In the sermon titled 'Noah: The Man Who Built an Ark Out of Godly Fear,' Paul Carrington discusses the profound faith and obedience of Noah as depicted in Hebrews 11:7. Noah, warned by God of impending judgment through a flood—a concept foreign to his time—demonstrated unwavering faith by constructing an enormous ark over many decades despite public ridicule. The sermon underscores the significance of Noah's faith, rooted in God's grace, which led to his obedience and righteousness. Carrington emphasizes the societal conditions of Noah's time, characterized by violence and godlessness, drawing parallels to contemporary times. Noah's actions serve as a testament to the importance of fearing and obeying God, regardless of societal pressures. The sermon also draws parallels between Noah's Ark and the salvation offered through Jesus Christ, urging listeners to evaluate their faith and relationship with God.

Well this evening I'm going to be talking to us about Noah, the man who built the Ark out of godly fear. It was about a month and a half ago that we were blessed to be able to go up to Kentucky to see what answers in Genesis has done in response to putting together a life-size rendition of the ark. And it isn't until you actually are there and you're walking underneath the hull of the ship and you get inside of it that you get a sense of the enormity of what Noah was able to accomplish but almost 4, 000 years ago with all of the the technology that we have today. And so I'm going to be talking to you primarily this this evening from Hebrews chapter 11 verse seven, and I'm going to read that. If you have a Bible, feel free to follow along.

You should have an outline that was handed out as well, just covering off this one verse that we're going to be going through and sharing here this evening. Hebrews 11 verse seven says this by faith, Noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. And of course, here we are in Hebrews chapter 11 where we find a catalog of all of these Hebrew men and some women that had faith that conquered that vanquished the kingdoms of darkness through their faith and fear in God but Noah in a way stands out as no other man does in that the the stream of humanity had never gotten so narrow as it did in the days of Noah in that after his account was finished we are left with no more than eight souls eight human souls across the entire face of the of the earth because of God's judgment. And I want to ask you, especially you young men for a moment, to put yourselves back there for for just a minute here into the days of Noah and think about what it was like when something like rain was a foreign concept.

Today, yesterday, we've had nothing but rain, but think about it, it had never rained before when Noah was alive. And there he was, probably in a field without any body of water nearby and a man and his family building this superstructure. The one up in Kentucky right now is classified as the largest timber structure on the entire planet. Well, go back 4, 000 plus years ago, and Noah's structure would probably not have been the only the largest timber structure but maybe one of the largest structures ever put together and He built this ark it says perhaps it might have taken him 120 years and what would happen think about this in the middle of this field where he would have been. He would have been surrounded by a mass of godless believers who had likely come to see his work out of curiosity, a lot of them to mock him, to scorn him, to do all sorts of things.

He would become a laughing stock year after year, decade after decade. People would come out and scorn him, ridicule him, deride him. He was the talk of the town in his day. It says in of his day that the earth was was filled with violence and you can think of a society where it says that the earth is filled with violence men no longer fear God and when men no longer fear God they no longer respect one another in other words like Isaiah says darkness was put for for light bitter was put for sweet and here's a man laboring day in and day out and when you look around we belong in churches but this man had no one to fellowship with he would have been there alone just with his wife and his three sons and and their wives and not one of his hearers altered their life in any way. There was no conversion or sign of it.

And so think about this as a dad. You know, what was it like for Noah every day to come home from work and sit at the table with his wife after being ridiculed and mocked all day in addition to laboring in such a way as he was. In the eyes of man he was playing the fool on such a on a massive scale and this was day in and day out where this scorn was being heaped upon him. But rather than turtling, rather than kind of going into his shell, and just kind of like how most men might under pressure, the Bible describes Noah in Peter. Peter, the apostle, describes him as a preacher of righteousness.

And so what he would do as he was working, as he was laboring, as he would contend with the darkness all around him. This is an amazing depiction of a man who feared his God so much that the faces of the men around him were able to be diminished. And it wasn't that he was brash or overconfident or arrogant or anything like that, but he was a man who preached righteousness. What he was doing is he was telling men how can they be made right with their God. But unfortunately, as we know, nobody paid any heed.

But the question I have for you is, how would you fare in such conditions? Put yourself back there and consider all of these things, this warfare day in and day out. And so the question is, what is such a man rooted in? Well, in Genesis 6 verse 8, we see a man who found grace, it says, in the eyes of the Lord. And this is always the most significant thing about a man.

