Well, good morning. Congratulations to all of you who set your clocks back. Although we do have to be honest, we live in a day and an age where most of our devices just do it now, even alarm clocks. So, except mine's off. It, like, reset a few days early. Don't ask me why. All right. Genesis chapter 6. Making our way through the various covenants in scripture, we're kind of hovering a bit over the Noahic covenant, which we started looking at last week. And just by way of reminder, it'll be good to read a couple verses. I'm actually gonna read the first 10 verses. And we'll look at a few of the different things related to it as well. When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be a hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals, and creeping things, and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God, and Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Okay, so we started last week diving into, if I could use that as an expression with respect to Noah and all that. Diving into the Noahic covenant and we've, yeah. Sure. My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years. There's actually two ways you can look at that because of the way the Hebrew is structured. It could be that what God is saying there is he's cutting off the age, at least at that point, of man to be 120 years. And subsequent to the flood, there's a dramatic drop off in the length of age. The other way to translate that is the idea that it's going to be in 120 years, that's when the flood's coming. in man up to death? Yeah, it could be in, with, toward. Again, it's fun with prepositions, but the idea is that God's not going to dwell with wickedness. That's the fundamental issue. God will not dwell with wickedness. And so man shall live, whether it's lifespan or mankind as a whole, for only 120 more years. So it doesn't actually refer to a literal indwelling? No, not in the salvific sense that we think of. All right. So we saw last week, and we tried to make the connections, and hopefully we did some success with it, the connections between the covenants at creation and even the Fall, with this covenant as well. And we saw some of the language, some of the commands that were given to Noah subsequent even to the flood after it came out of the ark. You know, be fruitful and multiply, et cetera, things like that. So there is a connection, plus we even talked a bit about the grammar of the Hebrew that is there indicating the language of establishing the covenant can carry and often does carry the connotation of continuing that which is already there, that which is already in existence. So the only place where such a covenant is being established or reiterated has to be in the same covenant that he gave to Adam and Eve after the fall. And so it's really a continuation with greater themes and greater anticipation. And in fact, as we'll see, as we go through all of the covenants in scripture, between God and man, it starts off almost, well, it does start off in seed form with Adam and Eve, and then branches out, it expands, it grows. And it will continue to grow until the focal point, Christ himself comes. All right, you may remember that last week I said I was going to kind of follow a structure that old Palmer Robinson lays out. And he noted six characteristics. And we're gonna do that. We're gonna go through some of these, all of these, but there's also gonna be a sense where we've got to talk about some of the things that have been modern interpretations, if you will, of the Noahic covenant and the resulting effects for the church today. And this is particularly focused today in Westminster Seminary, California. Other places, other ministers and theologians may follow it, but that tends to be where the focus is coming out of now. We'll get to that eventually, but I don't want to hit on that today. So what I hope to look at today is it's pretty basic. It's pretty clear from the text what Robertson brings out into his book. So just by way of reminder, let me tell you the six characteristics. We already looked at one. We're probably gonna look at two of them today because they're very related. And then next week, we'll start the universal aspect of things. But first off, the covenant with Noah emphasizes the close interrelation of the creative and redemptive covenant. That's what we looked at last week. Today, I hope to look at these next two. The covenant with Noah relates to the particularity of God's redemptive grace. And then this third principle, which I hope to look at also because it's very much related in what's inherent in the establishment of the covenant with Noah relates to God's intention to deal with families in his covenantal relationships. That's actually a pretty important one. Fourth, the covenant with Noah primarily may be characterized as a covenant of preservation, which we'll talk about much more next week. Fifth, the covenant with Noah possesses a distinctively universalistic aspect. And I think four and five are related, just different focal points. And then finally, which really is something we're kind of covering all throughout, the seal of the covenant with Noah emphasizes the gracious character of the covenant. So really that aspect of the covenant with Noah being gracious really ought