Intro:
1. A 320-year-old Strad-i-var-ius cello [chel-o] that had been missing for 3 weeks has been returned to the Los Angeles Phil-har-mon-ic Orchestra after it avoided becoming the world's most expensive CD rack.
The instrument was accidentally left outside the owners home. Nearby video surveillance cameras revealed that a bicyclist had stolen it. Recently, 29 year-old nurse, Melanie Stevens, found the $3.5 million dollar instrument made by master craftsman An-to-nio Strad-i-vari, lying beside a trash bin about a mile from where it was stolen.
Melanie found the instrument inside its silver coated plastic case and put it in her car's trunk for 2 days. Then she asked her boyfriend, who is a cabinetmaker, to either repair the instrument or convert it into a unique CD holder.
Melanie did not know the significance of the instrument until she saw a news report about it. She said, "I had the idea to possibly put a hinge on the front. He would install little shelves inside. It would be a very elaborate CD case. I know it sounds crazy."
Robert Cauer, a Los Angeles-based instrument restoration specialist said, "The valuable instrument is damaged but repairable and should be back in service by this fall. The thought that this prized instrument could have been turned into a CD holder is so abominable, I get sick when I hear it."
2. The Bible says, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Ephesians 2:10
God has a specific work for every believer to do, to miss that work and give our life to something else - is like turning that chel-o into a CD holder!
3. Noah's God given Work.
Trans:Last week we saw that Noah Walked with God, anybody who really Walks with God is going to be Working for God also.
Gen. 6:14-7:9
I. FIRST HIS WORK WAS COMMISSIONED BY GOD. 6:14
"Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch - his work originated with God.
Jesus is a perfect example of this:
"Jesus *said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work." John 4:34 (NASB)
38 "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." John 6:38 (NASB)
"I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do." John 17:4 (NASB)
We all have different assignments - some like Billy Graham are given the work of a public ministry; other like F.F. Bruce are given to a private work of ministry.
He wrote, "For many years now, the greater part of my time, has been devoted to, the study and interpretation of the Bible, in academic and non-academic settings alike. I regard this, as a most worthwhile and rewarding occupation. There is only one form of work, I should rate more highly; that is the work of an evangelist, to which I have not been called."
The point is, every believer has been commissioned by God to do something. That work will glorify God! Mt. 5:16
II. FURTHERMORE, HIS WORK INVOLVED THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN ARK. 15-16
15 "This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16 "You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks
Ryrie, "Although we do not know for certain the length of the cubit mentioned here, later in history it was about 18 in. A vessel of such dimensions would have a displacement of about 20,000 tons and gross tonnage of about 14,000 tons. Its carrying capacity equaled that of 522 standard railroad stock cars (each of which can hold 240 sheep). Only 188 cars would be required to hold 45,000 sheep-sized animals, leaving three trains of 104 cars each for food, Noah's family, and "range" for the animals. Today it is estimated that there are 17,600 species of animals, making 45,000 a likely approximation of the number Noah might have taken into the ark."
I wonder how many today would criticize Noah Ministry? Consider his basic ministry was (1) building a boat! How spiritual is that! (2) After 120 years of warning people about the coming flood - no one outside of his family responded! In a day when Numbers = success, we would deem Noah a colossal failure.
When need to evaluate things from God's perspective - Compare Noah to Jonah. Jonah was clearly carnal and rebellious - yet he saw a great Revival where many people were saved...
How about the work of Isaiah? "8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!" 9 He said, "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.' 10 "Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Otherwise they might see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed." 11 Then I said, "Lord, how long?" And He answered, "Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, Houses are without people And the land is utterly desolate," Isaiah 6:8-11
If converts are the measure of success where in trouble!
"13 "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it." Matthew 7:13-14 (NASB)
Richard Halverson, "After two years in Coalinga [Co-lin-ga], I entered a period of disillusionment, that became so acute, I felt I must leave the ministry, unless something happened, to alter the situation.
This was resolved, when after two weeks of, intense aloneness and spiritual wrestling, accompanied by the feeling that God, had put me aside, for any further useful service.
I finally told the Lord, I was going to continue to serve Him, the rest of my life, whether there was any fruit or blessing in that service...I was willing to be buried, for the rest of my life, in obscurity. This was a tremendous hurdle for me, for I had become very ambitious. When this was settled, I took a completely new leave on life."
Truth is, it doesnt really matter what God wants us to do - as long as it is doing His will...I FEEL VERY VERY FORTUNATE, BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT GOD HAS CALLED ME TO DO...TRUE, IT SEEMS NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR ME PREACH BUT THAT IS NOT MY FOCUS - MY FOCUS IS LIFTING UP JESUS CHRIST AND RIGHTLY DIVIDING HIS WORD.
