very simple. I want to go into this story and look at it, and find some very basic principle. What I'm doing is something very simple this morning, but I want to do it from this particular passage. Let's start in Genesis chapter 5. Genesis chapter 5 begins like this. I'll have to keep looking at my watch, because you've now got a preacher's clock. They're wonderful, these clocks that don't move. Chapter 5, this is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man in the likeness of man made he him, male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam in the day that they were created. That was the beginning. That was the beginning. That was things as they ought to have been, as they ought to have remained. But you know, if you've read the Old Testament, that things didn't remain like that. That sin entered into our world. By one man, sin entered into our world, we're told in the book of Romans. And that entrance of sin into the human race has spoiled everything. It's distorted things, it's polluted them, so that we no longer see things as they were originally intended to be. And you move on immediately to this long list of names, and every now and again you get this little phrase. I'll pick it out here as we go down. Let's start at the end of verse 8, and he died. Go to the end of verse 11, and he died. Go to the end of verse 14, and he died. And to the end of verse 17, and he died. And to the end of verse 20, and he died. Can you see the point? And he died, and he died. They lived enormous lengths of time, but ultimately they died. That thing that God had brought into the human race is a result of man's sin. The Bible says, Trump came in, and death came by sin. So, through the gates that Adam opened, sin came. Through the channel of sin came death itself. And although in these early days it seems it has taken a long time to get hold of people's material bodies, ultimately each one of these people died. And death now, the end of every two or three verses, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died. And there's just one exception in the middle of it all, a man named Enoch. He discovered some fascinating things about numbers, if you read the Old Testament carefully, and don't just skimp past all the numbers. If you read it very carefully, you might actually find out how many times they marched around Jericho. Because it wasn't seven. But I'll leave you to look it up. Not now while I'm preaching. Later on. Let's go to Enoch. It won't fit into the song, it's too many, so you'll have to sing it twice. Um, this is, um, let's join in verse 18 with Jared. And Jared lived a hundred and sixty and two years and begat Enoch. And Jared lived after he begat Enoch 800 years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Jared were 960 and 2, and he died. And Enoch lived 65 years and begat Methuselah. Have you ever read the Gospel according to Enoch? It's in the book of Jude. If you go right to the end of your Bible, it's amazing isn't it that the Bible does this. You can actually, um, we've got something here in the little book of Jude. Only a single chapter next to the last book of the Bible. And, um, if you read verse 14, you'll see that we know some things about Enoch that we wouldn't have known from the book of Genesis. One of the most amazing things that we discover is that he was a prophet. In fact he's the first man named as a prophet in the Bible. And this is what it says about him. Verse 14. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these things, saying Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. I, um, suggest that you read the prophecy of Enoch. Just these two verses. Don't go any farther than what we've got in the Bible. Just go to these two verses and think about them. You discover that whatever else Enoch did, whatever else he was, you have a very clear understanding that people were responsible for the way in which they lived their lives. That we are accountable and that one day we will have to give an account for the way that we've lived our lives. And that all those things were in this deadly cycle of death and death and death and death. Enoch saw beyond it all to a time when God would come with ten thousand of his holy ones. And there would be something, obviously, very different. That's about as much as we know of his prophecy. But you need to understand that that knowledge that God would one day come in retribution, in judgment upon a sinning world was built into the early knowledge of the human race. You don't have to go to the book of Jude to know this. The human race has known this since the days of Enoch. Are you following me? Way, way back. From Genesis chapter 5. They knew these things. This was knowledge that God had brought into the human race. So let's go back to Enoch to find out a little bit more about him. Verse 21. Enoch lived 65 years and he begets Methuselah. Now, Methuselah is a man who's almost kind of passed on into legend, isn't it? I used to know a man that I worked with in the pottery industry many, many years ago. And if he wanted to indicate that something was old, he would always say, since Methuselah was a lad, he used to say. Since Methuselah was a lad. Methuselah is famous because he's probably the oldest man that we have record of living in the Bible. He lived, here it is, in verse 27, all the days of Methuselah were 969 