to be an umbrella to all of the rest. So the particularity of God's redemptive grace. The wording there is significant that Robertson uses. Particularity and of course, grace. That matters. It helps us understand some things and there are also other things we need to understand as we even interpret Genesis as a whole. Chase? Did you say an umbrella to all of the rest or an umbrella to all of the west? Rest. Okay. Not to the west. It is to the west. but that's not what I said. North, east, south, west, all of it. Now, you notice, why is it, you know, we read those verses in Genesis 6. Why is it that Noah was singled out? Why is it that Noah was the one who was going to build the ark? What are some hints that we see just from the text that we read from verses one through 10? Okay, he found grace or favor as the ESV has it. What else do we see? Okay, so what we see there in particularly verse nine, these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Now, have we seen in other places of scripture, individuals that are called blameless? Yes. Who? Job. Job, yeah. Job is a prime example, really. How about walking with God? Actually, that expression walking with God could be used of any number of individuals in the Old Testament. So what's the reason that scripture gives that Noah finds his favor? Kind of a trick question. On the surface, it almost looks like what's the reason? It looks like he's obedient, he's blameless. He walks with God. So of course God would choose him. Yes, you should say self-righteousness would probably be a better way of how it appears. It could be. We tend to use self-righteousness in a different connotation, but yeah. What we don't clearly see is why he was obedient or how he came to righteousness or how he was held to be blameless. The almost too quick answer is, well, Noah finds favor with God because he was righteous. And that's why, so God's rewarding him in that sense. Noah was a good standup guy, so therefore, that's why he's being picked. Well, There's really a couple problems. I think the first more obvious one is the order in which we see the text. Favor comes first. You notice that. Noah found favor after describing the wickedness of the world without any description of Noah yet. Noah found favor. So that's the first thing. There's a second thing that's actually an important interpretive thing that we see. It happens a number of times in Genesis in particular. It's this expression that we see at the beginning of verse nine, not really the second part. These are the generations of Noah. You see this kind of expression scattered a few times throughout the book of Genesis. It marks a large break in terms of the narrative, a shift as it were. And that's important in interpreting this so that we understand that throughout all of our reading and understanding of note, it's important to recognize that above all else, what God showed to Noah was grace. It was grace. You can also then say, and I realize this is sort of going a bit beyond what the text says in and of itself, but taking the rest of scripture as a whole and what we know by way of what's known as the analogy of faith, the scripture as a whole, that as you get to verse nine and you see the description of Noah, blameless and walked with God, why was he blameless? Why was he righteous? Why did he walk with God? It's because God found favor, showed him favor. That's why he was blameless. That's why he walked with God. It was because of God's favor. It's not the other way around. It's very easy to just want to say, well, Noah was a good guy, so that's why he was spared. No, that's not what really is happening. Now, we also know that God in his grace and his mercy with his own people restrained sin. Oh, thank you. Right? So what we're seeing is the favor of God upon Noah resulting in, as it results throughout all of redemptive history for God's people, the favor of God resulting in one who, comparatively speaking, is righteous and blameless. Now, was Noah perfect? How do we know that? What's that? Yeah, after everything's done and he starts cultivating the ground, he's got the fruit of the vine, he goes and gets drunk. So yeah, he's not perfect. So the language of being blameless and the language of being one who walked with God is one of It's language that is used to remind everybody that it is God who acts in an individual and then compared to everyone else around who are not God's people, they are blameless. And in fact, if you think about it, the favor of God, and this is great for those who were up at the conference yesterday, justification, is an aspect of our salvation that is key and important, that we stand before God as though we were perfectly blameless. One who finds favor with God stands before God as if he were blameless. And that's because of the imputed righteousness of Christ. So that's another, again, this is theological, but you see the order. Noah finds favor. The world is wicked, Noah finds favor. Now, the author of Genesis, who is Moses, then says, here's the generations of Noah. Let's talk about Noah, and that's what you see in the next chapters, right? You got a question or comment? And the story about Noah, what do we want to do? We want to say, he was a good guy. Noah, in the midst of the people, God finds