Faith as Noah Had

You'll be back in Dayton with all of you again. Glad you're having food. Dayton potlucks are just statewide things all over. It's been a while since we've been here. Last time you had a very good potluck. Mr. McCready kept saying he was going to have us back for a potluck, and he never has until today. So we're glad to be here with you all. I brought my watch along, but I forgot you have such a big clock on the wall over here that I don't need that, so everybody's going to be watching that big clock over here on the wall to make sure we stop on time.

I appreciate the choir very much, and the comments that have been made and passed along for your performance. Debbie and I have now sat through two of them, and you are improving. I actually think this is probably about the best choir I've heard. If you're able to see, I've heard all 15 years.

Mr. Shoemaker's conducted all of them. He can have his own evaluation, but this is the first one that made my wife cry today. First time it brought a tear to her eye on one of the songs, so not because you were bad, but because it was such a touching song and sung with such obvious feeling. So thank you very much. I hear bits and pieces of them rehearsing through the week in the office and then you get to see it all put together. It's very nice, a very talented group, and very much appreciate that.

It is good that we can get out like this, at least to the churches in this area of Indiana and Ohio, and you get a chance to see the choir that is put together every year. I was thinking, as Nick mentioned, that Ken Shoemaker has to start over every year. Ken Shoemaker is kind of like John Calipari, the coach at Kentucky. Some of you will know what I'm talking about. He has to start over every year because he gets a freshman class in and they all go pro.

He has to start over and he still gets to the final four about every second or third year. Ken Shoemaker has to start over totally from scratch with a group of choir members to put this together. We have a large class this year and that gives us more talent, a variety of talent.

I think this is the first time I've seen a cello that's part of the choir. Maybe, well, not a violin. I think we've had violins in the past, but it gives us more talent and abilities and it all blends together and then they get a chance to get out to share that with the congregations in this area. It's too bad that they can't go to all the congregations that are part of the United Church of God to show what value is being created within the Ambassador Bible Center.

And that's my point I think I wanted to make that there is a great deal of value being generated every year when we have a new class come into the Ambassador Bible Center to go through the curriculum, to form relationships, to put together a choir with the music. They really do bring a lot to the office. When they leave every year, it gets really, really quiet around there for about three months during the summer. Kids, you don't know how quiet and boring it does get around there when everybody scatters after the May graduation, but it really, really does.

We have to pack our own lunch and things like that because there's no more food service. But ABC does bring a lot of value to the church. Those of you that we all contribute to that. That's what I wanted to bring out that, yeah, they pay tuition, but the tuition only covers a part of the costs.

And it is the offerings and tithes of all the members of the church that do make that possible. And sometimes as people ask, are we getting good value for what we have there at Ambassador Bible Center? And you get a chance to see some of that firsthand, but I can say that the church does get good value. Fifteen classes have gone through now almost, and there have been a lot of good fruits that have been born and a lot that has been sown in the lives of a lot of people.

And the church has gained a lot of value for its mission and its vision statement. So thanks to all of you, and again, you here in Dayton and the other congregations where they traveled this time of year, get a chance to see some of that. And I know you're very grateful for that ability there. Mr. McCrady was talking about retiring from camp and getting back in with his grandkids.

It reminded me that I kind of retired myself from camp the last few years after a number of years at Camp Heritage. I have grandchildren, too, that are coming up to camp age and figure as soon as they get into camp, we might find our way back into the camp program at some level washing dishes or cleaning out dormitories or doing whatever we have to do to get back into it.

By that time, I'm not going to be able to do basketball or do that. Bart can handle all of that business, but we may find something to do just to be there for our grandkids, God willing. Well, unless you've been in a cave or totally unplugged and off the grid for the last week, you know that a movie came out a week ago called Noah. Yep, you know it. You weren't off the grid, son. I won't ask how many of you have seen it. I'll just tell you I've seen it.

Yeah, I know. But I had to see it so that I could talk about it on a BT Daily and write about it on our website. You have to have a little bit of credibility to do that. So we've talked about it a number of times this week in our BT Dailys and blogging and among even some of the students. We had a lot of questions and some discussions about it. Then I thought, I said yesterday, I said, all I'm going to say about that movie.

But then I got to thinking, what am I going to talk about today? So I'm going to talk about Noah the Movie for a few minutes. But only in relation to the truth of God and Passover and each of us.