You know, it's very easy for us to say, well, Noah was a good boy. And so God smiled upon him and said, hey, he saw that Noah was behaving well and therefore said, well, I'm going to use this man. But that is not what the Bible says. It says that he found grace, unmerited favor, in the sight of God. That's the very first thing we learn about Noah, the most important thing.

And as a result of this grace, it says in the next verse, in verse 9 of Genesis, 6 verse 9, that as a result of grace he walked with God as a man of faith. It wasn't just when he was called upon to build the ark but his life up until that point was characterized as a man who walked with God. Just think about that in the day-to-day life, the way that he led his family, the way that he conducted his work. This is what he did on a daily basis. Because in Hebrews chapter 11, the verse right before the one I read earlier, it says this, that without faith it is impossible to please God.

So we find a man who feared God, who had faith in God. And thirdly, as a result of this faith, he feared and obeyed. Thomas Watson made this amazing statement. He says, obedience is faith's daughter. In other words, when you have faith, the outflow of faith is going to be obedience.

And if there is no outflow of obedience, then there was never any faith in the beginning. And so his anchor, this man's anchor, he had a very, very high view of God. And in verse chapter 622, it says, thus did Noah according to all the commands that God gave to him, so he did. And this was how his life was characterized. But again, I want to just take us back to a moment.

Put yourself in the antediluvian world before it had ever flooded because the Lord Jesus Christ makes some references to Noah, doesn't he? In that when he talks about the last days before the Son of Man comes, it's worth our taking stock of what times were like in the days of Noah. And in this anti-deluvian world, where there was a population explosion, our brother just talked about Adam. And from the time of Adam, they did follow one command, and that was to populate the earth. They had filled the earth, but unfortunately, with the explosion of the population, there was an explosion of sin as well.

And so, roughly 1, 500 years after creation, with the loss of Paradise, a distant memory, no one was looking back. There was no distress, there was no lamentation over their lost state whatsoever. Instead, what was man doing? He was running headlong on a path towards destruction. He was in total bondage.

When you read Romans chapter 1, he had done all of what Paul describes. They're exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for all sorts of vain things. And we are told explicitly again the earth was filled with violence and the imagination of man's heart was only evil continually. All flesh had corrupted his way. And remember this, right, if you look in the book of Jude, Enoch's, there was a man named Enoch.

Do you remember that? There was a man in Genesis named Enoch and then Jude makes reference to him. Well, that was Noah's great grandfather. And this man was a preacher of righteousness as well, and he would go about warning men as well, but no one was taking heed to him either. And so despite the call of God to repent, despite the recall of God to turn back to him.

Man's heart was just going headlong on a path towards destruction. And so what was God's disposition in all of this? He was grieved in his heart and that he made man. It says it means that he was pained or he was displeased because he was man who was originally created to have fellowship with him and what was man willing to do he was now willing to exchange a drop of pleasure for a sea of wrath think about that in our day today Men are willing to just have a taste of pleasure and even some of you young men might be contemplating that knowing that it will bring a sea of wrath or maybe thinking that somehow you'll be able to finagle your way out of it when the time comes. But God is a just God, and despite all of his long suffering, the judgment ultimately came.

And so we meet a little family here, a father and his three sons, his wife, and their three wives, as we get into this text. So we're gonna get into the exposition of this. It says by faith. And if a man doesn't have faith, the most important thing about him, he doesn't have anything at all. We always have to remember that it is by faith.

And you'll notice that with the starting phrase of every single man and woman when we look at Hebrews chapter 11. But what is faith? Well, if you look at faith it tells us right in Hebrews chapter 11 what it is. It says now faith is the substance of things hoped for and it's the evidence of things not seen. It's like you can touch something you cannot even see and you believe it so firmly that you latch onto it.

Paul says we walk by faith and not by sight. Well, that is the most important thing about a man as he lives in this world. And it's a faith that declares, despite the tide of the times, that God is, and not only that, he is, but that he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek after him. It takes God at His word. God has said, and I believe it.

That is what faith is. And when it takes root, it produces that love and obedience that I spoke about. It's not only a set of propositions. We're going through the SLBC. It's not only a set of things we say, well, I believe all of that.

But it's something that takes root and then guides and governs the rest of your life. And one thing you'll notice when you go through chapter 11 of Hebrews is this, is that after it says by faith, for example, by faith Abel, by faith it'll go down to Enoch, by faith will go down to Moses. It'll say, Abel offered. By faith, Enoch pleased God. By faith, Abraham obeyed.

