Faith Series: Faith Takes God’s Warnings Seriously

Faith Series: Faith Takes God's Warnings Seriously

Our scripture text is found in Hebrews 11 and there's only one verse that I want to read here this morning, Hebrews chapter 11 and verse number seven. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

So far in this series on faith, we have seen that faith is putting our whole weight on God, resting on Him and not in our own strength, not in our own wisdom, not in anything we have, resting not only even on other people, but resting on God. And that's really the understanding of what faith is, putting our confidence fully in the Lord.

This could be when we put faith in God, we're putting our faith in His word. We're putting faith in what He said. If we operate on a promise somebody gives us, well, I'm going to meet you at so-and-so a place, so-and-so a time, we are taking them at their word, aren't we? We're believing what they told us. If we didn't believe they were telling us the truth, then we wouldn't even waste our time with going to meet them at so-and-so a place. But our faith is only as good as the person on which it rests or the word, the truthfulness of the promise that has been given to us. Our faith in itself is not anything other than our confidence in the truthfulness or the worth of the individual or the word they give.

But when we believe the love that God has to us and we respond in love to that love, that's the kind of love that pleases God. He's told us He's looking for a faith that operates, that works by love, that's energized by love. Faith and love go together. Faith and love are twins, we might say, and you can't have genuine faith without believing the love that God has to us and then a response of our own heart to that love. They go together.

That love has been revealed to us in the faith of the gospel, hasn't it? The faith that's been delivered to the saints. It's been, we've been told of God's love, and we have the historical, factual witness of the demonstration of that love recorded in the pages of the faith that's been delivered to us as Christians. If we have, as we look at genuine faith, it is childlike in nature, childlike faith. Childlike faith just simply takes the Father at His word, takes God at His word, because we believe the Father's love to us and we believe His word, we believe His promises. We believe all that He says concerning all things to be true. Then the response of our heart in love will be manifested in good works, right? In obedience to His word and in good works, not good works based upon our goodness, good works based upon His love and our response in love to His love. That's the basis of our good works, because faith without good works is just dead, right? It's just words. It's just blowing hot air. It's just in name.

But faith, as we saw even last week, needs to be nourished and exercised. Faith, we need to be nourished. How do we get nourished in our faith? How is our faith nourished? Well, we need to continue in the word, right? We need to continue in the words of faith and of sound good doctrine. We need to feed on God's word. God's word is compared to, it's like honey, or it's like bread, or it's like meat, just like milk. It's all of these things. We're to crave the word so we can grow. We're to crave, not just talking about there when it talks about as a baby craves the milk of its mother. We're to crave the word of God. Of course, that includes milk, but it extends all the way up to the meat of the word of God.

Jesus often rebuked His disciples. We saw it for little faith. Oh, you have little faith. You wouldn't be having the trouble you're having if you just take My word, take Me at My word. I'm not gonna leave you. I'm not gonna forsake you. Just trust. Trust My word. The two on the road to Emmaus, He said, slow of heart to believe. Yeah, why are you so slow of heart to believe what you've been told? And yet Jesus, does He not? The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit working in our hearts, reminds us of things our Lord has said to us, and we are reviewed even because of our little faith at times in our lives.

But we see a man here today, Noah, who has this genuine faith, and that genuine faith is manifested in reverential fear of God, reverential awe. He stands in awe of God. He takes, it's not an irrational fear. It's a reverent fear. It's not a, I'm afraid of God, I'm afraid of God, I don't even want to look at Him, I don't want to hear from Him kind of fear. No, not that God is abusive or something like that. No, a fear that took God seriously. You know, if your children don't have some level of respect for you, they're not going to take what you say seriously. If they don't, they have to know you love them, right, and they also have to know that you mean business, that you're not just blowing hot air out, and well, they say that, but they never do anything. There's nothing to what they say. If they don't actually respect and understand that you mean what you say and you say what you mean, then they're not gonna obey you. They're not going to take you seriously. They're not gonna take you at your word.