Because there are things to learn beyond that, and there were a number of problems with the movie, and it seems here at the beginning of the Holy Day season, I've noted over the last 10 to 15 years, it seems like every year just prior to the Passover, something comes out within media that tends to exacerbate the problem of unbelief.

Whether it's a Gnostic Gospel, I guess published by National Geographic that has an alternate version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the story of Christ, or some other matter that always has as its acts to undermine faith. Well, this year I think this particular movie did that, and bears at least our attention for a few moments, but more from a positive, at least actual, biblical point of view. What does that story, not a movie, but what does the story of Noah teach us, and what should we focus on, and how can it help us prepare ourselves for the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread?

I think there are a number of ways by which we might take note from that story and at least the national media attention that has been generated as a result of a very, very interesting movie that, best I could say possibly, just missed a great opportunity of imagination.

You know, the story of Noah in the Bible and the flood, and the building of an ark for the saving of animal and human flesh, still captures our imagination. Witness the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to produce this particular movie. But the fact that a man was told by God to build a great boat and ark and bring on board animals and humans to save life is one of the great stories of the Bible. And it still, after thousands of years, is really an interesting point, captures our interest and imagination and is still in the news and in the headlines.

You know, even today there are people who are looking over the mountains of Turkey, especially Mount Ararat, seeking to find the remains of the ark on the mountain there that they claim to be Mount Ararat and believe is there. In fact, even about a year ago this time, some of us in the ministry and in the church were talking about a particular group of people that keep going up there on a mountain and think they have found something. They have evidence in their minds of a great structure that is beneath an ice field there on Mount Ararat in what is Turkey today.

And they keep seeking funding to prove this out, to take further scientific equipment up there, to get soundings and to find this out. Some of our men kind of made a few contacts about a year ago and really were pushing for us to send one or two individuals to go up there on the mountain with a private expedition to get the story. It would never happen. We didn't participate. They wanted several thousand dollars of our money to do so, and some felt that that would have been good value for us. And bottom line, it never did happen. But there are those expeditions and quests to find the art that they feel is still up there or the remains of the art.

Some of you may know that down here across the Ohio River in Kentucky, there is the Creation Museum that has its version of the story. But somehow connected with that, there is a desire to actually, on another piece of land, build a full-size replica of the art. It's never gotten off the ground. They've collected a lot of money and have plans to do so and create a whole theme park to build around the idea of a full replica size of the art.

And so again, it just shows the interest that is still there today. Children in Bible classes around the world are taught the story of how eight people were spared from death. Within the last few six months, I read a book about the Flood written by a geologist and his particular view of the Flood. There is still material scientific research about the Flood and questions about it that are still being published and examined in terms of the biblical record, the geologic record, and trying to understand what it says, what happened, and how to explain certain, you know, the whole geologic strata of the Earth and the connection to the Flood.

So this is still an ongoing matter and there are there's a lot of current science and interest that is looking at it from a totally different point of view. That's my point. So this is ongoing and still we have essentially a bare-bones story and record in the Bible of the actual event of Noah. And as after looking at the movie and talking about it for the last several days, I come back to there's really one scripture, one passage perhaps, that is most important for us to understand outside of the account of the story back in Genesis beginning in chapter 6 and the three to four chapters where the story is told there.

And one point that one other passage that we should think about. But, you know, let's understand exactly what Noah was doing in his day and understand a few things.

First of all, Noah was a real person and he did build a giant boat to carry humans and animals safely through a great flood that engulfed his world. Christ talks about it. The Apostle Peter referenced Noah in the New Testament. He is called Noah. He's even called by Peter, a preacher of righteousness in his account of Noah. And when he's calling Noah a preacher of righteousness, he is really saying that Noah preached the gospel because the gospel is a message of righteousness and as it talks about Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. And it's an interesting story.

Now, I would have liked to have seen a Hollywood director with the kind of technology available to them and skills and talent there do something that could have really made the story come alive.

But I don't think they did. When I look back on the story of Noah and I look at what the Bible tells us, for a number of years I've held my own view of really what took place there as I've tried to read a bit of imagination into the account. And I do this sometimes. I like to imagine a little bit in between the lines of the Bible. God tells us what we need to know.