favor, shows favor, gives favor. And that's the thing to remember for all of us from a practical standpoint. It's very easy for Christians to fall into the trap of thinking, well, I became a Christian because I'm smart. because I've read all the right books, because I get it. You want to know why you get Christianity? Regardless of your level of Christian education, the reason why you get it is because God revealed it to you, like to Noah. He showed favor to you. Trish? the Lord, love the Lord, and what comes out of that in the face of people obeying and enjoying the Lord and fellowship, we need to test our hearts with that. Are we looking down on that, or are we building one another up? Are we finding ways to say, the Lord is good, and encourage young people to keep pressing on in the Lord and enjoy that, and not look down on young people. Yeah, or anyone. Right. And really, this is what happens with Noah. God shows him favor, and as a result of that grace, that compassion, that mercy, he then is a righteous man, blameless in his generation, and walks with God. And he demonstrates that by living in obedience to what commands come next. Build an ark. He does it. He's not saved by his obedience, but his obedience demonstrates that he trusts in God, he rests in God for salvation because of the grace of God given to him, Jake. Well, he did. Actually, it's both. Yeah, that's the point, but where... Well, no, that's actually not the case. The initial blessing comes because God chose to bless them. That's what we see here with Noah's structure. That's what you see with Abraham. You see it also with Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, really, in all of Israel, because of God's favor toward Abraham. It always begins with God's favor. Yes, obedience follows, but it follows precisely because of that favor. What you see in Abraham, for example, in living in obedience and willing to offer a sacrifice of his own son is obedience that justifies his justification. That's the language. And so the language there of James 2, using Abraham as an example of being justified by works, that word justify can also mean vindicate. It proves, it vindicates that he has real faith. And that's what we see here. Noah's obedience is vindication, as it were, of the favor that God has showed him. That's the systematic way of understanding how it works. Conrad? With respect to Abraham too, remember, he's a pagan in a pagan land. God calls him. Yeah, God called him out. He's already been called out. Correct. So that's God's favor to him. And that was an effectual call, but he went. Correct. And there's selection of language. He says, I've chosen Abraham. Correct, right, there's that too. I also wanna stress real quick a second there, the language here, these are the generations of Noah. This is language, these are the, you even find a section at the beginning of chapter 36, these are the generations of Esau. It's like, why are we getting this at Esau? You see it, these are the generations of Jacob in chapter 37 or 38, which interestingly then follows up with mostly about Joseph. Jacob comes into it later on. But this expression, it's the toll dots is because it's based on the Hebrew word. It marks a major section break in Genesis. And so what we see even here in Genesis six, you have this overarching issue. There's wickedness in the world. I mean, it is bad, but God shows Noah favor. Who's Noah? These are the generations of Noah. Now Noah was righteous and blameless and walked with God, et cetera. The order there is Noah finds favor with God. And yes, he demonstrates his faith by living in obedience to him. That's the result. The obedience is always the fruit of grace, always. And it's also the vindication of his faith as well. That's what James's point is. And really, if you look carefully at the whole of faith in Hebrews 11, all of the examples demonstrate the same thing. By faith. And notice, almost all of them did something. But where did the faith come from? It's a gift of God. Jake? I understand the destination of God's grace and all of it. But the structure of this passage is that it's God It's not a because, and the reason why it's not a because is because of that insertion of the expression, these are the generations of Noah. This is a cutoff, and now is a whole new section. That's why it doesn't work. So even from an interpretive standpoint of the text of scripture, it doesn't work that way. It can't. So it's not because he obeyed that he received favor. He obeyed because God showed him favor. And that's always the case throughout all of our genitive history. So, Barrett? The best of man are still man. That's correct. And so total depravity defines the inability to earn as an undercurrent of hegemonic vision is also an unwillingness And why was there a willingness to act? And that's really what it is. And that's what you see in chapter six. Chapter six, in the first portion, in verse eight, there's a contrast set, but, or technically you can say and, because of the translation, Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Full stop. New section. These are the generations of Noah. And then you get the expansion from there. I think there's a difference between being able to say, I can put into words what I'm seeing, I can