And so it is with God. God is, He's the perfect Father. Our Lord is the perfect Savior. There is no imperfection in Him. And when God says something, He means it. He does not just say things to fill up space and time. He says what He means, and I think very simply, that's what we need to get in our minds when we read that Noah moved with fear. God means business. That's what Noah, that's what Noah was. Noah was not in some kind of irrational panic or anything like that, but he was moved by the reverence for God that he had.

We are told that we're to be so reminded, right? Well, as Christians, that doesn't mean we don't laugh, that we don't enjoy life. But it does mean that we are to be serious about what God says to us, aren't we? We'd be serious about the things of God. There's a gravity, there's a gravity to being a child of God, being a follower of Christ, that we are to take seriously. It's not a joke. We're not playing games here. This is not a game. I remember Pastor Peacock saying that, you know, you can play church. You know, we can play, we can play this thing and believe it's a game. But it's life or death. It's reality. It's not just a little game we're playing here. This is eternity at stake.

So in a world that's filled with a bunch of lies, we often hear the statement, who can you trust? Who can you trust? Noah knew who he could trust. Noah knew where his confidence should be placed. And our text today told us in verse eight, well, not in our text actually, in verse, and in Genesis is what I was wanting to refer to. Look in Genesis chapter six, verse number eight. Genesis chapter six, let's read this passage from the context where Noah, being warned of God about the flood that would come. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

In a generation filled with wickedness, deceit, immorality, it didn't say that God accepted Noah on the basis of his own perfection. No, it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The understanding is that anybody else could have found favor in the eyes of the Lord as well. The understanding is that there was nothing already good about Noah that he found that favor, but if you'll turn back with me to our text in Hebrews 11, it says there in verse seven, at the end of our verse, it says that he became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. That's the same thing as saying he found favor in the eyes, or he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God looked favorably upon him, not because of him, but because of his faith.

He took God seriously in a world that was not taking God seriously, in a world that laughed at God, a world that mocked God, a world that scoffed at God's warnings, commands, and promises that were actually spoken by Noah. He was a preacher of righteousness, and there was a lot of scoffing going on. Peter alludes to this. He doesn't directly state Noah was mocked by all the people of his day, but the passage clearly implies where Peter talks about this, as it was in those days. You know, they're gonna say all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. They're gonna say nothing's ever happened, just like the implication was that they did in Noah's day. What kind of scoffing must he have received when he, simply in a very genuine, heartfelt way, poured out his heart and said, folks, God means business, God's gonna send a flood? And they just took it as an opportunity to make fun of him and shame him. But they were really not shaming Noah as much as they were hating God for calling them to repentance, for calling them to faith. They didn't want it. They didn't want to hear it. They would not endure the preaching, they would not endure the message, just like Paul warned Timothy that would happen as well.

There is, what's ironic about all of this is, even though Noah feared God, the world that he was preaching to was living in fear actually. They were living in a different kind of fear, the bad kind of fear, the wrong kind of fear, the fear that paralyzes, the fear that always causes one to look over their shoulder. I hope I'm right, I hope I'm gonna be okay. But deep down, there's no peace. There's no peace to the wicked, the scripture tells us. On the other hand, the good kind of fear is the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom. It's a very foundation point from which wisdom is built. And the love of God casts out the wrong kind of fear. The love of God and the fear of God can both exist and should both exist in the heart of one who has simple, childlike, genuine faith in God. There's a proper fear of God, and there is a wonderful love of God that's in that heart that has faith.

And when the love of God fills the human heart, it displaces the wrong kind of fear. It displaces the worldly, sinful, godless kind of fear that fears man, fears what man thinks. That's a lot of what kept people in the deception, because I don't want to be viewed as different. I don't want to be, I don't want to join that shameful club. But Noah started, I don't want to be looked upon as different or other. I want to be in the in-crowd. I want to be viewed as part of the normal people. You know, I don't want to be viewed as abnormal, and that's the kind of fear that controls sinful hearts.

David would say, what time I am afraid, because there's a lot of different kinds of fears that can come to the heart of a believer. What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee. David was faced with fears. This is where all faiths face a variety of different kinds of fears. But what was the remedy? What is it that's going to cast out the fear? Trust, trust, love. Perfect love casts out fear, and trust dissolves the fear. I will trust in Thee instead of fearing men and circumstances. David, Noah, trusted in God's words.