And we all, as we read the Bible, we would like to know a whole lot more about this or that or certain other things. And when it comes to the story of Noah, I have my own imaginative version, perhaps, of just exactly what took place. If Noah took upwards of 120 years, if that's what God is telling us there in Genesis in terms of how long he would strive with man, several generations of life would have transpired in that period of time, even if it were 100 years or even 80 years. But let's take 120 years and say that that's the amount of time from the time that Noah began to do what he did to the time when the flood came. Preacher of righteousness to a world under judgment because of its wickedness and its violence, and he alone being the one man who found grace in the eyes of God, as Genesis 6 tells us.

Several generations of people watched and had direct contact, I think, with that work that Noah was doing. That's how I look at it. That's how I try to imagine it. This was the movie Noah presented the world as kind of a post-apocalyptic society to which human beings had devolved to, and I don't think it was that at all. There was violence, yes, and it was a world that God had been fed up to hear with and was going to enter into judgment, but it was not a dark, bleak, post-apocalyptic type of world that Hollywood in this movie presented it to. I think it was a rather vibrant world for the ancient world, and I think that what Noah did caught the attention of a lot of people for a long period of time because what he did was a massive project, and what he would have had to say to explain what he was doing and the wise of it would have caught a lot of attention. God's going to destroy the human life and flesh with a flood.

In a region of the world where there wasn't a whole lot of water to create the type of flood that he's talking about, and to do something that hadn't happened before to bring judgment upon the world. And yet Noah believed it, and that formed the basis of his message. And to back it up, he actually began to build a boat, and it wasn't on water. It wasn't anywhere near a big body of water for the size of the boat. And he preached a message that seemed hard to believe, and he did it year after year after year. Now to build a type of boat that he did was a massive project. The design, the materials that would have had to have been brought into that place to do it.

Think about that. Now the movie says that Noah planted a little Genesis type seed, and the whole forest grew up just like that. And then there were these rock monsters that helped build the boat.

There weren't rock monsters. Spoiler alert.

I think human beings built the boat. I think that whole families gained their livelihood as year after year, their father, their brothers, their uncles worked on that boat.

And they grew up in the shadow of that boat. Perhaps even whole communities of some sort populated that region. This is how I imagine it. And I think people, kids grew up looking at that boat and watching their dad go out the door every morning to go to work on the Ark. I think that the idea that what Moses spread as he preached as a preacher of righteousness drew people to that, for whatever reason. It gave them an identity in their day. It gave them something to work on. And I happen to think that a lot of people even believed his message and worked for more than just a paycheck, that they believed in what he was doing.

And families grew up and hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people were employed on the project year after year. People went to school, in a school that may have been created to take care of those kids and raise their children in the great shadow of that boat. And a culture developed around the Ark. People came from far and wide to work for the Ark. The Ark was their work. The Ark was the project. And craftsmen and people heard about it and they traveled to help out. And people came wanting to be part of something bigger than their own lives. And they caught a vision, perhaps, of what was behind the boat. And they came believing that Noah, what Noah said. And many left their families and their villages and their connections to journey and to work on that site. That's what I think. And it was unheard of. And no one had ever done those things before. Certainly a guy hadn't built a boat like that for that purpose. And people didn't move off to work on a project like that from where they were born and lived. I don't know how he paid for it. Maybe Noah was far wealthier than God lets us know. Maybe people contributed to it. I don't know. But I think that their things, materials had to be purchased. I think probably wages had to be paid. I think that it was the great work of its day. And there was drew a lot of attention of the the world as it was at that time.

And you can imagine the message of Noah traveling far and people told a story of a man warning about a coming catastrophe upon the earth and a tribulation, if you will. And that you needed to heed my message, Noah said. And you too can be saved from this. And you should repent. And you can repent of your ways. Because the potential for all flesh to be destroyed is very close because of sin and God's judgment. This must have been a part of his message. And I think Noah and the people who worked on that project would have been drawn by God to understand their times and to understand what God was doing and what lay ahead. And they were moved to act upon that, even though something like that had never happened before and was inconceivable to even come about.

All because one man believed what God told him and began to act upon that. And he began to build.

And people were drawn to that. That's what I believe. And I believe that he was a man that really lived and the earth he really built a boat. And God did bring judgment upon mankind at that time. That's what I believe. A lot of other details that we just don't know about. And as I say, people are fascinated by it and spend a lot of time thinking about it. What's the most important thing perhaps for us to really focus in on from the Scriptures in regard to this today?

Let's turn over to Matthew 24.

