The Final Ark

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I was reading recently about an island about 800 miles south of the North Pole called Spitsbergen, which is a fun word to say. Why don’t you try it? Spitsbergen. Yeah.

Especially if you really emphasize it. Anyway, it’s fun to say. So this island is about 800 miles south of the North Pole.

And because of, I know that sounds like a long way, you try to live there, I assume. And because of where it’s located, the island stays extremely cold all the time. There’s only between 2,000 and 3,000 people that live there.

And the Norwegian government that owns the island decided, hey, this would be a good place because it’s so cold all the time. This would be a great place to build a vault, like a place to keep stuff cold. And so they invested millions and millions of dollars, or whatever their currency is.

They invested millions and millions in building this vault on the island of Spitsbergen. It’s underground because they have permafrost where it means the ground is permanently frozen. They’re able to build it under the permafrost. They’ve built walls that are about three feet thick of steel reinforced concrete. They have twin airlocks that you have to enter to get in there and double blast doors, two sets of blast doors.

And would anybody like to guess? Now, if you know, don’t just blurt it out. But anybody that doesn’t know, would you like to guess what the Norwegian government decided let’s store in here?

Anybody have a guess? Huh? Seeds.

You knew that, didn’t you? They decided to store seeds in this multi-million dollar vault. And they did that because they decided it would keep them cold.

It would keep them from sprouting. It would keep them fresh. And even in the vault, they store them in these little foil packets.

they’ve put them there underground for the purpose of, well, really it started with the nuclear arms race, that if we as a species decided to blow ourselves up or destroy a large part of the planet with nuclear weapons or really anything similar to that, that for those lucky few who were left, they would be able to repopulate the world with those seeds. They would have all the plants that we use for food, that sort of thing. They said there’s this danger of possible destruction.

We need a safe place to store these seeds, which if you like to eat, that makes sense that you would want some seeds there to be able to grow crops from. And we do this ourselves. We do this ourselves.

We don’t necessarily build multi-million dollar vaults in the permafrost, but we will take things away and when we know that there’s even a reasonable likelihood of something happening to it, if it’s important to us, we will put it away for safekeeping. We do this with our families. You know that Charla and I are from Moore and so we have been really pestering the storm shelter people about we’ve done everything we need to do.

We’ve got the area marked and all that and you need to come do the site inspection and get our storm shelter in because May is rapidly approaching. And everybody says, well, we don’t get tornadoes in Lawton. Well, we haven’t lived in Lawton before the spring, so you might.

They tend to follow us. So get your storm shelter orders in now. Sorry, I don’t trust that because they said the same thing in Seminole, and yet I ended up in the closet a ton of times because of warnings.

If there’s even a reasonable likelihood of tornadoes, I want that little vault to put my family in. You know, we do it with valuables. Some Don’t raise your hand if you do, okay?

But you may have a safe in your home where you store valuables. I think my mother stores the deed to the house. That makes sense.

That’s an important piece of paper. But it’s not jewelry. It’s important paper.

Some people store firearms or money, whatever you have. I’ve even seen people that say, I need a safe place to put stuff, but I can’t afford a fireproof safe. So there are videos on YouTube about how you can take sheetrock and a file cabinet and make a fire-resistant safe.

Hey, whatever works, all right? But we do that. We realize there’s a danger here of something being injured or destroyed, and so we’re going to put it away for safekeeping.

We’re going to find a spot to put it to keep it safe. And the Bible talks about how God has made those opportunities for us, that because we are in danger, God has made a place for us to be kept safe. And so if you would, turn with me to 1 Peter 3 this morning, 1 Peter 3.

We’re going to look at a few verses here where Peter writes about suffering. Chapter 3 really is about suffering as a Christian. And then he holds Jesus up as the example of what it means to suffer for the will of God.

He holds Jesus up as the example that we’re supposed to live up to. And in the midst of that discussion, he talks about some of what Jesus did in that whole process. And we can learn some things just from this parenthetical thought.

We can learn some things about what Jesus did. So once you’re there in 1 Peter 3, if you don’t mind to stand with me, if you’re able to without too much difficulty, as we read together from God’s Word, we’re going to start in 1 Peter 3, verse 18. If you don’t have a Bible with you, it’ll be here on the screen.

It says, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who were formerly disobedient, when once the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved through water. 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. And you may be seated.