By faith, Jacob blessed. What are you noticing? By faith, it drives action. Do you see that? That by faith something follows on.

Jacob it says worshiped. By faith Noah moved with godly fear. Faith that doesn't cause you to move and to go in a certain direction according to what God has said is not faith It's not a set of propositions And that's one of the big dangers that we face in our day is that it's something that we just check the box on And say yep, I believe it, but if it doesn't move you to follow then you do not believe it. And so the question is have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ and what is the nature of your faith? You know there's a man by the name of George Mueller and Many of you have heard of him.

And one of his greatest frustrations, I read his autobiography, and one of his greatest frustrations that he ever faced was that people would always look at him and say, well, you know, that's Mueller's faith. I have my faith, but that's a different class of faith. But what Mueller was always intent on focusing men on was not that that's Mueller's faith, but that's Mueller's God. It's the same God. And while man is so prone to give himself an excuse to say, well, I would follow God if I only had that faith, the same God that Mueller served or the same God that Noah served, is the God that we serve today.

It is that faith propelling you forward. And it says this in the second part of that verse, Noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen, he moved with godly fear. He believed what his eyes couldn't see, not just things not yet seen, right? But things that were never even heard of. What is a flood?

What is an arc? And yet this man, he moved. He couldn't look around and determine that things weren't looking good. He couldn't kind of look at the prognostication to see the water levels are steadily rising. And so I think I should build an ark because God is bringing this about.

Nothing was happening over a period of over a century. And this man would go to work day in and day out and faithfully do what God had told him to do. There's no storm clouds gathering on the horizon. There's no tremors on the earth or anything like that. Just faithful preaching.

And that is what this man was all about. Right up until the time that the flood came, seven days before the flood came and he was told to enter into that ark, life was carrying on as normal. And again, that's a lesson for all of us that are not in Christ right now. Life can just be a regular tomorrow's a Saturday, and we're gonna get up and life goes on as normal. But there is coming a day when the flood is coming or when the door of the ark is shut.

The great deception of our day is I have time. Many young men, many men say I have time. I'm just gonna give it some time. I hear what you're saying, but I'm gonna give it some time. And we don't rush towards the Lord, because our eyes are fixed on the ends of this of this earth and so Spurgeon made this statement he says faith with Noah was a living principle but fear godly fear was the moving power It's the fear that made him carry out God's commandments and and so fear was produced, but it wasn't that like we heard mr.

Brown say earlier the sniveling Slavish fear but this awestruck in this of God he had such a high view That what God had said even though it made Terry a hundred and twenty years if God has said it. I believe it It's the same thing for us today as followers of Jesus Christ. And it's the same thing that when a man's conscience is captive to God, those of you who have heard of Martin Luther, when he stood in 1521, He stood there in Worms in Germany with the emperor and all these high priests and everyone looking down on him. And he almost capitulated. But they gave him a day to think about things and he came back and he made that famous statement, here I stand.

Have you heard of that statement? Here I stand. I can do no other. You see his conscience was captive to God and though all the world forsake him, he was not willing to abandon his conscience. You think of the three Hebrew boys, these three Hebrew boys who would rather be cast into the furnace of man's wrath than to be cast into the furnace of God's wrath for denying him because their conscience was captive to God.

The question is, is your conscience today captive to the living God? Bunyan says this, that godly fear flows from faith. And if you say you have faith and do not have fear, you do not have faith. Your chief desire should be to please God, not to please men. And that is the great temptation that we have around us today.

And so the question comes back to where do you stand with God, young man, or you father? What are the things that you know you should be doing right now or the things you know you shouldn't be doing right now and still carry on with? Maybe the habits or the things you look at, places you go or things that only you and God know about? Who are the people that you're trying to please, even though you know that by doing so, you displease God? These are serious questions.

And so Noah, he prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which it says he condemned the world. So you see, he didn't just move, but he moved in obedience. God told him to do something. And I want you to think about the immense cost. You know, when I walked through Ken Ham's arc up there at Answers in Genesis, that was one of the things that struck me, how much did it cost to build this thing?

And it's not even seaworthy. And it has all the technology, but here was a man and his family. Do you think God just gave him this money? He went, it probably costs all of his life savings. So it wasn't just go build this, here's the money for it.