Jesus Christ validated the story of Noah and is all of that prophecy in Matthew 24.

Verse 36.

Where it says, but about that day or hour, speaking of the timing of the coming of the Son of Man, Noah knows not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Verse 37, As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. Up to the day Noah entered into the flood, entered into the ark, and did not know, they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That's how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Two men will be in a field, one will be taken, the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand-mill, one will be taken, the other left. Therefore, keep watch, because you don't know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this, if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. This is what Jesus had to say about it, the story of Noah. And for all intents and purposes, I think this is probably what we should focus on. There are a lot of other questions about the flood and what, you know, forget the movie, it was an exercise in Gnosticism and unbelief, and it was a deliberate effort, I feel, to undermine belief. All right, and did nothing to advance the truth, the Bible, the biblical record. That's my bottom line on it. I gave it two thumbs down in my review. If I had four thumbs, I would have given four thumbs down on this very easily in terms of so many different matters here and just the content.

But after all that is said and done, after all the speculation of whether or not the Ark is still on Mount Air, I personally, well, I won't tell you what I personally think, but I still, I take note, I study these things, I take note of what people write and say about whether it could or could not be found or what happened at the flood because, you know, it's a fascinating subject. But when it's all said and done, it's what Jesus says right here that is most important for us to focus on and to be moved by. In verse 37 where He said, as in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Jesus Christ connects the ancient world with our world today with that one statement. Verse 37. He connects the ancient world, not only His world in the first century, but the world of Noah. Far, far, even ancient according to the day of Christ, the time of Christ in the first century. Noah's, the flood, was way, way back there, 3,000 or so years prior to the time of Christ. And yet He connects it all the way down into today because He says that's how it will be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. And therefore, this is what we need to note about that. He's saying that in fundamental areas of life, it's the same. And some things don't change. They may not have had the internet back then and the technology that we have today, but there are certain aspects about humanity and human nature that are eternal that don't change. And this is what Jesus speaks to. It happened as He said it happened, and it happened either happened or Christ is a liar. And if He lied, you don't have a Savior. It's that simple. Noah and the flood is a reality. But as I've said, what Noah did in his time was unheard of. In Hebrews 8, Paul mentions it here in what he writes. Hebrews 11, I'm sorry, in verse 7.

Hebrews 11, 7, Again, he's validated, and his example of faith is validated, being divinely warned of things not yet seen.

God spoke, Noah believed, and he acted. That's essentially what you and I do. We hear God's word, we have belief, and we act and have acted in our life and continue to obey in faith today based on things not yet seen. And that's not just talking about the, let's say, times of the end and the coming of Christ. We act every day in our life upon things not seen. That's what faith is. It's the evidence of things not seen. As we obey God, as we pray to Him, as we strive against sin, as we live righteously, as we put into practice the teachings of Christ and the Apostle Paul, the Word of God, as we work to understand and grow in grace and knowledge, we're acting on things not seen. What we read, what we believe to be true, and what is seen ultimately is the fruit of a changed life, the benefit of a changed life for us. That's what we see. But we have to believe that it is true first and that it can produce in our life. You can't understand the value of keeping the Sabbath, the Holy Days, just by reading about it from the Scripture. That's one level of understanding that may initially come. But we have to actively do. We have to keep the Sabbath and experience the rest, both physically and spiritually, that God intends. And we certainly have to rest physically to begin to even get our minds tuned into the spiritual rest, as well as the spiritual work that God begins to do in our lives. But we have to believe that that can happen. That's the things that are not seen. But we learn by doing. Every aspect of God's way of life is like that. We must act by faith that it is true, that it is the Word of God, and do it to experience it.

Taste and see is what one of the psalms says. Taste and see. God said about tithing, prove me now herewith. And that applies to every part of God's way. Taste it.

See that it's good, that it works. Our whole experience and our calling and this journey that we have been on in our lives. We haven't been up to 120 years yet.

But as we look around, I know that a number of us have gotten many decades.

I've got 50 years into this. 50 years into this way of life. I hope I get a few more.

Decades, that is.

And it's a journey. It's been a trip. It's been an experience. Wouldn't trade it for the world.

Because it has been the world for me. And for you.

And nobody can explain it until you've done it. Until you live this way of life. You experience God's promises. Nobody can really understand it.