Now, I told you last week that I was going to start walking you through some of the places where the Bible foreshadows the coming of Christ. Noah’s Ark is one of those instances and that’s what led us here. But I told you last week that as I started looking at some of these instances where Paul talks about the second Adam and how Adam points us to Christ. And now this week how Peter compares Noah’s Ark to Jesus. and so how Noah’s ark points us to Christ. I told you last week that this, at least so far, has led me into some passages that are notoriously difficult.

There may be some things in these passages that may raise questions for you that I may not be prepared to answer yet. But we’re going to work through this. We’re going to do our best. If there are unanswered questions, you can come to me later and I’ll either answer them or we’ll find an answer.

But we need to look a little deeper and some of our questions will be answered. But the point I draw from this passage today is that Jesus Christ is the only ark of refuge from the floodwaters of judgment. There’s a comparison drawn here between Jesus and the ark that’s stuck in there in this discussion about suffering.

And this passage tells us that Jesus suffered on our behalf and he triumphed over that suffering. As I told you already, the whole chapter really deals with suffering because Peter was writing to people who were going to have to suffer. You know, sometimes we feel like we are being persecuted for our faith in this country.

We don’t have a clue what persecution is compared to what they suffered and compared to what a lot of people are suffering around the world today. I like what one man has said that Christianity at this point is not being persecuted in the United States. We’ve just lost our home field advantage and we don’t realize what that feels like.

He was talking to people who were going to face some serious persecution and they were going to be called on to suffer for the cause of Christ. And so he’s writing to them about how important it is to be willing to suffer for God. He said it’s better to suffer for doing what’s right than suffer the consequences of having done what’s wrong. And he holds Jesus up as the example.

And he talks about how Jesus made a one-time offering that was sufficient to pay for our sins. Up to that point, they had been offering bulls and goats and sheep and birds. They’d been offering all these blood sacrifices over and over in hopes of making some kind of atonement of being right with God.

But Jesus Christ came along and in one act did more than all of those religious rituals combined could ever accomplish. He in a one-time sacrifice paid for our sins in full. That’s what he’s talking about in verse 18 when he said Christ also suffered once for sins.

Jesus doesn’t have to suffer over and over and over again. If the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is not enough to pay for all of our sins, then there is no hope for us, for any of us. Jesus Christ paid for our sins in one one-time offering.

And He did this because you and I couldn’t get right with God on our own. You see, if Jesus Christ couldn’t pay for our sins, and there was something else that you and I needed to do, first of all, as I said, if He couldn’t pay for it all, then there is no hope. because if Jesus couldn’t do it, I sure can’t do it.

But if there was something I needed to add or contribute to my salvation, then Jesus’ sacrifice was not enough and it was a horrible mistake. God doesn’t make mistakes. See, it says also in verse 18 that He died the just for the unjust. Someone who was right with God had to pay the penalty for those of us who could never be right with God on our own.

I had nothing to offer God but sin brought to Him in dirty hands. And I needed Jesus as the spotless Lamb of God to pay for that sin and to cleanse it. And he did this so that we could be reconciled to God.

So that we could have peace with the God who made us and who made us to walk with him. Because he says in verse 18, he did this, that he might bring us to God. That he might repair the relationship that had been so ravaged by sin.

And then he proved it by rising again from the dead. Because anybody could tell you today that they’re dying for your sin. Now, it wouldn’t be true, but anybody could tell you that.

As a matter of fact, there have been crazy people who have said, I’m the Messiah, I’m the Savior, I’m going to die for this, I’m going to die for that. Look at every cult leader that’s ever taken their people to an early grave. Look at David Koresh, look at Jim Jones, they told their people they were going to be their Savior.

Any lunatic can say, I’m going to die for you, or I’m going to be your Savior. But Jesus Christ proved it by rising from the dead. Verse 18 says that He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive.

by the Spirit. They killed His body, but by the Spirit of God, He was raised up again three days later. And we spent a few weeks talking about some of the evidence for that, didn’t we?

That’s not just a fairy tale. That’s fact. That actually happened.

Jesus Christ rose from the dead three days later and proved it. And then we come to this place right after verse 18 in verses 19 and 20 that is one of those sticky passages. One of those places that people have debated and people have question and said, what does it mean?

Where it says that he went and preached to the spirits in prison who were formerly disobedient. And there’s a few different ideas about what that means. Some people have suggested that they’re talking about Jesus being present in the preaching of Noah to those who were disobedient and talking about the spirits in prison that they are now in bondage.

