What can you do as one single person in this massive world?
Learn three lessons from a single verse in Hebrews about Noah for the saving of your soul and your family.
What can you do as one single person in this massive world?
What can you do? If you are a person of faith, you can be like Noah. He was all alone in his generation as a man of faith. He did three things. As a person of faith, you can do these same three things. It’s all recorded in Hebrews 11:7.
First, you can accept the warning of God about things not yet seen.
Just like Noah, you can hear directly from the revelation of God that this world shall be consumed. Once by water with Noah’s flood, but next time by fire. Just as surely as it happened in the days of Noah, it shall happen once more. Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes” (Matt. 24:37). People are still saying that all things have continued the same way since the creation of the world. But they willfully forget, in unbelief they deny that the world was once destroyed by a flood (2 Pet. 3:5-7). But Scripture is plain: the world was destroyed by a flood; the next time it will be destroyed by fire (2 Pet. 3:10).
You have received the same warning that came in the days of Noah. This warning concerns things that no one has seen. But it’s going to happen. Be sure of this fact. God shall bring judgment on all the nations of the world. You can see a foretaste in the wars, in the rumors of wars, in famines, the floods and the pandemics. Jesus said all these catastrophes serve as forewarnings of what God will finally do in his righteous judgments.
Have you received this warning? If you’ve never heard it before, you are hearing it now. God will destroy this world. He will one day consume even the essential elements that make up this world (2 Pet. 3:10, 12).
Secondly, you can construct an ark for the saving of your household.
What could be more important than the saving of your children, your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren? How do you do that? You obviously cannot save them from the corruptions of sin by yourself. But you can look to God for their salvation. You look by faith. By faith you communicate the gospel to your family. You speak it out. You do not force it down their throats. But you tell them the good news. Just as Noah by faith built an ark for the saving of his family, so you can set a priority on the saving of your family. What a wonderful promise God has given to believers. By faith you can hope to see your family saved from the destruction of the judgment that is coming soon.
Thirdly, by faith you may be declared righteous even as you declare His righteousness.
Just as Noah, you may become an inheritor of all the blessings of the righteous throughout eternity. Even in this life, you may receive the blessings of the righteous by faith.
The writer of this verse in Hebrews 11:7 agrees perfectly with the teaching of Paul as well as of James. As clearly stated, Noah’s righteousness came “by faith.” Noah was just as guilty of sin as the rest of humanity. But his father had named him Noah, which means “rest” or “comfort.” His father believed the ancient, original promise that God would remove the curse on the world that came through the sin of Adam and Eve (Gen. 5:28, 29). You may assume Noah had that same faith. He believed that God would some day provide a child from a woman who would defeat Satan and destroy the corruption of this world. From your perspective today, you can know that Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit was that child of the woman who crushed the head of Satan on the cross (Genesis 3:15; see Rom. 16:20). Though the sinless Son of God, he received in himself a judgment for sin that he did not deserve. Instead, he received judgment in the place of sinners just like you and me. By faith in him, you can be declared righteous before God. You can be delivered once and for all from that awesome judgment soon to come. Just as the world once was immersed in water, so in God’s appointed future day it shall be consumed in fire (2 Pet. 3:10). But you by faith can be declared righteous and receive the inheritance of eternal life through Jesus Christ
But notice also what Noah’s faith accomplished. His faith was not a dead faith, as the book of James warns. For faith without works is dead (James 2:26). By faith Noah built the ark for the saving of his family. He was not declared righteous by the building of the ark. But the living faith of Noah, the faith by which he was declared righteous despite his sin, also moved him to the building of the ark.
At the same time, Noah’s offer of salvation to his contemporaries, joined with his call to repentance, had the consequence of bringing condemnation to the world. Hebrews 11:7 says that through his faith, Noah “condemned the world.” Noah had no desire to condemn the world. By building the ark, by preaching all during the long time he was involved in constructing the ark, Noah was giving an opportunity for all the people of his day to repent of their sins and put their trust in the saving grace of a merciful God. But in Noah’s day, the wickedness of men reached its extremity. Every imagination, every first impulse behind every thought was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5). Noah kept preaching the truth faithfully, despite the constant mockery he experienced. He gave to all the people of his day an opportunity, a golden opportunity to reach out in faith for the grace of salvation through God’s mercy. The doors of his ark were wide open. Room was available for all who would enter. But in the end, only Noah and his family were saved. Because of the people’s hardness of heart against the mercy of the Lord offered through the preaching of Noah, the faith and the faithfulness of the patriarch had the sobering effect of condemning the world.
John’s gospel says that this is the condemnation: light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light (John 3:17-19). If you continue in your present way of life, following your own instincts and desires, you already stand condemned. You are condemned already if you have not believed in the Son of God. But just as the people in Noah’s day, you have an open door to the ark where you may be delivered from the wrath to come. Right now the door of salvation stands open for you.
So what can you do as one single person in the midst of this depraved world?
You can do some very significant things. You can be conscious of the judgment to come, and you can live in the light of that reality. Secondly, you can build an ark for the saving of your family. You can set a priority on bringing your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren to Jesus Christ. By entrusting them to him and his grace, by interceding continually for them, by sharing with them the gracious message of the good news of Jesus Christ, you can “build an ark” for the saving of your house. Thirdly, By faith and by faith alone, you can be declared righteous by God. You can at this moment anticipate your destiny that will be proclaimed before the final judgment of God. Despite your sinful, corrupt nature, despite the many sins and failings of your life for which you have many regrets, you can live joyfully in God’s presence day by day, knowing that you are accepted, just as you are, through the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. His substitutionary death and his experience of judgment in your place means that you can stand totally righteous before a most holy God by your oneness with his son Jesus Christ. At the same time, you can warn people of the judgment to come. Never minimize the significance of the smallest testimony you can offer about Jesus Christ in the midst of a corrupt and depraved world.
Neither should you minimize what you might do by the grace of God as just one person in the midst of this world. Even as Noah lived in a corrupt society, he became God’s instrument for the ongoing blessing of the world that eventually led to the coming of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen? Amen.
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