But it cost him tremendously, not only his own money, but his own labor for his life. How much sunk capital, if you would, was put into this? And if this was a fool's errand, he would be the laughing stock for all eternity. And one of the things the world will mock you for is putting all your eggs in one basket. Have you ever heard that phrase before?

Don't put all your eggs in one basket because if you drop the basket all the eggs are broken. Well remember that the Ark is a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ and so because Christ can never fail, a person who pits his entire confidence in Christ can stand. He was a family man And when you look around in a society that's engulfed by wickedness and sin, you begin to see one thing happen primarily, and that is the fundamental structure of the family. The fundamental structure of society begins to break down. We're seeing that in our day to day.

And the godly line of Seth in the days of Noah was polluted with the sinful line of that of Cain. And so when family falls it's just natural over time that society is gonna fall as well. But God was preserving a godly line for himself. And so it says here that he condemned the world. And this is the view, the world's view, that Noah was wasting his life in a foolish pursuit.

God justified this man. When they would laugh at him and say, what an immense loss of time and labor. He was condemned by the wise of this world and for years they rained down mocking insults upon him. But one day, one day, that first drop of rain fell. Imagine that after 1, 500 years of creation, never a drop and one day that first drop of rain falls.

And people might have mocked even more, you know, that nervous mocking, nothing to see here, just Go home and rest easy. But you wonder what their thoughts were as the water rose up to the ankles and to the knees, up to the waist when they had to begin to seek higher ground, perhaps many of them running now frantically to the Ark to see if they could get in and make a last-minute confession. God, it says in Psalm 73, has set them in slippery places when you do not know the Lord and you turn when he calls upon you. Their last thoughts were like what we just heard. How have I hated instruction and my heart despised correction.

It says in that same proverb, for the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the careless ease of fools will destroy them. Are you paying attention to the voice of God as he calls out to you? But we find Noah safe as these men are languishing inside the ark, and though he's tossed by the winds and by the waves. He was safe inside with his family Well, the last gasp of humanity took their breaths He didn't condemn the world by his he wasn't the one having to condemn them with his words, but his very life spoke such a testimony that he was able to condemn them. And they knew, but they did not turn, and therefore they were condemned.

And so I want to just point you to something, all of us, there are only two paths. The Lord Jesus Christ makes this plain in the Sermon of the Mount Where he says that there's the path that leads to life And there's a path that leads to destruction. The only problem is both lives both ways are often marked with life Only one of them is true. One is the devil's lies that say, come on, there's life here, there's fun here, there's frolic here. But only one leads to eternal life.

The other one leads to eternal destruction. And that's why J.C. Ryle says this, all that were not drowned, all that were not with Noah in the ark drowned, they were all swept away to their last account, unpardoned, unconverted, and unprepared to meet their God. Think about that for a moment. Unprepared to meet their God.

Well, what are the blessings? Just wrapping up here, the blessings that this man experienced, it says, and he became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Not a righteousness of works, right? We said that at the beginning, but a righteousness which is by faith. But his works followed his faith, proving that he actually had righteousness and faith.

And that's why Psalms 112, verse two says this, his descendants shall be mighty on the earth. The generation of the upright will be blessed. And when you flip over to the New Testament, where do you find Noah? None other than in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ in Luke chapter 3. But also as I said earlier, this ark was an emblem of an even greater ark, the cross of Jesus Christ, who paid the price for sinners, who when we put our faith in him, we will escape the wrath of God to come.

And so what the ark was to Noah, so is Jesus Christ for your soul, the means by which we escape the wrath to come. The question is, are you in the ark? The people in Noah's days knew where the ark was, what it looked like, they knew who built it, they knew what it was made with, they saw the animals enter. All the information was there. The only thing lacking was they were not in the ark.

And only Noah and those that were with him in the ark remained alive. And so the most destitute of soul, the one without our Lord, Savior, Lord for Savior, that's the most position, the greatest position to be pitied. And that is why a man by the name of Philip Hughes, he says this, and I'll close with this statement. Those that will not have God as savior will meet him as judge. So let's pray.

Heavenly Father, We come before you this evening, Lord, and we thank you for the way that you've instructed men in the past by putting your fear in their hearts. We pray, oh God, that you would give us the same faith. Lord, that you would give us the same fear, that we would move and walk, even in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, that we would shine as lights, glorifying you, honoring you, O Lord. And may the young men and any fathers here that do not know you in truth be brought to you to see you as you are Lord to worship at your feet and to be made new in Jesus Christ amen.