When you're going through a deep valley, and there's some in our church and some that are in, maybe not in our church, but we have contact with, that are going through some very fearful things right now. They're going through some very challenging things, and it would be very easy for them to just crumble in fear of the future, fear of what's going to happen to their bodies, fear of what's going to happen to their families, and yet the answer is always, I'll trust in the Lord. I need to be reminded of His word. I need to meditate on God's word, so I will not live in fear, because I'm being tempted to be afraid. And surely we've all failed and fallen into fear when it comes, but the Lord told us, fear not them that kill the body in Matthew 10:28, fear not them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. That's a proper fear of God.

God means what He says. He doesn't want anybody to die in hell. He doesn't want anybody to be abandoned from His presence forevermore. But He means business. He means what He says. If you reject Me in My words, I will reject you. If you are ashamed of Me in this wicked and adulterous generation, I'm gonna be ashamed of you when I return. I'm gonna be ashamed of you. And so, obviously, if we have faith and have found favor in the eyes of God, we do not need to be afraid of death. But we do fear God, the one who is able, even though we no longer are under condemnation. We fear God and serve Him. That's a healthy fear.

If you don't trust God enough to fear Him, if you don't have the kind of trust that fears God, then you will fall under the wrath. Anyone who does not will fall under the wrath that He warns us of in love. He lovingly, mercifully, long-suffering in long-suffering, warns Noah's generation of wrath. Wrath is coming, but you can be saved. You must fear Me, not man. You must fear Me, not the circumstances of anything else, but fear, fear Me.

We read that, we've alluded to that passage in 1 John 4, verse number 18, where it is told us that there is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Verse 19 says, we love Him because He first loved us. So, as I already mentioned, the wicked live in fear, but the wicked do not love God. The wicked do not take God seriously. In fact, Revelation 21:8 speaks of those who reject, reject Christ as the fearful and unbelieving. The fearful and unbelieving, and they will have their part in the lake of fire, those who are fearful and unbelieving.

But fear, there are those that fear. I think of, you know, someone like perhaps Felix that we read of in the scriptures, or other examples we can think of, but what will happen to me if I serve God? What will happen to me if I trust in God? I'm afraid of what's gonna happen. I'm afraid of stepping out in faith, afraid of trusting in God. I'm afraid of that. Well, Rabshakeh, you remember Rabshakeh? He tried to put fear in the hearts of the people. Don't trust your king. He's trying to get you to trust in God, and God can't deliver you from me, from Sennacherib. He can't deliver you. All the devil, when there's a soul contemplating coming into the fold, accepting the open arms of the Savior to come and come on to Him, find rest, there's the devil, visually talking on his shoulder and saying, look what's gonna happen to you if you trust in God. This is gonna be trouble for you. Yeah, there's gonna be trouble. There will be trouble in some form or fashion for those that trust in God.

But it's kind of like the evil report that was brought to those who were called to go into the land of Canaan. The evil report is, there are giants in the land, there's giants in the land. Well, yeah, there's giants in the land. There's also milk and honey, and there's all kinds of promised blessings there as well. And so we see that there's that kind of fear, there's that kind of fear that can keep people from putting their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm sure David was afraid when he, I'm sure that he was being very heavily tempted with fear when he saw this great giant. Although he didn't say, I'm afraid, giant, I'm sure that he was presented with that temptation. If he's a human being with red blood coursing through his veins, I'm sure he was, but more powerful than the temptation to be afraid was, you'd decide, my God, and my God's bigger than you are. My God is greater than you are, and I trust in my God. And so the fears were dissolved because of that fact. He took God seriously.

So let's go back to our text now, Hebrews 11, in verse seven. Once again, Hebrews 11, verse number seven, we see here that Noah took God seriously to the point that he did not fear the mockers. He did not fear what man could do unto him. He had faith, full confidence that God's plan would be realized, that God's plan would be put in place and would be played out just as He said it would be. Noah didn't fear the future because of this. He knew the Lord would not leave him. He knew the Lord would not forsake him. Just as true as God's promises are, His warnings are, and Noah took both of them to be true. He knew the Lord would only tell him about a troubling future if He loved him.