years. And he died. He lived a long time, but ultimately he died. Remember, his father Enoch was a prophet. You just found that from the book of Jude. Now, when Methuselah came into the world, Enoch named his son Methuselah. And Methuselah is an extraordinary name because it means, when he is dead, it will come. Fancy naming your babies one of those. When he is dead, it will come. I guess they called him something shorter when they wanted him to come in for his dinner. But that was it. When he is dead, it will come. What will come? Well, there wasn't any immediate explanation of what it was that was going to come, but people knew that Enoch was a prophet of a future time, that he had an eye not just on the present but in the future. He was looking for what they called his son Methuselah. And then in verse 22, it goes on to say, and Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years, begat sons and daughters, and all the days of Enoch were 300 years and 5 years, 360 and 5 years, and Enoch worked with God, and then you'll notice that this little phrase, and he died, is missing. It's not there because he didn't. And he was not, for God took him. Enoch is one of the very few people who have lived upon this earth who didn't die. It says here that he worked with God, and the Hebrew means that he continually walked with God. He habitually walked with God. For at least 300 years, if we read the Bible in its strictest sense, from the time of the birth of his son, Methuselah, he worked constantly with God. Just imagine the testimony of that in his day and age. This man who lived in continual harmony with God, in continual fellowship with God. He was famous for being the man who walked with God. Enoch, you know the one I mean? The one who walked with God. What an amazing testimony. What an effect this must have had upon his generation and upon the generations that were surrounding him. And this son, what is this portent wrapped up in the name of this son? When he is dead, it will come. There's no immediate explanation, but it goes on. It says in verse 25, Methuselah lived 180 and 7 years and begat Lamech. It's powerful. Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech 780 and 2 years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Methuselah were 969 years and he died. Lamech lived 180 and 2 years and begat a son and he called his name Noah, which actually means rest. Saying, this same one, this Noah shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord had cursed. Lamech lived after he begat Noah 595 years and it goes on and it goes on. But this is the Bible's way of introducing us to this man Noah. And you see it puts him in this family and for a considerable amount of time Noah was alive at the same time that Methuselah was alive. Certainly Lamech was alive at the same time as Enoch was alive. So you've got all these generations who've seen the testimony of this man, Enoch, who've heard some of his prophecies, who know that one of his prophecies seems to be lingering on in the life of this man named Methuselah whose name means when he is dead it shall come. Something was going to come. And it seems as though God kept this man Methuselah alive as long as he possibly could because God had synchronized the coming of something with the death of this boy. So from the day that he was held in his father's arms God was going to keep this boy alive as long as possible because when he is dead it will come. What will come? Well if you can work out these figures and if you're left to work out the fact that Noah was born at a certain point and you discover if you put these figures together that 969 years after Methuselah was born is actually Noah's 600th year. If you read on into chapter 6 you'll discover that it was in Noah's 600th year. That's to say the year that Methuselah died it was in that same year that the flood came. Isn't this a remarkable demonstration of God's grace? That even when God had put a sentence of death upon this human race through the prophecy of Enoch who said he's going to come and when he comes he brings retribution with him. And Enoch names his son the one who when he has died it will come. And then in the mercy of God for almost a thousand years while this man's prophecies ring on in the ears in the memory of the generations that come this man who is still living, who is still living, when he has died, it will come. And it came the flood came in the 600th year of Noah in the year that Methuselah died. Chapter 6 It came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them that the sons of God told the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of all which they chose. The Lord said my spirit shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh yet his days shall be in 120 years. There were giants, I'll just stick to what it says here we're not going into this part of it and there were giants in the earth in those days and also after that when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bared children to them the same became mighty men which were of old men of renown 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 and repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart. You will discover that is a contrast between two hearts in these two verses. You will find the heart of human beings in the first of the verses and in the second you will find the heart of God. It is the heart of the human race. 