WICKEDNESS That INVITES REPERCUSSION-VII—Genesis 6:1-8
Attention:
Joint Robbery Surveillance--WCTV Eyewitness News--January 25, 2017
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) -- Three suspects have been arrested after leading police on a high-speed chase through Tallahassee in a stolen vehicle.
According to arrest documents, on Tuesday, the Tallahassee Police Department and the Leon County Sheriff's Office were conducting a joint robbery surveillance in the west section of Tallahassee. The investigation is in response to a string of armed robberies throughout Tallahassee over the past three weeks.
A TPD sergeant conducting surveillance at the Market Liquors store at 1440 Capital Circle NW observed a vehicle enter the parking lot of the liquor store, back in directly in front of the front door to the store, and sit idling with its headlights on for approximately 5 minutes. As the sergeant called for backup, the vehicle suddenly drove out of the parking lot, heading southbound on Capital Circle NW. The sergeant followed the vehicle and ran the tags, which revealed the vehicle had been reported stolen.
LCSO and TPD units proceeded to pursue the vehicle through Tallahassee with lights and sirens, but the driver refused to stop.
The vehicle was clocked heading eastbound on W. Tharpe Street at 102 mph. The vehicle then turned northbound on Trimble Road, heading towards Hartsfield Road.
Police attempted to set up a roadblock at Hartsfield and Trimble Road but the vehicle never slowed down or attempted to avoid the patrol vehicles and TPD units were forced to move out of the way to avoid being rammed.
Two LCSO units took over the pursuit and pursued the suspect vehicle eastbound on W. Tharpe St. The vehicle then drove in the opposite lane of traffic, almost striking numerous vehicles.
The vehicle then turned south on Old Bainbridge Road, where multiple road crews were working nighttime construction. The vehicle continued traveling at a high rate of speed towards the workers, who had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit.
An LCSO unit used a PIT maneuver to disable the vehicle, which subsequently lost its tire and crashed at the 800 block of Volusia Street.
Three suspects inside the car fled on foot and refused to stop when commanded. Shortly after, all three suspects were found hiding in the woods after discarding multiple pieces of clothing that matched clothing from other robberies that TPD and LCSO are investigating.
Authorities arrested Javaris Jones, 22, Tradarius Gaines,18, and Tamylon Williams, 21.
All three were booked into the Leon County Jail on charges of trespassing an armed structure, grand theft of a motor vehicle, resisting an officer without violence, assault on an officer, and fleeing and eluding police with disregard for safety of people or property. OR:
The guy that was high on something—While talking to himself, he was walking around the church shed. He then started pulling out the rolls of chicken wire that are rolled up under the shed. I was ‘forced’ to investigate.
The young men were arrested because they had wielded their wickedness for far too long!
OR:
The person who drove their car across the church field I was ‘forced’ to investigate.
Self-service, self-love, & flesh-driven feeling wreak havoc on us & others. In Noah’s day most everyone had effectively—‘made mountains of mole-hills & molehills of mountains’—by not considering &/or being indifferent toward their Creator.
Likewise today, when Christ is considered inconsequential to a person’s or a nation’s life, vitally important matters are treated as though they were of little worth. Simultaneously, other things become elevated to the place of indispensability, taking Christ’s place as Head. If we are not vigilant to honor Christ, we find ourselves making great sacrifices for that which has no eternal value, for the sake of temporal satisfaction.
Genesis records the wanton wickedness of humanity & its repercussions.
Repercussion—An unintended consequence occurring some time after an event or action, esp. an unwelcome one.
Wanton wickedness invites repercussion from God.
How/When does wickedness invite repercussion?
7 channels thru which wickedness invites repercussion.
7 aberrations of wickedness that invite repercussion.
We have seen previously that Wickedness invites Repercussion thru (An) Aberrant...
1. RELATIONSHIPs(:1-2)
2. BURDENs(:3)
3. STANCE(:4)
4. CONTINUITY/Persistence(:5)
5. GRIEF(:6) God’s Grief
6. SOLUTION(:7) God’s Solution
7—Wickedness invites repercussion thru (An) Aberrant...
HOPE(:8)
Explanation:(:8) Aberrant to the lost
:8—“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”
Even with such a horrible conclusion to man’s short existence, there is still hope for humanity. There is one man thru whom God’s “grace” can still work rightly. Without grieving God. Without succumbing to the surrounding wickedness.
This lone recipient & accepter of God’s great grace is “Noah” of whom his father, Lamech had prophesied(5:29) that thru his son Noah, “This one will comfort us concerning our work & the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed.”” Noah offered hope!
2Pet. 2:4-5—“For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell & delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; & 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;”
God needs one man, woman, or child who is faithful to Him, whom He can use to make the difference in the lives of many:
Ezek. 22:25-30—“The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured people; they have taken treasure & precious things; they have made many widows in her midst. Her priests have violated My law & profaned My holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy & unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean & the clean; & they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, to shed blood, to destroy people, & to get dishonest gain. Her prophets plastered them with untempered mortar, seeing false visions, & divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ when the LORD had not spoken. The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, & mistreated the poor & needy; & they wrongfully oppress the stranger. So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, & stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.
