“And did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly.”
We come now to the second illustration of God’s judgment.
And did not spare the ancient world
The “ancient world” here is the ante-diluvium (pre-flood) civilization. God did not spare the ante-diluvium civilization but destroyed it by the flood. He did spare eight people out of the flood. Peter talks of the flood in three places in his epistles (1 Pe 3:20; 2 Pe 3:6).
God will not spare apostates. He did not spare the apostates before the flood, and He will not spare apostates after the flood. God did not withhold retribution.
but saved Noah
Noah spoke out against the depravity all about him.
one of eight people
The eight people were Noah, his wife, three sons, Shem, Ham, Japheth, and their three wives (Ge 6:10,18).
a preacher of righteousness
Noah preached righteousness. This is judicial righteousness of God’s salvation.
“Preacher” means herald. A herald was an eminently respected person. This person frequently spoke for the Emperor or an ambassador. The verb means to proclaim or announce. Noah announced God’s message for 120 years to the ante-diluvium civilization, warning of the coming flood.
Noah preached for 120 years with only his family as converts. This was 120 years of long-suffering on God’s part.
PRINCIPLE:
God cannot spare societies that compromise the essence of who He is.
APPLICATION:
God deals with societies that lose their standards and become corrupt. The media condition us to accept filth, profanity, and vulgarity. Our educational institutions pass off filth for art. They parade pornography as literature. This we call education!
Nothing shocks us anymore. It is going to get worse and worse. Today it very difficult to spare our children from filth and smut.
(1)We see that Noah preached for 120 years warning about the coming judgment by the flood for 120 years to the people of his generation & only 8 people were saved.
(2)The prophet Jonah was sent by God to preach about the judgment of God to the people of Nineveh & the entire city repented.Matt.12:41;
Luke 11:32;Jonah 3:5
(3)But no one was sent to Sodom & Gomorrah to warn about the coming judgment.Is it not?But Abraham,a friend of God,(Gen.18:19;2 Chr.20:7;
Neh.9;7;Is.41:8)was revealed about the plan of God to judge those cities because of the wickedness of the people.Abraham prayed.
Alex, Sodom and Gommorrah were under a special curse (Charam). Charam (Hebrew word) was a special curse for those who had gone fixed negative volition against God. That is why Israel under Joshua were not to touch the “cursed thing” (Charam, ??? ).