"When Grace no longer exists"
Revelation 21:1-7
Want to read to you from 2 Peter 2:4-5 and share the story of a man we may have never regarded as a preacher of righteousness. In Genesis 6 and 7 there is the story of a boat in time when God came down and spoke to this same preacher of righteousness giving him instructions on how he and all his family would be saved. God told Noah that a flood was coming, a time of complete destruction from an element never experienced on earth until that moment in history. In Genesis 2:5&6 it says that the Lord God had not caused it to rain and moistened the earth by a mist that rose from the earth but just because Noah had never seen the rain before that didn’t keep him from believing God and obediently carrying out God’s commands. Noah built an ark of gopher wood that was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high coated inside and out with pitch so that 8 people and some of every creature could be saved from the destruction looming on the horizon.
Noah found grace in the eyes of God and the word of God says in John 1:14 that the only place where grace and truth can be found is in Christ Jesus. Can’t explain to you how he found Jesus but he did and I’m so thankful that you and I can still find Jesus today.
(DOG IN THE SEPTIC TANK STORY) So glad that I found grace in the eyes of God through his son Jesus that you’ll just have to excuse me if I embarrass you shouting about him. Nothing in this world means more to me than knowing that I’m saved and will go to heaven when I die! Now Peter almost 3000 years later tells us that Noah the arkbuilder was also a preacher of righteousness. That statement in the Bible always puzzled me until the day I became a preacher myself and started having to pastor people. The day I became a pastor I began to understand just a little bit of what the word of God says about Noah.
(1) Noah spent 120 years building an ark that would be the salvation of all he held dear on this earth but would also be a death sentence on a lost and dying world
Believe with every fiber of my being that Noah had a soulwinners heart and wanted to see people saved but they just wouldn’t listen to him. How can you say that Brother Mike? Noah had a pastor’s heart just like I do and your pastor does and I know a little something about the burden a pastor carries for the glory of the kingdom of God.
· Believe everytime he bent his knees to pray the name of his lost neighbor was on his lips begging God to use him somehow to help his neighbor be born into the family of God
· Believe everytime he went to the supermarket to pick up a gallon of milk he remembered the face of the little checkout girl and asked God in his prayers that night to save her soul
· Believe that everytime Noah walked by a playground on his way to the ark in the morning and he heard the laughter of children and saw their precious little faces that tears fell on the cheeks of Noah the rest of his way to work as he begged God to save their little souls and touch their families
· Believe that every night as the sun went down and he left to go home for supper that the compassion he felt for the lost people around him caused him to climb up on milkcrates or in the back of a pickup truck and preach the gospel begging people to come to God and be saved.
Revelation 12:10,11 "And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of God and the power of his Christ for the accuser of our brethren is cast down that accused them before our God day and night and the overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto the death."
That’s what Paul did beloved! They’d arrest him and beat him and put him in chains and he’d stop on the top step of the jail and say wait a minute and tell people what Jesus did for him. The reason you don’t have anything to tell people is because Jesus ain’t done nothing for you! Romans 1:16 says that I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation.
120 years is a long time to preach and never see anybody come to be saved! 120 years is a long time to pour your heart out and share the message of hope but not see anyone come to God but that’s just what Noah did my friend. I know a little bit of what Noah and all preachers with a heart for the lost go through as they try to help people.
· Go to visit the community and ask people if they know they’ll go to heaven when they die and I get such answers as these…
Well Preacher I’ve never hurt nobody, I’ve gone to church all my life, I’m a deacon in the church, I’m a Baptist or a Methodist or a Pentecostal. I say I know those things are alright in their right place but that’s not what I asked you! Then I get this answer, well preacher I just hope I make it when I die. Can I tell you there are multitudes that will draw their last breath hoping to go to heaven, but be in a devil’s hell for as long as God last. Why do people choose death instead of life? Is God dealing with you this morning? Has the Holy Spirit stirred your heart and shown you that you’re lost? Genesis 6:3 says that God’s Spirit will not always strive with a man.
(Uncle Meb) There is an urgency for you to listen to the Spirit of God if he’s dealing with you today because God may not ever deal with your heart again. Wish I had the power to convince people of that as I see moma’s and daddies give their children the best of everything but never bring their children to Jesus. We’re raising the best ball playing, ballet dancing, video game playing generation that will ever go to hell when they die! We’re still raising our kids like they did in Noah’s day without any hope of a relationship with God. That’s why 1 in 4 teenagers are thinking of committing suicide and why we have a Pearl MS, Jonesboro AR, Paducah KY and a Littleton CO. We’re marrying and being given in marriage making great plans for our retirement and thinking about our next vacation and how crazy that old preacher is for saying judgment may be coming and my family isn’t ready…
Right up till the moment the first raindrop fell. (THEN GRACE NO LONGER EXISTS FOR US)
Genesis 7:16 (read) Do you know why God shut them in? We know from Revelation that God is the one who shuts and no man opens and is also the one who opens and no man shuts so that tells me a little bit of the heart of Noah. No matter how much they begged and cried there was no grace to be found. Will you follow Jesus today? Let’s go back to our scriptures from Revelation 21 and close quickly.
These people have come to the greatest moment of all human history but have the need for tears to be wiped from their eyes? What has happened that has broken the hearts of the dear saints of God? The Great White Throne Judgment has proceeded this time and the dead small and great have been judged by the Lord Jesus Christ.
I believe that we’ll see all the lives that our lives could have made a difference with and we’ll know and they’ll know. Whole families cast into hell…
Children screaming out to their parents… NO ROOM TO KNEEL AND PRAY ON GOD’S GREAT JUDGMENT DAY! If you won’t share Jesus with the people you love and care about, who will you share him with church? Christ is counting on us to be his witnesses and hell will be full of people we should have reached.
Invitation.