describe it, and say, I understand it. in every detail about them. One of the best analogies that I'm aware of, and maybe there's a better one, of the whole idea of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility are train tracks. If you stand on train tracks, and I wouldn't normally recommend this, but if you stand on train tracks and see the direction that they're going, it looks like they meet. From your perspective, it looks like they meet. But as you keep walking, you realize they're never gonna meet. They always go side by side. And we're not going to make full sense of the issue of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. We just can't, because some things are just beyond our comprehension to understand. And so what do we make then of Noah's obedience? Well, you can even look, we'll go to James two first. Now this of course is talking about justification. And again, if you were at the conference yesterday, Dr. Piper spoke on this, did an excellent job of differentiating for us. Because you look at what Paul says, we are justified by faith apart from works. That's what Paul says. You come to chapter two of James and James says in particular in verse, Well, 14 and 15, really. all through 17. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not work, does not have works? In such a faith save him. For brother or sister is poor in clothes and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving the things needed to the body. What good is that? So also faith by itself does not have, if it does not have works, is dead. And so a little bit further, he goes on and he says this, using Abraham as the example, You get to verse 24, you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. There it is, the Bible contradicts itself, right? Paul says we're justified by faith apart from works. James is saying we're just, well, this is where we get into the understanding of the word justification or the verb justify. As Dr. Piper even indicated yesterday, the majority of the time that the word is used, it does deal with the declaration that we are righteous in God's sight. But there are uses of the word that describe it as vindication or proof of something. So, you know, if you use the example that Jesus used the words, wisdom is justified, et cetera, that's how James is using this. It's faith that is with works, it is not faith plus works that justifies. That's what happens here with Noah. It is not because of his obedience that he found favor with God. God showed him favor, the result is he obeys. Yeah. Most people in this room have not grown up Presbyterian, just so you know. And that's why we have these. That is the age-old question that has been through the centuries. And so the question is, what about our choice? What about free will? The fascinating thing is, those of us who are Reformed and Presbyterian and Calvinistic, it's not just Presbyterians or Calvinistic Baptists who believe in predestination and so forth. Like John MacArthur, he would, on this subject, he would agree with me. But he is fully Baptist. He's not Presbyterian. And boy, does he let you know. Anyway. Anyway, the issue here is when we speak of this question of free will, what do we mean by free will? And so frequently, the charge against us who hold to a Calvinistic view of choice and predestination misunderstand what free will and even what we mean by free will. Free will does not operate in a vacuum. And so even our own doctrinal standards have a complete chapter on free will. What we mean by free will is that we as rational creatures will always freely choose according to our nature. So here's how free will does not work. I've got free will. If that's the case, I'm gonna go downtown Tulsa, go up to the top of the BOK building there and fly. Who wants to watch? Why won't that work? But it's my free will. Why will I not fly? Why will I end up falling flat on my face? Because it's not my nature to fly. It doesn't matter how much free will in that sense I might think I have. I will never fly because it's not my nature. Now we bring this into the concept of our choice of God. No human will ever freely choose God, not because he's irrational, there is a sense where he became irrational, but because it's not his nature. In fact, every human being apart from God's grace will always freely choose to reject God. That's really the sense of what the Bible teaches concerning free will. God does not coerce any of us. The language that our doctrinal standards use, God does no violence to the will. We're not coerced. So we sometimes get accused of saying, well, people are dragged, kicking and screaming into heaven. And then other people who want to go to heaven are rejected because they're not elect. That's nonsense. That's not the picture that the gospel gives. The picture is God shows grace to individuals who otherwise would freely reject him every single time. And that was Noah until God showed him favor. There is a school of thought that says you can't have meaningful dialogue about free will unless you define free will. Yes, you have to define free will. That being, freedom to act outside of God, sustaining and controlling grace, is just not possible. Because number one, it would assume that we have nothing external to ourselves. So