That’s possible. I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about here when he says preached. Some He went into hell between the crucifixion and resurrection, and He preached the gospel to those people and led people out.

I don’t see that in Scripture, especially when you look at how that word preach is used in Greek. There are a couple of words that are sometimes used there. There’s one word that is often used for preaching the gospel.

That’s not the word that’s used here. The Greek word that’s used here is karuso, and it means to preach or to proclaim something. it can be paired with a message and said to preach the good news.

But this is a word that was also used to go and proclaim your triumph. When a victorious military commander would go through in their parade and they would pronounce their triumph, they would announce the victory they had just won. And so as I read this, it sounds much more in line with Jesus in his crucifixion where Satan thought he had won, Jesus going to those spirits who were already in prison and rubbing his triumph in their faces, pronouncing that he had died and was going to rise victorious, pronouncing that where Satan thought he had won, Jesus actually came and accomplished everything that God had promised throughout the scriptures he was going to do, that what Satan thought was the final defeat of Jesus Christ actually played into the hands of God and went and proclaimed that triumph.

Now, honestly, it could be either of those things, either of those explanations. But in my estimation, that second explanation of him proclaiming his triumph seems to fit better with the text and with what we know of Scripture than the other. That he would go and pronounce his triumph, that he would say that despite all the suffering, despite all the humiliation, despite everything that he went through on our behalf, Jesus Christ won in the end.

And so Jesus then is compared to Noah’s ark because he is all that stands between us and judgment. Think back to the story of Noah’s Ark. And those of you who were here Wednesday night, we talked about it at some length.

We didn’t go into all the detail about the dimensions of the Ark and all of that. But we talked about sort of the timeline here where God looked at the wickedness of mankind. And not just wickedness where God was offended, but He looked at the wickedness of mankind and the way we were treating one another, the violence, the immorality.

He looked at all these things and said, enough, I’m done with them. I’m going to put a stop to this my spirit will not strive with mankind forever and he decided he was going to wipe out the species and again people say that’s so harsh that God would do that listen when you think about what we were doing to each other this needed to end the madness all right if you if you see people abusing and victimizing somebody else and you had the power to step in and stop it would you not do that that’s what God did and mankind was just desperately wicked we talk about how things are worse than they’ve ever been. No, they’re not.

Because in Noah’s day, God said, all the thoughts of everybody’s heart was only evil all the time. We’re not there. So he said, I’m going to wipe them out.

I’m going to flood the earth and I’m going to wipe things clean. But then Genesis also said, but Noah found grace in the eyes of God. Noah didn’t necessarily deserve to be spared, but because God is gracious, because God is loving, he decided to make a way of escape.

And by the way, he didn’t just make a way of escape for those eight, because the New Testament tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. And while he was building that ark for 120 years, he also spent that 120 years preaching the message of impending judgment, warning people to get on the ark. And in the end, only eight would.

Now you look at that time that’s recorded there in the book of Genesis. And it says that everything that breathed the breath of life through its nostrils that was not on the ark, perished in that flood. In the entire world, there was one place of refuge.

When God sent the floodwaters of judgment, there was one place of refuge, and it was that ark that God designed and told Noah to build, and then God put them on it and closed the door with his hand. There was one place of refuge, and it was in the ark. And so when it compares Jesus here to this ark, and as Peter’s writing here, and he says, you know, this is just like what happened in Genesis.

This is just like what happened last time with God’s, he says, divine long-suffering. That means God’s patience. Also, remember, if you ever think the whole Noah’s Ark story is a show of how harsh God is, he gave them 120 years to turn around.

I got frustrated that it took them two hours to pull my order at Lowe’s yesterday and got tired and left, that I’m through with you, I’ll try another day. God gave them 120 years to do what they were supposed to do. He compares this.

He says, as he’s talking about Jesus and his suffering and all that he did for us, he said, this is just like when God’s patience was on display all those years ago at Noah’s Ark. And so if there was one place of escape in Noah’s day, then Jesus was all that stands between us and judgment today. In his suffering on the cross, Jesus took God’s judgment for us.

The judgment that you and I deserve. You may say, but I’m a good person. I’ve lived a good life.

I haven’t done that much wrong. See, we have this backwards and that’s why some people will object to the idea of a loving God sending good people to hell. Listen, the Bible does not paint the picture of mankind as being good people who sometimes make bad choices.

We are sinners in rebellion against a holy God. That’s who we are at our core. Even those of us who have lived relatively sheltered lives still have that rebellion lurking in our hearts where we don’t necessarily want to do things God’s way.

