"GOD SAW THAT HUMAN EVIL WAS OUT OF CONTROL. PEOPLE
THOUGHT EVIL, IMAGINED EVIL--EVIL, EVIL, EVIL FROM
MORNING TO NIGHT. GOD WAS SORRY THAT HE HAD MADE THE
HUMAN RACE IN THE FIRST PLACE; IT BROKE HIS HEART.
GOD SAID,"I’LL GET RID OF MY RUINED CREATION, MAKE A
CLEAN SWEEP: PEOPLE, ANIMALS, SNAKES AND BUGS, BIRDS--
THE WORKS. I’M SORRY I MADE THEM."
BUT NOAH WAS DIFFERENT.
GOD LIKED WHAT HE SAW IN NOAH.
THIS IS THE STORY OF NOAH: NOAH WAS A GOOD MAN, A MAN
OF INTEGRITY IN HIS COMMUNITY.
NOAH WALKED WITH GOD..."
-GENESIS 6:5-9(The Message Bible)
What an apt illustration of God’s favor! An endearing story of Noah!
Despite the situation,the corruption, God saw something that was a
flicker of light in the midst of utter darkness of those days...
NOAH!
The Message Bible described him as different. And God liked what He
saw in Noah.
May this message bring us in the fold of Noahic character which is
already in us ever since we received the Lord Jesus Christ in our
Life. Yes,the grief of God which I’m sure is even more pronounced in
this last days than in the days of Noah as the Bible stated in Second
Timothy3:13,"but evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse..."
But we are not those,only because of Jesus,let us partake today God’s
grace, favor, hope as listening today would bring us more closer to
His guidance nearer and nearer to His direction of entering the Ark
before that great and final day of Judgment...
It’s ours to come near God’s grace where we will always find mercy
and help in these times of our deepest needs.
I-GOD’S GRIEF: Vv.1-7
Evil all around us. the Apostle Paul had clearly oulined it in his
second letter of chap.3 to Timothy. "In the last days perilous times
will come: For men will be lovers of money, boasters, proud,
blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,unholy, unloving,
unforgiving,slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of
good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than
lovers of God,"...whew! Even in the elect, as Paul continued....
having a form of godliness BUT DENYING ITS POWER, ALWAYS LEARNING
AND NEVER ABLE TO COME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH.
God’s not sleeping to tolerate what is happening around us. He’s
not somewhere minding other important matters. In fact,in the
midst of such wickedness? Such utter darkness of this times? HE
FOUND YOU AS HIS ONLY FLICKER OF LIGHT, HIS SHOWCASE OF HOPE IN THIS
PERVERSE GENERATION!
Peter gave us such inspiring words in his last chapter of 2Peter;
"the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slack-
ness, but is longsuffering toward us,not willing that any should
perish but that all should come to repentance...looking for and
hastening the coming of the day of God,because of which the heavens
will be dissolved, being on fire,and the elements will melt with
fervent heat?"(v.9&12).
Is it possible that you are the preservative that delays God’s
judgment? In the face of Crisis, we who believed in Jesus lies hope
and more grace? in crisis, Christ is!
Light is more appreciated in utter darkness.
These times of God’s grief? He would just turn on His righteous
people.
That’s His only solace.
His comfort!
Noah in the hebrew language means rest, comfort.
You are in His comfort!
You are different!
II-GOD’S GRACE:v.8-10
Because of His righteous living, he found favor in the sight of
God.This is more relevant now than during the days of Noah, because
when Jesus came; He perfected our living with the Living God. "For
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us,that we might become
the righteousness of God in Him(2Cor.5:21), so that as sin reigned
in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal
life through Jesus Christ. What shall we say then? Shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not!How shall we who died to
sin live any longer in it?"(Rom.5:21-6:2).
He had chosen us, not because we like it? He chose us because He has
seen something different in us.He chose us because He alone knows.
That’s grace.
Therefore, it is grace through righteousness to eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord alone. No more no less. Not of works, not of
anything.
Look at it this way, since we have been forgiven in Christ,God tells
us that instead of relating to others in superiority, we must put
others ahead of ourselves wearing the clothes of humility because,
"He resist the proud but gives grace to the humble"(1Pet.5:5).When
the"God of all grace"(v.10)controls our lives He can transform
interruptions into opportunities, mistakes into lessons, weaknesses
into strengths!
That’s the amazing power of God’s grace.
Only by God’s grace, that we can live a righteous living.
Period. No more, no less.
That’s why you’re different from the world.
III-GOD’S GUIDANCE:v.11-7:1
The doomsday clock is on its last ticks! Destruction is near and
sure as spoken of Our Lord in Mattherw24.
Consider the catastrophes around you.We’re being reminded of the
9/11.The earthquakes, famines, typhoons and tornadoes never seen
before in the history of mankind.Jesus said this is only the
beginning! Spare us oh,Lord!!!!
God would surely provide a remedy for His righteous children just
as He provided an ark for Noah. In the eyes of God,we have found
grace because of Jesus only.
You are different, because you have been given a warning, an open
spiritual eyes to perceive the signs of the times!
Just like Noah,we are divinely warned of things not yet seen, let us
moved with godly fear, for the saving of our family, by which let us
condemn the world and hold our heirship of our righteousness which is
according to faith!(my paraphrase of Heb.11:7).
God guided Noah to built an ark inorder to be save from the wrath of
God’s judgment.
Today, the ark symbolizes an expression of God’s love to us and
salvation(v.14-22). It also symbolizes the expression of God’s
Presence. Notice in chapter7:1 that the Lord said to Noah after
completing the Ark,"Come into the ark..." He did not say "go inside
the ark..." Why? God Himself is issuing an invitation to Noah to
come inside because He is assuring Noah that He would be right there
inside the ark before during the flood and till after the flood.
Immanuel, God with us!
Finally, the ark expresses that the Only Way to Salvation should be
inside the ark, inside His will.
In CONCLUSION, you are different because even if the world is in
trouble, full of evil, you are turning God’s grief over all these,
into God’s expression of His favor on you and to all His children
guiding each and every different like you&me to a picture of letting
us enter into His Ark.
AND THEN, HE WILL SHUT US IN.
TOGETHER WITH HIM.
And the world, and its sin, suffering, turmoil, pain, evils and
self-righteousness and....
Will be no more.
Let us now be with God. Inside the ark...
"COME NOW INTO THE ARK! YOU BELONG INSIDE"
YOU ARE DIFFERENT.
