photo inspired from: Grace – But Noah Found Grace in the Eyes of Jehovah
Even though the Lord gained Abel to worship Him in His way, Enosh to call on the name of the Lord, and Enoch to walk with God, mankind continued to fall and be corrupted until in Gen. 6:7 we see that God decided to blot out the man whom He has created. It looked as if Satan had won, “but Noah found grace in the sight of Jehovah” (Gen. 6:8).
Hallelujah, at the bottom of all the fall of man there is a BUT! Noah found grace in God’s eyes, and his living and work were of grace – he enjoyed God in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation.
Just like Noah, we today live in a very evil and crooked generation, and we need to find grace in the eyes of God. We need to be those who enjoy the Lord and minister Him into others. Even more: we need to have a life and work of building up Christ and the church (the ark), as Noah did.
In our experience, we need to enjoy a practical and present Christ, and we need to build up the church as the Body of Christ expressed in the many local churches. We will then enter into what we have built today, and we will “float” above the waters of judgement all the way into the millennium kingdom (by being in Christ and the church as the ark) to rule and reign with Him!
What a great vision with many implications we see in the life and work of Noah! His life and work changed that age, and we can also have a life and work that changes this age today!
Seeing the True Situation of the Corrupt Age We Live In
God showed Noah the true situation of the corrupt age in which he lived (see Gen. 6:1-13). Today at the end of the age, we live in the days of Noah and we are very close to the Lord’s second coming (Matt. 24:37-39). We need to be those like Noah today, finding grace in the eyes of God and walking with Him, so that we may escape the coming judgement and enter into the wedding feast prepared for us.
First of all, we need to see a vision of the corrupt, wicked, and perverted age we live in today. We are truly at the end of the age, living in the days of Noah. Fallen man is flesh in totality, and the earth is filled with violence. The newspapers are filled with records of crimes and violence, corruption and injustice. The so-called “news” today are always concerning evil things happening 24/7 all around the world.
All men in the world today are lovers of self, lovers of money, and lovers of pleasures (2 Tim. 3:1-5). And just as in the days of Noah, men today don’t know judgement is coming. We really need to see the true situation of the corrupt and wicked age we live in today, and we need to give ourselves to the Lord to be lovers of God and those who find grace in His eyes that we may walk with Him today and escape the coming judgement!
If it were us being “God” and seeing the situation on the earth today, we would probably give up on mankind. But God is unchangeable (James 1:17) and He cannot be defeated. His purpose will be accomplished, and all the dark situation today does is to provide a black background for what He intends to do with those who find grace in His eyes.
We Need to Find Grace in the Eyes of the Lord
When Satan has done his best to damage humanity, bringing them to become flesh and have all their thoughts always inclined toward evil, there is always one person or a few people who are like Noah, “But Noah found grace in the sight of Jehovah”.
Finding grace in the Lord’s eyes is not a small thing – it’s not that “the Lord is gracious to us” or “God grants us grace”. It’s not merely “finding grace by mistake” or “grace is given to you though you don’t look for it”. Rather, we seek grace and we find grace in the eyes of the Lord! As Heb. 4:16 encourages us, we need to come forward with boldness to the throne of grace! We may want to pray to the Lord,
Lord, I am coming to the throne of grace! Lord Jesus, I need Your grace every minute. Without Your grace, Lord, I simply cannot bear anything! You have grace ready for me, and I want to give You my best cooperation! I kneel before the throne of grace to find grace to meet my timely need!
Many times in our Christian life we can’t stand our situation and we can’t face what’s happening to us. However, there is a place called the throne of grace, and we can come forward to receive mercy and find grace for our time of need! When we receive grace from the throne, God Himself comes to us to stand with us to face the situation with us and for us.
Grace is simply God coming to us to be with us, being everything that we need. To Noah, God’s presence was his strength and power. In the midst of a generation whose temptations no one could withstand, God came to be with Noah as grace.
It is the same with us today – we all have our fallen nature, our flesh. We need grace! We must admit, we cannot defeat or subdue our flesh, but we can come to the throne of grace! In our flesh – which is Satan’s masterpiece – Satan, sin, and death meet continually, and their meeting is never dismissed. But grace is God Himself enjoyed by us and helping us to face the situation of the flesh!
The flesh helps us and even forces us to come to the Lord and receive grace. In a sense, we need the flesh: it is the factor which compels us to come to the throne of grace. Although there’s nothing we can DO about our flesh, there’s a PLACE we can go, the throne of grace!
The flesh is the very presence of the devil, and grace is the very presence of God. For us to face the presence of Satan we need the presence of God. In His sovereignty and wisdom, God leaves the flesh with us knowing that, in a sense, it is useful to us – day and night the flesh helps us to turn to the throne of grace.
Because of the flesh, God gives us grace, and this grace produces righteousness! Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life (Rom. 5:21). Where the flesh is, grace is available, and righteousness is produced. How much we need to find grace in the eyes of the Lord!
How Much God’s Grace Can Do for Us Once We Receive Grace!