My dear mother was within days of dying in her sleep when she was experiencing what she felt were heart problems and problems. She kept going to the doctor. My brother was taking her to the doctor. And they couldn't find anything organically wrong with her. Test after test after test over about a week's period.

And they came. I remember my brother told me. Actually, she told me. My mother told me.

The doctor came out into their little consulting room. They were at the hospital after one battery of tests and said, Mrs. McNeely, we can't find anything wrong with you. Have you been through any stressful period of late? This was the middle of 1995.

And she turned to my brother after the doctor left. And she said, no. She said, no, nothing stressful.

She turned to my brother after the doctor left. And she says, how can I help him understand what we've been living through in these months?

How can I? She couldn't. She said, I can't. He can't understand that.

And yet, that was at the heart of a problem. Two days later, she died in her sleep. Mercifully so. What we have been on, what we have been involved with, is a life of faith. And you have to live it, to experience it, the full gamut of it, and especially to understand the full blessings that await for those that obey God. We have been divinely warned of things not yet seen, and we have acted on them. And certain things have come into a fuller view for us as we have been faithful through the years. Again, I see some of you nodding your head, you understand what I'm talking about. That's what it is. Noah was moved by a message as much as a time of judgment that was going to come, but he was also moved by a message because he had found grace in God's sight. Something was right about his life. And we have been moved by a godly fear to come out of this world and to be transformed and to live a transformed life. Christ said that like the days of Noah, people would be eating and drinking and giving in marriage until that final day would come.

You know, what Jesus is saying there in Matthew 24, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage, that's what life is all about. That's Christ's way of saying that life was going on in the time of Noah, and there was no reason to expect that it would be any different. And he said it's going to be like that in the days before the coming of the Son of Man. The generations moving through life, experiencing birth, growth, children, happiness, unhappiness, exciting times, sorrowful times.

And the food and drink and the parts of life that amount to a festival and a celebration and those things that are good. Christ wasn't condemning that. He was just saying that that's what it's going to be like and that people would not always be able to understand their world and where it's going. We come down into our day and we see that religious messages are a dime a dozen and discounted so heavily in people's minds as to be ignored and ridiculed. Christ is saying that the knowledge of God would not be held in high regard in the days before his coming. That the idols of money and status and self would crowd out any true discussion, any true discussion of God from society. That's why I think that this particular movie is a blatant statement that denies God. There are other movies that are coming. In fact, there are two others that are. One's out right now and another one's coming on Easter that deal with religious themes. There's already been going out about The Son of God. Some of you may have seen that one, which was a further elaboration on the one about the Bible about a year ago. There's also a movie that Heaven is for Real. I think that's coming out on Easter.

God is Not Dead is another movie that has been released. In December, there's a movie about Exodus that's coming out, the story of the Exodus. And whether or not it's going to be played every year and replace the Cecil B. DeMille epic that we've all grown up with, I don't know. But there's a lot of interest. Now, it's not because Hollywood's getting religion, it's because Hollywood is getting money. And they see that there is a religious audience that they're trying to appeal to. So I don't know how the movie about Exodus will be. But this one that we've just seen, or at least I have, is a blatant statement that really does deny God and works ideas of deception. And it's quite striking in the way that it does that. Genesis tells us a lot about the world of no one, things that are connected to us. In Genesis 6 and verse 11, it said, the earth was filled with violence. And we can look at parts of our world today and see that there is violence that is impacting our world today in many different ways and at many different levels. But Jesus, in talking about the connection to that world, is saying that people would not believe a message of warning and encouragement to wake up and to change one's life and begin living for God for many different reasons. He's saying that true religion would be something you would have to search for. And when you found it, the cares of life, such as eating and drinking and marrying and giving and marriage, would choke out the truth. Christ is describing a world of our day, and he's saying that we should listen strongly to a message that tells it straight and warns us to turn from a life of materialism and embrace a life that's based on the truth of the coming kingdom of God.

So what is Jesus in his statement here in Matthew 24? What is he saying to the church?

What is he saying to you and to I? And what might we think about as we prepare ourselves in a few days to take the Passover and to commence the days of Unleavened Bread?

Let me give you three points to think this through.

I think that Jesus is telling us all to wake up, number one. Splash a little cold water in our face. Life does that to us. And I think that that's what he is telling us to do in Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 14. The Apostle Paul makes a statement. Verse 14 of Ephesians 5. He says, therefore, he says, awake you who sleep.