III. THIRDLY, HIS WORK INVOLVED CONDEMNATION. 17
"Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish - we are no strangers to warning about God's wrath.
A. The lost are already under God's wrath.
"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." John 3:36 (NASB)
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness," Romans 1:18 (NASB)
B. The lost are headed for God's wrath.
1. During the Tribulation Period.
Just as Noah warned about a universal judgment that came; likewise we warn about the universal coming Tribulation - just as surely as the flood came; the Tribulation Period will come!
"16 and they *said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?" Revelation 6:16-17 (NASB)
"And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth." Revelation 11:18 (NASB)
"9 Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb." Revelation 14:9-10 (NASB)
"18 And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. 19 The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath." Revelation 16:18-19 (NASB)
"From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty." Revelation 19:15 (NASB)
2. Throughout Eternity.
Tony Evans, "WHAT happens to people who die without Christ? They go to hell! There is no respectable way to say it. They go to HELL. For how long? Forever!
There is always the person who will say, "Wait a minute. I am not sure I believe in hell." This is one chance that may not be worth taking. Certain things you can afford to make a mistake on, but this isn't one of them.
If a man doesn't have food, that's bad but he can recover from that. If a man doesn't live in a good house, that's bad but he can recover from that. If a man doesn't have the best clothes, that's bad but he can recover from that. If he doesn't have the job he prefers to have, that's bad but he can recover from that. If a man has to walk because he can't afford a car, that's bad but he can recover from that. No matter how bad a person's finances are, they can recover from that.
But if a man dies without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and wakes up in hell, that's a blow that he can never recover from."
Spurgeon, "IF THE SINNER turn not, God will whet his sword." So, then, God has a sword, and he will punish man on account of his iniquity.
This evil generation has laboured to take away from God the sword of his justice; they have endeavoured to prove themselves that God will "clear the guilty," and will by no means "punish iniquity, transgression and sin."
Two hundred years ago the predominant strain of the pulpit was one of terror: it was like Mount Sinai, it thundered forth the dreadful wrath of God, and from the lips of a Baxter or a Bunyan, you heard most terrible sermons, full to the brim with warnings of judgment to come.
Perhaps some of the Puritanic fathers may have gone too far...but the age in which we live has sought to forget those terrors altogether, and if we dare to tell men that God will punish them for their sins, it is charged upon us that want to bully them into religion...
The cry of the age is, that God is merciful, that God is love. Ay; who said He was not? But remember, it is equally true, God is just, severely and inflexibly just. He were not God, if he were not just; he could not be merciful if he were not just...
Rest assured that He is just, and that the words I am about to read you from God's Word are true—"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God;' "God is angry with the wicked every day;" "If he turn not, He will whet his sword; He has bent his bow, and made it ready. He has also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors."
[And yet], how few there are who will solemnly tell us of the judgment to come."
This generation has lost any concept of the Fear of God! Since I have a fear of heights, something Kevin Miller wrote something I can identify with:
"A few summers ago we took a family vacation to Toronto. [We went to the] CN Tower, the world's tallest building and freestanding structure.
Just the thought of being 1,815 feet above the ground made me queasy. I was the last one into the elevator. We started up, which was when I realized that the door of this elevator was actually made of glass, and that htis elevator was affixed to the outside of the tower.
As I rushed up the side of the CN Tower, I could see the city of Toronto falling away at my feet. My palms started sweating, my throat got tight, and I started breathing really fast...
I stumbled out of the elevator into the observation floor, where I thought it would be safe. But I found that sadist had installed a glass floor!
That same year, we went to the Grand Canyon, where you can stand at the South Rim and peer 6,000 feet straight down. At the Grand Canyon, you are not separated from your doom by blocks of glass 2.5 inches thick.
Every year, about 5 people die while visiting because of a lack of a healthy fear of the danger as they get over zealous in taking pictures.
When the Bible talks about "fearing God" many preachers say that all that means is to have awe and reverence - not talking about fear per say.
But the Bible disagrees. Isaiah prophesies:
"It is the LORD of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, And He shall be your dread." Isaiah 8:13 (NASB)
Jesus said, "4 I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. 5 "But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!" Luke 12:4-5
IV. FOURTHLY, HIS WORK COUNTED. 6:18-21; 7:1
18 "But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife, and your sons' wives with you. 19 "And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20 "Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. 21 "As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for food for you and for them." 22 Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did - 18-22
Then the LORD said to Noah, "Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time - 7:1
A. It Preserved the seed-line.
B. It Provided a safe haven for 8 people and the animals.
C. It Produced satisfaction to those who did respond.
Spurgeon, "When Noah came to the Ark he found his all in it - God's Presence, Provisions, and Protection. When a soul comes to Christ, it commits itself to Him for everything.