Even though the record in Genesis 6 shows us a very evil and corrupt situation on the earth, the main purpose in this chapter and in the whole book of Genesis is not to show us how fallen man is but how much God’s grace can do for fallen people! When man enjoys God’s presence as his everything, God as grace does everything in man, through man, and for man!
Today if we come to the throne of grace and enjoy God, He is coming to us to be our life supply, our strength, and our everything (see John 1:14, 16-17; Rev. 22:21). No matter how low man is or how desperate his situation is, there’s always a “BUT” – But Daniel (Dan. 1:8), and “But God, being rich in mercy” (Eph. 2). There are some very precious things the Bible reveals concerning man enjoying God as grace:
The enjoyment of the Lord as grace is with those who love Him (Eph. 6:24; John 21:15-17). We need to give ourselves to just love the Lord. We need to build up a habit of telling the Lord, Lord Jesus, I love You! When we love the Lord to the uttermost, we will spontaneously want to feed the Lord’s lambs and shepherd His sheep.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ as the bountiful supply of the Triune God is enjoyed by us through the exercise of our human spirit (Heb. 10:29b; Gal. 6:18; Phil. 4:23; Philem. 25; 2 Tim. 4:22). Remember: our mind is a land of doubts and quarreling, but our spirit is a country of grace! We need to exercise our spirit to enjoy the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ! Our highest enjoyment and experience is to enjoy the Lord being with our spirit as the presence of grace. When we lose this, degradation comes in…
God’s word is the word of grace (Acts 20:32; Col. 3:16; cf. Jer. 15:16). When we eat God’s words as the words of grace, they become the gladness and rejoicing of our heart. We need to eat God’s word by reading it, pray-reading it, memorizing it, musing on it, speaking it, singing it, and letting it dwell in us richly!
We experience the processed Triune God as the grace of life in meeting with the saints on the ground of oneness (Psa. 133:3; 1 Pet. 3:7; Acts 4:33; 11:23). The descending grace of God (the dew of Hermon) is in the church life when the brothers are in oneness. When we come to the meetings, the descending dew of grace in our being saturates us with grace and transforms us into the image of the Firstborn Son of God. This grace can be even seen among us (Acts 11:33) – the Triune God received and enjoy by the believers can be expressed in our salvation, in our change in life, in our holy living, and in the gifts exercised in the meetings (see the footnote in the Recovery Version).
We can experience the Lord as our increasing and all-sufficient grace in the midst of sufferings and trials (2 Cor. 12:9). This is the “paradox of power” – when we are weak, we are strong because we experience His power and grace. We can experience the Lord’s all-sufficient grace in the midst of sufferings and trials. He is not interested in removing the suffering or weakness, but He rather wants to increase the all-sufficient grace in the midst of the sufferings! May the Lord increase Himself as grace in us day by day!
We need to labor for the Lord in the power of His grace (1 Cor. 15:10, 58; 3:10, 12a). Noah’s being, living, and work depended on God’s grace. Paul’s person and existence depended on God as grace, and he labored more abundantly more than others – yet not him but the grace of God which was with him!
We need to be good stewards of the varied grace of God (1 Pet. 4:10; Eph. 3:2; 2 Cor. 1:15; Eph. 4:29). All the believers in Christ have a stewardship of the enjoyment of God, which is given to them for others. We daily enjoy God not merely for ourselves but for others! We enjoy God and we overflow with His enjoyment to bring others into this enjoyment of God as grace.
By the power of grace, the strength of grace, and the life of grace, we can be right with God and with one another; grace produces righteousness (Heb. 11:7; Rom. 5:17, 21). The way to be right with others and with God is to enjoy God as grace, and to allow this grace to reign in us. Grace produces righteousness before God and before man.
Lord, we come forward with boldness to the throne of grace. Lord, give us grace to meet our need. We want to seek grace that we may find grace in Your eyes. Lord, we cannot make it without Your presence with us as grace. May grace reign in us, so that we may be righteous and may reign in life. In all we do and say, may it be the grace of God doing and saying in us. Fill us with grace. Keep us coming to the throne of grace so that grace may flow as a river in our being and swallow up any death, culture, differences, and negative things! Lord, more grace!
References and Further Reading
- Inspiration (besides the Word of God and my Christian experience): bro. Ed Marks’ speaking in this message and portions from, Life-study of Genesis (msgs. 28-29), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization Study of Genesis (1), week / msg 11, Noah — the Life and Work That Can Change the Age.
- Hymns on this topic:
# For we do not have a High Priest who cannot / Be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses, / But One who has been tempted in all respects like us, / Yet without sin, yet without sin. / Let us therefore come forward / With boldness to the throne of grace / That we may receive mercy and find grace / For timely help.
# Thank You Lord, in Your eyes we find grace, / And with open hearts we come to You. / Regardless what our friends might say to us or do, / O Lord Jesus, we love You.
# In the holiest place, touch the throne of grace, / Grace as a river shall flow; / … / Hallelujah! Hallelujah! / Grace as a river shall flow;
About aGodMan