If you ever had somebody warn you of something, a danger, you know, you're getting ready to come through this season of life, or you're moving to this area, watch out for this danger. You know, you're moving, you start in this job, watch out for these things, you know, or something like that. Thank you very much for warning me about that. You take them seriously, and you say that was a help to me and helped me to avoid great troubles because I was warned. I was informed of what was going to happen if I did, you know, X, Y, and Z, or didn't do X, Y, and Z.

But notice that the fear of God didn't cause Noah to become a recluse and cut himself off from the world around him. I just want to go live in a hole somewhere. Maybe sometimes we feel like we want to go live in a cave or live out in the woods, way away from civilization. There might be days like that where you feel like that. I think you probably have all had that feeling at some point, maybe, maybe not all of us, but probably a good number if you have, and yet that's not the answer. That was not the answer for Noah, because God didn't tell him to do that. He said, build an ark. Build an ark, there's a flood coming, and I'm going to judge. So he built the ark in obedience to the design that God gave him to build it. He preached righteousness. He preached God's Word faithfully. He was not simply building a life on what was wrong with the world around him. Yes, he preached, he preached, but he wasn't just about warning. It was about, I'm sure, hope. I'm sure faith, because you can't know about God's righteousness unless you have faith. I'm sure he called people, turn, turn from your ways and come unto the Lord.

I would love to have a transcript recording from some of those messages that he preached while he was, maybe he stops nailing or putting the pitch on or whatever he was doing with the ark, and gave a dissertation, gave a word to those gathered that were mocking and scoffing and said, why are you still doing this, Noah? It's been all of these years, and it's not rained yet. Well, Noah's conversation, his actions matched what he said he believed in. His conversation, his actions, and his words, I believe, Noah, in the building of this ark, he says he was moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house. He not only preached, you need to flee from the wrath to come, but he showed, I believe that I need to flee from the wrath to come, and I believe that God has given me a plan for this ark, and I'm gonna obey the plans He delivered to me.

If people hear you say one thing and then they look and see that you, you know, your life doesn't show anything about that, you're taking it seriously, then they're not gonna take you seriously, right? They're not gonna take your words seriously if it doesn't, you know, and oftentimes, I mean, I had, you know, people will say, I know my wife growing up in Spain, you know, they have people say, well, we'll see how your kids turn out, you know, kind of thing. Well, it's no guarantee they're gonna turn out right, but you know, how are you, how are we raising our kids? Well, we can do the right things and still they turn out wrong, but at the same time, we want to, we want to be consistent with what we say and what we're actually doing, right? We need to be consistent in that. God help us to be so.

But as we are seeing Noah here, he's building an ark. He's preparing an ark to save his house. Think about Solomon. We just talked about Solomon this morning. Solomon's problem was, he wasn't, when he finished building what God had told him to build, he just went off the rails. He started, he had the wisdom to finish the house, and then he started marrying all these wives and doing all these things that God did not tell him to do, and in fact, God had told him not to do. He was building his own ideas and his own life apart from God, and God's blessing was not on that. His life became vain in the pursuit of many things. You know, we can do the same thing as Christians. Either we can build with wood, hay, and stubble in our life. We might say, I'm on the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is my Savior, praise the Lord for that, but am I building in my life with wood and hay and stubble? Am I building with things that are just going to burn up, my building with things that are not pleasing to the Lord? We have to be careful with each and every step of our lives, to each and every stage of our lives, that we, you know, forget in nothing His blessing to see, right? What's the word? What's the word please with? Moses said, we're not gonna go up unless the Lord goes with us, unless, Lord, You go with us.

So are we building relationships with eternity in view? Are we building our families according to God's design, at least the best of our knowledge? Are we building our churches on the solid foundation of sound doctrine, of truth, and not lies? And Noah, it says, by the which, in so doing, he condemned the world, because he believed the promises, he obeyed the commands, he heeded the warnings. Because of that, his hands and his feet matched what he said with his mouth, right? His hands and his feet, what he did, were in alignment with what his message was.