from that sense, we are not, quote, absolutely free. So we're trapped by those conditions. And as a result, what you describe as free agency, which has been our ability to make choices within the scope of our nature, as distinguished from free will, which says we cannot choose any or all the moral options offered to us in any given situation. I think also related to this question of free will and how it's properly defined, those who profess Christianity, and I'm not going to question whether they are or they're not, when they attack reform doctrine on this question of free will and this question of predestination and choice and all of that, I don't think they realize what they are doing. They are attributing to man something that God himself does not have. An absolute free will. Now you may think, how can you say God does not have an absolute free will? Can God will to sin? That's my question. Can God will to sin? It's not in his nature. He's not free to. He is bound by his own nature. It does. because we're being supposed to hate sin, and yet there's sin. What do I do with that? And this thing about free will doesn't honestly wrestle with that reality. It doesn't honestly wrestle with the awfulness of sin and the need for grace, and that we're responsible for saying, well, how come And I think the key thing that you said there is the connection or the relationship between our sinfulness and our free choice to live in sin but God. That's really what it boils down to. Why is it that any one of us, and charity of judgment here, I can't read hearts, Same with me, you can only, charity of judgment, none of you can read my heart. We all accept each other's public profession of faith as being credible. We believe, we give the charity of judgment. At the end of the day, if each and every one in this room truly is, and I'm not doubting anyone's salvation, okay, I'm not, just make that clear. Anytime we speak of why it is, how did I come to receive and rest upon Christ? How was it that I chose to repent? How was it that I chose Christ to receive him in faith? It's because God showed me favor. That's always where it begins. That's Paul's argument in Ephesians 2. You look at the first three verses and we're a mess. We're dead in our sin and trespasses and we freely choose it. This is what we do, this is what we are. But God, in verse four. And who gives the glory? And it's God who gets the glory. Why did I choose? I definitely chose Christ. Everyone in this room who's made that public profession has chosen Christ. But why? Because God showed you favor. That's the order, and that's exactly what Genesis 6 is doing here with Noah. That's the covenantal side of it. That's why it is a covenant of grace, not a covenant of words. Noah found favor with God. Well, I've got like multiple hands here, so I'm just trying to remember the order in which I saw them, but I don't. All right, well, I'll do the Robert's Rules way of doing it and go back to front. So, Trish. Right, exactly. you're worried, you're sinning, you're filled. Everything just opens up when you come to the Lord. Yeah, it really is ultimately, the trigger point is always God's grace through us. That's where it starts. And that's where, and we're out of time, unfortunately. But again, I referenced Ephesians 2. You look at the first three verses. That was us before grace. It's God who made us alive. Romans 1 through 3 is also. Doesn't matter, Gentiles, Jews, all alike. Then you get that summary of collection of verses from mostly Psalms, but the Old Testament, there's no one who does good. No one seeks after God, no one. But now a righteousness from God apart from the law is manifest. Does God reward obedience? Yeah. He does, that's what happened with Abraham in the offering up of his son. But that's a result of grace, not a reason for it. That's the key difference. I freely choose Christ. because of the grace that God has shown to me. It does not take away my responsibility. I still have to do it, but I'm able to do it because you showed me favor. That's what we see even here with Noah. It is a covenant of grace shown to Noah. I was gonna talk about the familial aspect of it, but we're out of time, so. Okay, but that's okay. You may remember back when we did the lengthy study on warship, I wasn't like, hard pressed, we gotta get this amount of material done in this amount of time. I'm not looking for that. I want the discussion. I want us to have iron sharpen iron. So if this takes a long time to get through, we'll take a long time to get through. I'm fine with that. I'm not bound by the quarter Sunday school requirement. Okay, all right, let's close in prayer. Our Father and God in heaven, how we give you praise and thanks that you are a God of grace, that you have reached into the depths of our wicked hearts and changed our hearts so that our new nature would freely choose you for salvation. Father, we recognize that, yes, we may have chosen you, but it's because you first chose us and it is all of grace so that you get the glory and honor and the praise. But Lord, we pray that that grace would then spur us on to a living faith, living obedience to your word out of a gratitude and thankfulness for the grace that you have shown to us. We pray all this in Christ's name, amen.