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. And then God's heart. It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him. The word means cause him pain. It caused God pain for hundreds of years. Even when he had spoken the word of prophecy through Enoch that retribution must come, God carried his grief in his heart for 969 years. This wasn't temper. This was not God getting to an end of his patience. This was God's grace, waiting waiting, waiting, waiting until the last possible time. God was grieved in his heart. This is not an action of a God who has lost his temper. It's not the action of a God who is acting in vengeance. This is a God who now has no other choice other than to carry out the thing that he had threatened for almost a thousand years at this point. The sentence of death is hung over the human race for almost a thousand years. And no one has done anything. In fact it got worse and worse and worse until the diagnosis is this. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart. Let's listen to the all-inclusiveness of this. Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. There's absolutely no redeeming features in the human race at this time. There's nothing that you can look at and say, ah, but there's this. We can still work on this. The whole thing is utterly rotten. It's utterly corrupted. It's utterly polluted. It is absolutely unusable. The Lord said, I will destroy the man. I will wipe him out. I think it means literally. 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 repents me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That's your very first use of the word grace in the Bible. Noah found grace. Noah was favored by God. If you read the book of Hebrews, it will tell you that it was really based upon Noah's faith. Noah was a man of faith. I don't know whether he had heard things about Enoch. I don't know what it was, but there was something about Enoch which set him apart from his generations. So that you've got the whole world that's utterly rotten, utterly corrupt, with no remedy left with which to treat it, and in the midst of all this corruption you've got this one man, Noah, who has found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah, and Noah walked with God. There he is. He's got the same relationship with God that Enoch had. His great-grandfather that he never met, but he is Noah now, walking with God. Speaking Bible language, it's language which speaks of fellowship. You know that the Bible says that two calves walk together except they be agreed. Amos, chapter 3. You cannot have two people walking together except they be agreed. So the fact that Enoch walked with God for 300 years means that Enoch had no controversy with God for 300 years. No disagreement. No slow obedience. We used to say when our children were little, slow obedience is still disobedience. And selective obedience is still disobedience. You have to spell these things out. You have to spell them out to us as well. But you didn't have to spell them out to Enoch. Enoch walked with God and Noah walked with God. The two were agreed. They walked together. And God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way, God's way, upon the earth. And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood. Rooms shalt thou make in it. Or if you've got a Bible that'll tell you, nests. You'll make places where things can settle, where things can sleep, where things can be at home. And thou shalt pitch it. For those of you who like Bible wood, that's your very first use of the word atone. That's the word castle. You shall cover it with pitch. And within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion of it. You shall make it at the length of an ark. And the length of the ark shall be 300 cubits. If you halve the number of cubits and make it yards, for those of you who still speak in yards, and you know roughly how this is, this is about 150 yards. It's an enormous vessel in one sense, but it's tiny in comparison of what it was going to be subject to. It was, I think it wasn't until the 19th century that men actually built floating objects bigger than this. But in fact this itself in comparison of what was going to happen was a tiny thing, just 150 yards long. The height of it, 30 cubits, the window you shall make in the ark, and a cubit you shall finish it above, and the door of the ark you shall set in the side. The lower, second, and third stories you shall make it. And behold, even I bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven, and everything that is in the earth shall die. But with thee will I establish my covenant. I don't want to be old fashioned, but I have to tell you that if you're going to be a serious Bible student and really examine the Scriptures very carefully, you're going to have to get one of these versions. I'm not saying it has to be your sole version, I'm not saying it has to be the one you use all the time, I'm just saying you're going to have to get a version which has these and those in it. Not because they're poetic, but because they are precise. The means you personally, and nobody else. You means everybody. This covenant that God made, He did not make with the human race. He did not make with Noah's family. He made it with Noah. He made this covenant with Noah, and only