We’re not always on board with what God tells us to do. We are sinners in rebellion against God who occasionally do good things, and we’re deserving of the judgment of God. And yet Jesus at the cross took God’s judgment for us.

I’ve talked with some of you lately about this chronological study I’m doing for some writing for a paper on the crucifixion and resurrection, and trying to take the four gospel accounts along with some of the historical data that’s recorded in Acts and 1 Corinthians, and put it together and basically everything that’s recorded that happened in the life of Jesus from Gethsemane to the ascension. And until I sat down and started working on that and this week until I got to the part with Pilate trying Jesus multiple times, I didn’t realize. I realized how severe the beatings were that Jesus endured.

I didn’t realize how many times they did it and how many separate instances of this beating and humiliation that Jesus went through before going to the cross. and then what he endured at the cross. I believe it’s Isaiah 53 says it pleased God to bruise him, to crush him.

That’s not because the father suddenly got mad at Jesus. That’s because it’s talking about it’s fulfilling the will of the father to punish our sins in Jesus Christ. He bore the judgment of God that we deserved. And so Peter said, looking at Jesus, what he did, what he suffered on the cross there for us, that was just like what happened before.

when eight people heeded God’s warning and took refuge in the ark. And those eight, those who were willing to heed the warning of judgment and were willing to get on board the ark, those eight were saved when the judgment came. He says they were saved through the water in verse 20.

Now that means that they were brought safely through the water. That doesn’t mean that the water saved them. The water was the instrument of God’s judgment.

But being saved through the water means they were brought safely. There’s a few areas here, particularly in verse 20, where the Greek can be challenging to. .

. Any of you who’ve ever studied a second language know that sometimes a one-to-one comparison, a one-to-one translation of two languages can be hard at times. But saying they were saved through the water, that means God brought them safely through the water on that ark, in that one place of refuge.

He calls the ark an antitype of Jesus. That doesn’t mean an opposite, that means a counterpart. That the ark is an Old Testament counterpart of what Jesus Christ did for us.

The ark is a representation. I don’t mean that it’s purely symbolic. I believe that it really happened.

But it means it’s a picture in history of what Jesus Christ was going to do for us. Jesus is the counterpart of the ark that saves us. And he says in verse 21, there is also this anti-type, this counterpart, which now saves us.

And he says baptism. Now, I want to be very clear. He’s not saying that baptism is what saves you.

He’s not saying that baptism is a part of your salvation. Because there are too many clear instances in Scripture that say otherwise. But this word baptism, the Greek word baptizo means immersion, to immerse something.

And for various reasons, that’s a word that when they translated things into English, they transliterated that word. The difference is that means they just brought it over from one language into another. Kind of like we’ve done, I think of the example of Mexican food, because I think about Mexican food all the time.

Some of us were talking about it in the Welcome Center this morning. We didn’t translate burrito from Spanish and say we’re going to have a ground beef and bean wrap, we took the Spanish word burrito and we brought it into our language. That’s what they’ve done with baptism.

That’s a Greek word that they brought into English and made baptizo into baptize. But if you were going to literally translate it, it means to immerse, to put something completely under or in. That’s why it’s an apt description of what we do in the water here.

We put somebody all the way under as a picture of Jesus’ death and burial and resurrection. But it also has led to some people being confused when they read the English translations because they’ll read that word baptized. And sometimes the Greek used the word immerse without referring to water at all.

As a matter of fact, you think, well, that’s just your Baptist interpretation. No, you look there at verse 21 and he explains that that’s not what he’s talking about. He says, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, not the plunging into the physical water that we so often associate with that word.

He says it’s not the plunging into the water, but it’s the answer of a good conscience toward God. That word answer can also be translated, and I would say probably better translated as appeal. I know I’m throwing a lot of translate at you. I told you this was a difficult passage.

The immersion he’s talking about here. He said if you want to be saved, you’ve got to be immersed, and I’m not talking about immersing you into water. You’ve got to be immersed into this concept of going to God and appealing to God for a clear conscience.

What he’s talking about is repentance. If you want to be saved from the judgment to come, you’ve got to repent and you’ve got to throw yourself completely into Jesus Christ as that ark. Is that hard to understand?

Is that clear? I realize it’s a challenging wording, but that’s the point he’s trying to make. When you look at all of it together, he said, if you want to be saved, you’ve got to throw yourself entirely on the mercy of Jesus Christ. If you sense that, if you understand that the judgment is coming, you understand that word from God that he warns that it’s coming, and you want that place of refuge, you want that ark like in the Old Testament, Jesus Christ is it.