Arise from the dead and Christ will give you light. Wake up. We always need a wake-up call at any given point in our lives. Sometimes we get those wake-up calls thrust upon us in some terrible ways. Sometimes they come very subtly. Sometimes it may be only a message in a sermon like this, but they're constantly a part of us. To wake up. Make sure we're not asleep.

Arise from the dead and Christ will give you light. Verse 15, he says, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

In the next few days, think about that. Ask Christ to turn the light on for you.

Ask him to turn on the light for you, on yourself. It is a time and a period of examination, isn't it?

To examine ourselves, to see whether or not Christ is in us.

And Paul did say that I trust that you will find that you are so, but we must be examining that.

Not to answer the question in our minds, is he in us or not. You should know that.

I should know that. That Christ is in us.

But as a reminder, as we approach the Passover, perhaps how much? And as that light really illuminating our understanding and also coming out from us as Christ lives his life in us, is it on? And to examine us in that way. We live in a world of a great deal of spiritual darkness, if we're not very careful. And a Christian will struggle against the kingdom of spiritual darkness that Paul talks about in chapter 6 here of Ephesians. We struggle against that on a regular basis. It doesn't overwhelm us and it doesn't overcome us, but it is always lurking right there. It need not be a kingdom that we fear. But we must always be vigilant that our thinking, that our actions, and that our life is not being molded and shaped more by that kingdom of darkness that in a sense is kind of always out there on the edge of the woods rather than being shaped by the light of God's way of life. And what Christ will give us, as verse 14 says here, that's what we should be asking and examining. So ask God to turn the light on.

Check your batteries. You know, we have to check the batteries and our flashlights around the house every few months. Or when the power does go off, we go looking for that flashlight. It's not working.

But fortunately, we have smartphones now that have flashlights built into them.

The one I've got is about as strong as the mag light I've got. It takes 15 dozen batteries to light it up. I'm surprised the light will power one out a few weeks ago in our house, one of these storms that we've had. And I turned my iPhone on, the flashlight that's built into it, and there's daylight in the house just off the iPhone, bigger than my big mag light. But it can run down real quick on one of those. So we have to check our batteries. We have to check the energy supply. But that's what God wants us to do. I think Christ is also telling us a second point.

And God wants us to understand that Christ suffered to bring us to God.

As we approach the Passover, we do focus on the suffering and the death of Jesus Christ. And that is a part of that entire examination of that before we come up to the Passover service, as we take the bread and the wine and think about the suffering of Jesus Christ and what He went through and had to go through up to the moment of His death for our sins.

And that's very important. In 1 Peter chapter 3, 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 18, Peter writes, beginning here, 1 Peter, for Christ also suffered once for sins.

His death was once for all time, for all mankind at all time.

He suffered once for sins, but just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive by the Spirit.

He suffered and He died for our sins that He might bring us to God. That's an interesting phrase.

Christ is our high priest, and by His death and His shed blood, which makes possible our forgiveness, He brings us to God. We can't come before the Father on our own. Christ brings us.

You know, it's interesting the way the temple was set up, at least in the time of Christ, as it kind of was elaborated off of the tabernacle design that Moses had.

The Gentiles could go toward the temple, and they could go a little way into the precincts of the temple, but then there was a wall that they couldn't go any further.

And only in Israel, I could go beyond that wall.

And the women and the men could go into another court. There was a court of the women, and the women could go there. The men would be with them. But that court ended, and there was a court of the Israelites that walked up just in front of the door into the actual building of the temple itself. This court of the Israelites, only a man could go there.

And then there were big doors that swung open into the holy place of the inner temple, and only a priest could go there. If you were a layman, you couldn't go into the building itself. Everybody had to stop at a certain point. And of course, only the high priest could go then into the Holy of Holies, and a normal priest, run-of-the-mill priest, couldn't do that.

And in the Holy of Holies was the mercy seat, and that's where God symbolically dwells, at least in the time of Christ. The whole Shekinah was there during the first temple.

But that's where God was, and only the high priest could go there. Christ is our high priest, and He brings us through the court of the Gentile, through the court of the women, through the court of the Israelite, through the temple itself where only the priests were, He takes us all the way to the throne of God. He brings us before God by His sacrifice.

That's a big thing. That is very, very important.