Noah. Now this becomes very important, because you will discover that from the time that God has made this covenant with Noah, the only safety that anything can have is that it is rightly related to Noah. If it is rightly related to Noah, it will enjoy the benefits of Noah's covenant with God. But if it despises Noah, and rejects Noah's testimony, if it does not do what Noah wants it to do, it's excluded from the covenant that God made with Noah. Alright? Okay. With thee I will establish my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark. Thou and thy sons and thy sons' wife, sorry, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives. And every single time it says Noah, this is with you personally, and with those who are related to you. Your personal wife, your personal sons, your personal daughters-in-law, everything comes back to Noah. Have you seen it? Every relationship here is defined in terms of its relationship to Noah. Because Noah is the key to this whole story. Noah is the man whose name is rest, who is in perfect harmony and fellowship with God, whose testimony is indisputable, who is different to the whole world in which he lives. And with this man upon the earth, God will make a covenant. And then everybody's destiny will depend upon their right relationship to that man. Are you ahead of me? Are you ahead of me? Can you see that this is an astonishing picture of the Lord Jesus? The Lord Jesus said towards the end of his life, this covenant is in my blood. This relationship, this agreement is uniquely between my Father and I. Those who are rightly related to me will enjoy the benefits of this covenant. But you must come to me. No man comes to the Father, but by me. If you're thirsty, you must come to me. If you want salvation, you must come to me. You must not look to any of the means through which God will do things. You must look to the one with whom God has established this covenant. If you're rightly related to him, you're going to be alright. Of every living thing, of all flesh, too, of every sort, you shall bring into the arms to keep them alive with thee. They shall be male and female, of fowls after their kind, of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, too, of every sort, shall come unto thee to keep them alive. Take thou unto thee I'm sorry if this is old-fashioned English, but I don't know any other way of emphasizing this. Everything here depends upon Noah. The whole destiny now of the human race depends upon Noah. Everything depends upon this man who is rightly related to God. And verse 21, and take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee, and it shall be food for thee and for them. Thus did Noah according to all that God commanded him, so did he. You'll get this little refrain a couple of times in the story of Noah. He did what God commanded him. I do always those things that I see my Father doing. And on the cross the Lord Jesus sums up his whole life. It is finished. He has done that that he has come to do. Noah is a remarkable picture of what God was going to do. The Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. I don't want to bore you making this point, but I don't want you to miss it. Everything depends upon Noah. Everything depends upon Noah. And every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and the female, and of the beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female, the foul half of the air by sevens, the male and the female, to keep seed alive upon the earth for yet seven days I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. And Noah did according to all that the Lord had commanded him. Hallelujah. What God can do with a man who will obey him. And you know that they mocked him. You know that they despised him. You know that they, although he was a preacher of righteousness, his great grandfather had been a prophet. Noah was a preacher according to the New Testament. He was a preacher of righteousness. He was preaching that God acts in righteousness and that God expects us to act in righteousness. And that there are consequences to that. They ignored all this. Verse seven. And Noah went in and his sons and his wife and his son's wife with him into the ark because of the waters afloat. The clean beasts and the beasts that are not clean and the fowls and everything that creeps upon the earth. They went into and to, unto Noah into the ark. Can you see this? I think God is trying to attract our attention to something here. It doesn't say they went into the ark. It doesn't say they went into the same place where Noah's family. It says they went into Noah. All these animals obeyed whether it was instinct or some word of God that God had spoken to them. They all obeyed this word to go to Noah. You must go to Noah. Noah, your whole salvation is in Noah. It all depends on Noah. There's no salvation if you get separated from Noah. You've got to have Noah at the center of everything. Noah, Noah, Noah. Are you getting this? You know that the New Testament equivalent of this is the way that God constantly points and he says this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. On another occasion he said this is my beloved son hear ye him. It's all dependent upon him. It's all dependent upon him. They went in verse 9 to and to to Noah to the ark, the male and the female as God had commanded Noah. It