And we might say, I was reading one commentary that said every nail, I don't know exactly whether he put, you know, what kind of nails or whatever were used, the fasteners to hold the ark together, I know he pitched it within and without, but every board that he placed on that ark, every board that he, in this sense, placed on that ark were a condemnation to the world around them. We're gonna, that's for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. As for me and my house, we're gonna declare and confess openly, we're not ashamed of Him, we're not ashamed of His plan, we're not ashamed of doing what He says to do, not because we're better, but because we take Him seriously, and you can too. Come join us, come on the ark. The eleventh-hour servant is just as saved as the first-hour servant. The eleventh-hour servant, there's no respect of persons with God. The one who's been there out toiling throughout the whole day and the one who comes at the end of the shift is the same in God's eyes, receives the same coin. That's God's grace, not merited favor, but unmerited favor. That's how God views us, and that's how we should view it. That's how we should see it.

So if we will obey the Lord, move with fear, we're gonna be a stranger, we're gonna be a pilgrim in this world. We're going to be, but people who reject you, just remember, they don't reject you, they reject God. They reject His message. So don't be ashamed of Him just because some will not receive. It's okay. We don't need to be mean to get viewed this way. We just have to love the truth, right? Just have to love God's truth, and we should speak the truth in love. We should speak the truth in love. We should not, our meanness should not be the reason that anyone turns away from Christ. Our message, the content of the faith, should will be. As Paul said, who is worthy for these things, you know, to some, a savor of life. Well, we're not the ones, we're not the ones who should condemn the sinners in final judgment. That's not our place. But our obedience to God will rub salt in the wound of a Cain, we might say, like Abel's obedience in the bringing of a proper sacrifice to the Lord, not just whatever's right in my own eyes, would irritate a Cain. So will obedience to God be a condemnation to the world around us, but isn't that what we're called to be? We're called to be salt, right? We're called to be light. We're called to be salt and light, and you know, Noah gives us in this passage this morning, he gives us a perfect, a great example of what it looks like to be salt and light.

Well, fear God, take Him seriously, take Him at His word, and walk accordingly, walk in the fear of God. Don't be ashamed of Him and His words in this generation that you're living in, and the things, be careful that when you plan, are planning out for a life, in your family, and you know, where you go to church and how you interact with people, that you do it guided by God's word, not by, well, I just feel like I'll just do it this way kind of thing. No, what, what would You have me to do? How would You have me to do this? Because I fear You, I want to build according to Your plan, not according to my plans. I want to build my life and my family in the way that You'd have me to. And you know, God will help us with that, and even when we fail in it, even when we fall short, we can learn, and we can grow, right, and we can be all that God would have us to be in the next step, in the next step.

This morning, and I'm closing, but as we were looking back over the kings, none of them were perfect, absolutely zero of them were perfect. But what God was looking at was which ones learned from their sins and failures, which ones responded to the word, which ones shut God out in pride and said, I'm gonna put Your prophet in prison, I'm not gonna listen to that. You know, I'm not gonna take that. No, God has respect unto the humble, but He knows the proud afar off. So may God help us, like Noah, to fear Him.

Thank you, Lord, for these moments we've had in Your word today. Thank you for the example, the life of this man who dedicated his life to the fear of the Lord, taking, taking You seriously at Your word. And we pray that we would also, we would likewise take You seriously in our, in our own personal life and our homes. If others could just look at us and say, I know that person is not, they're not seamlessly perfect, but they do really, they do really believe what they profess, they do really stand on what they proclaim. And Lord, if we could be the means, individually, each one of us could be the means of pointing some soul to Christ, what a, what a blessing that would be. Certainly, we hope that even if we are the savor of death unto some, that it would not be because of our meanness, it would not be because of a bad spirit, but it, it would be because of our love for Christ that, that would result in that, for we don't want to see any perish, certainly You don't. Help us to be the salt, to be the light, as we are moved with fear to prepare and build in our lives for Your glory. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.