Peter goes on to talk about the fact that Christ overcame all the spiritual authority that stood in the way of man. Actually, verse 21, he said, there is also an anti-type which now saves us. Baptism, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him. God's grace extends throughout every corner of the known universe and the unknown universe, through every corner of creation. So think about what Christ did in that way for us.

There's a third point I think we can think about as well, off of this teaching.

And that is we should find God's grace in our life. Find God's grace. After all, Noah did.

Go back to Genesis 6.

Verse 8, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

He found grace because he was a righteous man, because he understood God, God's way of life at that time. He found grace. You and I need to find grace as well. And as we come to the Passover in the days of the bread, there is plenty to tell us that God's grace is abundant and open to us. Back in Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5.

We're baptized and have the blood of Christ apply to our life.

We enter into a relationship with God that is one of grace. It's not a grace to sin. It's not a grace that removes us from the law of God, the way of God, and a righteous life. It's a relationship.

That is based on God's grace, and that is God's favor, God's love, God's kindness for us, shed abroad for us through the sacrifice of Christ. And when we are baptized, and every year when we come to the Passover, we're renewing that commitment through the symbols of the bread and the wine, and think deeply about that. What we committed ourselves to at our baptismal vow, we must understand that we have a relationship with God that is based on grace. In chapter 5 and verse 1, Paul writes, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We have access by faith into this grace, into this relationship with God. Noah found grace. He found God's favor and kindness, just as Abraham did, and others in that period of time, long before the period, the sacrifice of Christ. But Paul goes on in other passages to show how that works all together. That's not the point here. But grace is God's favor and kindness and God's way of life, and it is what we stand in. By faith, we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand.

Verse 3 says, not only that, but we also glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope. Now, hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

And as we remain faithful to God, even repenting when we sin and seeking God's forgiveness, that grace is always there. We're not under condemnation. We know when we do violate God's law, and we are convicted of that, and we sin. But we live with a confidence that that relationship is not going to be broken unless we choose to break it. God's never going to break it. That's why in chapter 8 Paul says, there's nothing that will separate us from the love of God. Only you and I could do that if we willingly choose that. We haven't at this point in our life. By God's grace, again, we won't.

But that is a very positive relationship that we stand with Him. We live by faith in the grace of God.

And Noah found it because of the way he lived, because of the way he was, and how he lived within the time, the violent period of the world in which he lived. Find God's grace. Know that it is something that we stand in, and by faith we live within.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, and I'll conclude with this verse.

I usually don't say that, but I thought I'd say it today.

I'll conclude with this verse, because the food's starting to smell pretty good back there. Paul tells us in verse 7, Therefore purge out the old leaven.

Clean your homes this week. Put it out. Do whatever cleaning.

We've got one day to get it all done in our house tomorrow. Actually, my wife's already started.

And no kids. She didn't find any pizza under the cushions.

I was telling the kids about personal habits you want to avoid, and you don't want to...

Six months later, you don't want to find pizza under the cushions in the in the den or other places that you left there. Put it out. Get it out by sundown on the first day of unleavened bread, and we'll eat unleavened bread during that period of time. But purge it out, as he says, that you may be a new lump. But Paul's meaning here is not just to the physical, it's to the spiritual. That you, since you truly are unleavened. That's one of the most encouraging parts of the whole subject and of the season. As Paul says, you are truly unleavened.

Not because you've just cleaned your house. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about we're spiritually unleavened. Just as he said back in Romans 5.1, we just read, by faith we stand in this grace. In Romans 8, which I could have read, Paul says that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ.

You're unleavened. Not because you've got your house spicked in span, but because of what he says later on. He says, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. That's how we're unleavened.

Spiritually. We are under the blood of Christ. Because he has been sacrificed, we're spiritually unleavened and have that relationship with him. What we do physically during the Days of Unleavened Bread teaches us that great, great spiritual lesson. So find God's grace in your life. Be sure that you are standing in that, and that you understand the kindness, the love, the mercy of God, not only to provide for us a Savior and a Passover, but to provide a means for us to live a life that is changed. A life that is growing and understanding.

A life that is dealing with the ups and downs, the challenges and the excitements, the triumphs, the joys, the sorrows, and all the parts of life that we have to deal with on this journey that God has called us to. Find that grace and know that that is a big, important part of our life. I hope that all of you will have a very enjoyable and profitable Holy Day period. These are a few thoughts and reflections from the story of Noah and the Passover service and how they will impact all of us.