came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life that's to say the year that Methuselah died. In the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the south the same day entered Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them into the ark. And they and every beast after his kind and all the cattle after their kind and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth after his kind and every fowl after his kind every bird of every sort and they went in unto Noah. Now you should be getting this by now. They went in unto Noah unto the ark to and to all flesh wherein is the breath of life and they that went in went in male and female of all flesh as God had commanded him. God had commanded Noah and the Lord shut him in. Amazing picture isn't it? Did you ever wonder who closed the door when everybody else was in there? God closed the door. When everyone who was going to had obeyed and responded to the testimony and to the preaching of Noah God closed the door. And the flood was forty days upon the earth and the waters increased and bared up the ark and it was lifted up above the earth and the waters prevailed. The reason I pause and I'm just wondering how far to take this whether to leave some parts of it tonight. The clock is still very much in our favor. Or my favor anyway. Now I know that there's a kind of a an unspoken covenant between the preacher and the listener. I won't abuse it. I promise you. Um Um The flood was forty days upon the earth and the waters increased and bared up the ark and it was lifted up above the earth. Do you remember that the earth had been polluted and corrupted? The earth had been spoiled. Everything that was upon the earth was going to have to die. The things that were in the sea the same general judgment had not passed upon there. This is everything that's upon the earth. Now you've got this flood that comes and what it actually does is it takes this this frail thing I'm sure it was substantial in the way it was built but in the light of what it went through it was an amazingly frail vessel. And every drop of water that falls as well as bringing judgment upon that that is upon the earth it actually lifts Noah and those who are rightly related to him farther and farther from the judgment. Farther and farther from the sin. I think Peter spotted this long before I did which is why in his letter, if you'll turn to it in the first letter of Peter in chapter 3 We'll just jump in at verse 20, we're missing out lots of things that I'm sure you would love to talk about but we're not going to this morning. Verse 20 which sometimes were disobedient when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. While we asked was a preparing wherein few, that is eight souls were saved by water. Notice how carefully the Bible expresses things. Not saved from water Did you think that they were saved from water? Well they were saved from water by Noah and right relationship to him but they were saved from the corruption by the water. The thing that brought the judgment actually brought their salvation. Are you following this? Every drop increased the distance between them and the pollution that was upon the earth. Every single drop every tiny act of judgment that God allowed to come into being at this time increased the separation. They were saved by the water. They were saved by the water from the corruption that was in the world. Let's go back to Genesis. That was verse 18. And the waters prevailed sorry verse 17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth and the waters increased and bare up the ark and it was lifted up above the earth. Someone else was lifted up above the earth, suspended between heaven and earth when the judgments of God were upon the earth on the cross when he was effecting our salvation when he was going through something which he spoke of before the time as my baptism with which I must be baptized. The Bible speaks of Noah's flood as a baptism. Jesus spoke of his death upon the cross as a baptism. And the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth and the ark went up on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth. Both the fowl and the cattle and the beast and of every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth and every man in whose nostrils was the breath of life of all that was upon the dry land died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the earth. Both man and cattle and the creeping things and the fowl of the heaven and they were destroyed from the earth and Noah only remained alive and they that were with him. Do you see that? Do you want to remain alive? Do you want to be saved? The only ones who will be saved are those who are with him. Those who are rightly related to him. Those that were with him in the ark. I'm not going to read through the whole of chapter 8 but just in case you think I'm sort of making these things up. If you go through chapter 8 and verse 15 you begin to see what happens after the flood. Verse 15, God spoke to Noah saying, Go forth of the ark thou and thy wives and thy sons and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that's in the ark. And from this time, after the judgment of Kirtan, after Noah has really been the saviour of the human race. For all who have put their trust in him they are all saved. They are all whole. They are all safe. After