What does it mean to “find grace? Or, how does one “find grace”? A person who “finds grace” is a person whom God favors. A person who must have a heart & mind open to God’s desire! God’s desire is “found” thru God’s Grace. God’s grace is found thru personal acceptance of Christ Jesus alone.
Many people ‘believe’ in God like they do Santa Claus, But...
Jn. 14:1—“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.
The wicked places Hope outside of God in Christ. Any decision outside of God offers only temporary hope!
“Noah”—xn no'-akh—= “Rest”
“Found”—aum maw-tsaw'—1) To find, attain to.
“Grace”—Nx khan—1) Favor, grace, charm. Strong—Graciousness, i.e. subjective--Kindness, Favor or objective--Beauty. Strong—properly--To come forth to, i.e. Appear or exist; transitively--To attain, i.e. Find or acquire; figuratively--To occur, meet or be present.
Argumentation:
Rom. 1:16-17—“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first & also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.””
Heb. 11:7—“By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world & became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”
**Acts 3:19 -21—(Peter preached...)--““Repent therefore & be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, “& that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, “whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”
Have you ever been so down & spent that you have no strength left in you? Have you ever been so disappointed that you thought about giving up? Have you ever been so confused that you seriously reevaluated your doctrinal leanings? Repent & be converted to God!
Jn. 1:1-5—“In the beginning was the Word, & the Word was with God, & the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, & without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, & the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, & the darkness did not comprehend it.”
Jn. 8:12—“Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” "
*Jn. 1:12-13—“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
1Pet. 2:1-5—“Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, & all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to Him as to a living stone[solid yet alive], rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God & precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
**Rom. 8:19-25—“For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope[God’s hope]; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans & labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope[man’s hope], but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.”
Col. 1:9-14—“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, & to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom & spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work & increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience & longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness & conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
**Heb. 6:13-19—For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, & multiplying I will multiply you.” And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, & an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure & steadfast,...”
Eph. 1:3-14—“Blessed be the God & Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy & without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom & prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven & which are on earth--in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”
**Hab. 3:17-19—“Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls--
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The LORD God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer’s feet,
And He will make me walk on my high hills.
To the Chief Musician. With my stringed instruments.”
1Cor. 15:19—“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.”
Illustration:
Dan Meyer shares this illustration...
A pastor once shared:
When my son was small, we often walked together out through the neighboring pasture. At first my little guy would just hold onto my little finger. But whenever he stumbled over something, his grip would fail & he'd go down in the dirt or the snow. And I'd stop, & I'd help him up. And again he'd grab hold of my little finger all the harder. But the whole scenario of gripping & falling happened over & over again. Then one day as he was brushing himself off, he looked up at me & said with a tone of fresh revelation in his voice, “Daddy?” And I replied, “Yeah, buddy, what is it?” “Daddy,” he said, “I think that if you would hold my hand I wouldn't fall.”
Our HOPE is in having the Father to firmly take hold of us.
Adage—‘the Light at the end of the tunnel’—Darkness prevails but hope is certain
Tornado or Hurricane devastation/All your possessions are no more...Everything you have ever owned—House, Cars, Land, Pictures, Work, ...your Joy/Those are mere things/BUT there are innumerable ‘others’ who come to the aid of the victims—both governmental & private--good neighbors, those who hear of your plight & offer their help—Both secular & spiritual...All are salvific in their own way/There remains the Presence of HOPE
Application:
?You invited Divine Repercussions thru An Aberrant HOPE?
?Your Wickedness invited God’s Repercussion?
CONCLUSION:
Visualization:
The young men were arrested because they had wielded their wickedness for far too long!
You may be holding onto a ‘hope’ that is not HOPE at all.
You need the wisdom that is from God
And you need the fortitude to follow God’s SOLUTION(:7) & HOPE regardless of your fear of what you perceive as ‘unknown.’ You must trust God with what is unknown to you, but what He knows full well!
Action:
Wickedness invites repercussion thru (An) Aberrant...
7. HOPE(:8)God’s Hope
1. RELATIONSHIPs(:1-2)
2. BURDENs(:3)
3. STANCE(:4)
4. CONTINUITY(:5)Persistence
5. GRIEF(:6) God’s Grief
6. SOLUTION(:7) God’s Solution
Pt. 7 only! Presented 02/19/2017am END to:
FBC C’belle
206 Storrs Ave. SW(Ave. A)
Carrabelle, FL 32322
Pts. 6-7 Presented 01/08/2012am to:
Needmore Baptist Church
1620 Mt. Vernon Rd.
Woodleaf, NC 27054