And you’ve got to throw yourself all the way in. You’ve got to get inside. Immersion into Christ. And by the way, judgment is coming.

I know that’s not a popular message today. I’m not going to stand up here like one of the TV preachers and give you dates or anything. I’m not going to tell you COVID’s the judgment of God.

Some of us were talking about that before church. Things like that are here because we live in a fallen world. Those are consequences of sin.

But if they were the judgment of God, I think he would have told us a little more clearly. Now he explains what his judgment is going to look like in the end, and it’s not going to be pretty. I don’t say that as a scare tactic.

I say that as this is what God has said, that sin always has to be punished because God, even as much as he is loving, he is also holy and just. Sin has to be punished. Sin has to be dealt with and he will do it. But before we think that God is too harsh or God is just trying to destroy our fun or God’s just mad at us, remember God has made a way of escape.

God has made an ark for us, and that ark is named Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ has the power to save all who turn to Him. Because verse 21 tells us that He’s risen triumphant over death. I’m sorry, verse 21, yes.

Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we’re able to put ourselves completely in Him, throw ourselves completely on His mercy, because He has risen, because He has overcome. He suffered for us, and then He triumphed in His resurrection. And if He was able to defeat death for himself.

There’s no reason to believe he can’t defeat death for us. Verse 22 tells us how he is seated in power. He has all authority.

It says he’s gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God. If you’re not familiar with that biblical phrase, that means he is in the seat of power and authority. He is right there at the most prominent position next to the Father.

He has all power and authority. Even the angels and authorities and powers have been made subject to Him. There’s nobody that’s outside of His jurisdiction.

It tells us that He saves those who turn and seek refuge in Him. That’s what that appeal to a good conscience, a clear conscience before God is. Talking about repentance.

And I want to be very clear with the word repentance because that’s one of those areas that people have gotten twisted over the years too. We think of the idea of repentance. Well, I’ve got to turn away from my sin.

I’ve got to change my life. Repentance does not mean a change of life. Repentance should result in a change of life, but repentance itself, And I’m not going to go into all the Greek again, but the Greek word there means a change of mind.

The change of mind. Where we start out as sinners who hate God and love our sin, the difference between a rebellious sinner and a repentant sinner is the rebellious sinner hates God and loves his sin, and the repentant sinner loves God and hates his sin. Repentance doesn’t mean we’ll never sin again.

Repentance means when we sin, we hate it because we know we’ve let God down. We’ve disappointed Him. and we’re begging, we’re pleading with God to give us victory over that, to help us struggle against it because we want our consciences to be clear before God through Jesus Christ. So when he says repent, he’s not saying get your life cleaned up and then I’ll save you.

Repentance is more in the recognition that we need saving. Repentance is in the recognition that our consciences are not clean before God and that Jesus Christ is the only one who can clean them. And so we’re called on to repent.

We’re called to turn to Jesus for salvation. Just the very fact that we are willing ask Him for that salvation. Just the very fact that we’re willing to admit that we need it and He’s the only one who can provide it is evidence of that repentance.

And so this morning, if you recognize that God’s Word tells us that there’s a judgment coming, it won’t be a flood. He’s promised that He won’t flood the entire world and wipe out mankind that way. Revelation talks about fire, which doesn’t sound all that pleasant either.

But if you recognize that’s what God’s Word says and it’s what mankind deserves, there is one way of escape. That’s not harsh and narrow-minded of God, that’s one way of escape more than what we deserve. There is one way of escape.

Jesus Christ is our ark. Jesus Christ is our one place of refuge from the judgment that’s to come. And this morning, if you know that you’re outside of that ark, if you know that you’re not on that ark, you’re outside that place of refuge, but you know that the judgment of God is coming, you know that you’ve sinned against him as we all have.

Folks, it’s as simple as realizing that we’ve sinned against God and need a Savior. Admitting that to him, he already knows it. We might as well tell him what we both already know.

Acknowledging that we need a Savior and that Jesus Christ is it because he suffered, bled, and died on the cross for us and then he proved it by rising again from the dead. And if on that basis, if you believe all that this morning, you can ask him for his forgiveness and you have the promise of his word that he’ll save you. You have the promise of his word that He’ll forgive you, that He’ll wipe your slate clean and start your life anew with Him.