these things it's from this moment that God says in language that he used once before when things were perfect, be fruitful and multiply. The last time I was here I was talking about Psalm 22. And you'll notice that the children don't come into Psalm 22 until all the events of the judgment have taken place in the first half of it. First the suffering, then the glories that must follow. First this judgment, first this suffering, and then the glories, then the generations that will follow as God starts again. I've sometimes thought, I know my imagination can be a bit fertile at times, but I just wondered what Noah and his family, when they took off the covers of the ark and they looked upon things for the first time. And remember this had been catastrophic what had taken place. The windows of heaven opened, the fountains of the deep, all the consequences of this tremendous power of the water. It would have been unrecognizable from anything that they'd seen before. And I just wonder, I just wonder whether Noah would have stood there with Mrs. Noah. They don't know her name, alas. And said something like, all things have passed away. Behold all things have become new. I wonder. If he didn't say that, I'm sure he must have said something like that. A new earth it's called in the letters of Peter. The old one, it says, passed away. So the old one has passed away when he left this. Noah, in picture language, came out into a new earth. He came into something which was brand new where all the old had passed away. And everything was new. And it stands now ready to be peopled by the people who are rightly related to Noah. And you know it goes on, they come out. Noah went forth with 18 and his sons and his wife and his son's wife with him. And everything comes out and they have this. Then comes the fire. Having gone through the judgments and through all that, then comes the fire. As in symbol, that that has come out safely is now given back to God. Not as a sin offering to deal with sin, but as a birth offering in gratitude and dedication. These people are saying everything that's passed through here is rightfully yours. We no longer have rights over it. It's not ours any longer to say what we should do with it. It's all yours. Because in token, we give it to you like this in these birth offerings. That's what Jesus does too. But not just in token. You're part of his birth offering. Paul says, I judge like this, that if one man died, then all are dead. And he died, so that we should no longer live to ourselves. We no longer have rights to ourselves. Every other part of this generation had passed away, had come under the execution of Acts in this fearsome flood. But these who are rightly related to Noah, they are now God's. Absolutely there for him. And because of that, it comes on in the next chapter, and it goes on to populate this whole earth with those who have passed through the same experience. With those who are mine. Those who are rightly related to me. Fill the whole earth with these. All power is given to me. Go you therefore, says the Lord Jesus. So, here it is. They're going. And if you read through this passage, you'll see that now it begins to open up. And you've got something like this. Verse 8 And God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant look at it, verse you, not thee now, you. Noah has passed through the judgment. He has been God's obedient man. He's achieved salvation for the whole earth. And now those who are joined to him, God says, I establish my covenant with you. Remember Jesus said, you'll be able to right the fall of yourself. You'll be rightly related to him. Isn't this an amazing thing? You've got to get one of these old-fashioned Bibles while you can still get them in the shops. So that you can read things like thee and you and think about them. It spreads now. The blessing spreads. It's only a picture, of course. At this level, it's only a picture. The reality of it is all in Jesus Christ. What I want to say now, just in conclusion, is this. That this whole earth still lies under a death sentence. It still lies under a death sentence. If you've not thought of these things for a long time, I have to tell you that God holds you accountable for the way in which you live your life. One day, you must give an account of the way you've lived your life to the one who trusted it to you. There is salvation. There is forgiveness. There is the prospect of a new beginning when all things can pass away and everything becomes new. But it depends 100% on you being rightly related to the one with whom God has joined himself in covenant. You have to be rightly related to the Lord Jesus. Everything flows from that. All your understanding, that's important. The blessing, that's important. All these things are important but they're all of secondary importance. The only thing that matters is that you are rightly related to him. And you know if you are. Yes, you do. You know if you are. If you are uncomfortable and you know things aren't quite the way they ought to be, we'll prolong it and we'll sing the hymn once more and you can come. In your heart, you can come. There's an old Celtic hymn that says if we waited till we were better we would never come at all. If you wait until you're better, you won't come at all. But you can come now. Let's sing the hymn and I'll pray briefly at the end.