Christ, the bread of life is our food, He is our pleasure and choicest delight. You need nothing to do with the waters of sin, self, and Satan. You are inside the Ark, shut in with God, dead to the world and alive in Christ."
D. It Proved God's promise of wrath was true.
Since nobody responded, it might have seemed like a waste of time to Noah - but it wasnt.
Trans:Obeying God often seems like a waste of time - sharing the gospel to a stubborn and rebellious world seems like an exercise in futility; share the need to live godly to a carnal and lukewarm church seems like beating a dead horse.
But obeying God is never a waste of time - all our work will one day count. 1 Cor. 15:58
Walter Gowans grew up in Toronto, Canada with a heart for the 60 million people of the Sudan, which referred to all of Africa from Se-ne-gal to Ethiopia. As he shared his vision, Thomas Kent and Rowland Bingham, and they also heard God's call to go to Africa.
The three landed in Lagos, Nigeria. Rowland became ill immediately and stayed in Lagos as Walter and Thomas, pressed toward the interior of Africa.
A few months later, Thomas Kent contracted Malaria and died. Walter wrote in his journal, "Our success in this enterprise means nothing less than the opening of the Sudan for the gospel...God is faithful. He faileth not. Still, even death is not failure. His purposes are accomplished. He uses deaths as well as lives to the furtherance of His cause..."
Walter continued on, but he too contracted malaria and died. Rowland returned to Canada to visit Walter's mother. They had a time of prayer together. Walters mother said, "Well, Mr. Bingham, I would rather have had Walter go out to the Sudan, and die there, all alone, than have him home today disobeying the Lord."
It may not look like it, but Walter's obedience to the Lord counted in time and eternity.
V. FIFTHLY, HIS WORK REQUIRED HIM TO DO AS HE WAS COMMANDED. 6:22; 7:5,9,16
Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did - 6:22
5 Noah did according to all that the LORD had commanded him - 7:5
there went into the ark to Noah by twos, male and female, as God had commanded Noah - 7:9
Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the LORD closed it behind him - 7:16
Stanly, "Nothing indicated an approaching storm. Still, since Noah believed God, he prepared for the downpour, God promised. His friends must have mocked him, but he built an ark.
Obedience, is the cornerstone, to our faith in God. Noah's obedience, led to God's blessing and reward, the disobedience of his contemporaries, led to their destruction. Obey God, and leave all the consequences, to Him."
VI. FINALLY, HIS WORD WAS ONE DAY COMPLETED. 7:1-9
1 Then the LORD said to Noah, "Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time. 2 "You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female; 3 also of the birds of the sky, by sevens, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth. 4 "For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made." 5 Noah did according to all that the LORD had commanded him. 6 Now Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of water came upon the earth. 7 Then Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him entered the ark because of the water of the flood. 8 Of clean animals and animals that are not clean and birds and everything that creeps on the ground, 9 there went into the ark to Noah by twos, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. Genesis 7:1-9 - God's Word will always come true!
The average America does not believer in a Personal God who will call them into Judgment!
Life magazine once interviewed dozens of people. One person they talked to was a prostitute, age 24, in White Pine County, Nevada.
She said, "I don't think about my feelings a lot, instead I lie in my bed and think onto Him. I meditate because sometimes my words don't come out right. But He can find me. He can find what's inside of me just by listening to my thoughts. I ask Him to help me and keep me going.
A lot of people think working girls don't have any morals, any religion. But I do. I don't steal. I don't lie. The way I look at it, I'm not sinning. He's not going to judge me. I don't think God judges anybody."
The people of Noah's day did not really think God was going to Judge them - but He did! American, like that prostitute, have the same attitude - but they are wrong
Con:
1. Noah was given a Work to do, so are we, to miss doing that work would be a great tragedy.
2. You say "I am not sure what God wants me to do with my life?"
In the book, The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren tells Dr. Hugh Moorhead’s story. In the late 1980s, Dr. Moorhead, a philosophy professor at Northeastern Illinois University, wrote to 250 of the best-known philosophers, scientists, writers, and intellectuals in the world. He asked each one, "What is the meaning of life?"
Dr. Moorhead published the responses in a book. Some of these thinkers offered their best guess, others admitted they made up a purpose for life, and a few honestly admitted they had no idea.
A number of the intellectuals Dr. Moorhead questioned asked him to write back and tell them if he discovered the purpose of life!
Reflecting on Moorhead’s research, Warren writes, "Fortunately, there is an alternative to speculation about the meaning and purpose of life. It’s revelation. The easiest way to discover the purpose of an invention is to ask the creator of it. The same is true for discovering your life’s purpose: Ask God. It’s not about you...the only way to know what we are supposed to do with our lives is to ask our creator. He and He alone knows why He made us and what we are supposed to do with our lives."
Johnny Palmer Jr
StrugglingThruScriptures.ning.com
spurgeonwannabe@yahoo.com
