Christ our Ark (Part 2)

No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,

Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

Verse 17, I'm going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy what? All life under the heavens.

Every creature, he repeats it, that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

Verse 10 of chapter 7, and after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.

There might not be anything as powerful as water. Verse 11 of chapter 7, in the 600th year of Noah's life, on the 17th day of the second month, on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth under, and the floodgates of heaven were opened over, and the rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights.

Scientists have calculated with mountains, 40 days, 40 nights, 186 feet a day that water rises.

That's a little over seven feet a day, I believe, seven feet an hour. I just was thinking about the floods we had a couple months ago.

You can imagine, you're saying to yourself, yeah, but I've just been busy with marrying and eating and working and all these other things, and then all of a sudden now here comes the rain.

Noah was right. And can you imagine the shrieks and the howls? I know if I had four kids and it was flooding like that,

I'd first think, I've got to get to Wachusett, find the highest place. Let's get to Mananoc. And then the water keeps raising up and you're lifting your kids up as the waters keep coming.

And every single person died. I always find it funny when people go shopping for children's play pens and children's cribs.

They always like to get them the Noah's Ark stuff. I think because of the animals. But I'm thinking, this is cataclysmic.

Noah deserved it. He got grace. But everybody dies. Because the wages of sin is death.

The Hebrew in this passage is, the sluice gates of heaven were opened. Noah has no control.

There's no locomotive thing in there. He just floats. And the text says, the waters prevailed.

Verse 24 of chapter 7, we don't have time to go through this passage any longer. The waters flooded the earth for 150 days.

The shrieking and the roaring and the bellowing of the beast on every side of Noah. Could there be anything worse than every man, woman, and child, except for those in the boat, drowning?

And the answer is, yes. The answer is, there's an eternal death that's worse.

There's something worse than that. It's dying and going to hell because you have to pay for your own sins.

Because you haven't taken God at His word. And when God says in His word, look to Christ and live, you haven't looked to Christ and lived.

Well, let's go back to Luke chapter 17. That's the first memory that Jesus says, don't get preoccupied and become oblivious because Jesus is going to come back.

He's not going to flood the earth again with water, but He's coming back and it's going to be too late to get your house in order.

I grew up in the business world and everything in my world was, especially in sales and corporate

America, here's my one -year plan, here's my one -month plan, here's my five -year plan, here's my 10 -year plan.

There's nothing wrong with planning, is there? But if it's at the exclusion of God, James 4 says, if you know the right thing to do and don't do it, if you don't plan like God's going to return, that is sin.

You say, well, what does that have to do with anything? I just came to church to kind of feel good. I just wanted to kind of be affirmed.

I needed some kind of sentimental love. God is what I need. No, that's not what you need. You need to be considering your latter end because if you're preoccupied and oblivious, the wall is going to fall very, very hard.

The second illustration comes from Lot's day, another thing that Jesus assumed to be true.

He didn't correct it. You think Jesus would say, oh, that big flood, it's not really a flood. It was just kind of, you know, localized and it was just made up.

It's just kind of like the Gilgamesh epic and everything. No, Jesus affirms it, and now he affirms another thing that people don't want him to affirm,

Lot. Sodom and Gomorrah, fire and brimstone. Luke 17, verse 28.

Here's another example from history. Likewise, Luke 17, 28, it's like a

Noah's day. Just as it was in the days of Lot, what are they doing here? Again, wicked people, of course, the text will tell us that in Genesis, but that's not the focus here.

Eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, and building.

It's just regular stuff. Same old, same old. But on the day when

Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. And then

Jesus says, if you want to know what it's going to be like when I come back, it's going to be business as usual, but then

I'm going to come back, verse 30, so get ready now. So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

And you know what I love? Noah was a dirty, rotten sinner. I don't really love this first part, so hang in there with me.

Noah was a dirty, rotten, filthy sinner. Lot was a dirty, rotten, filthy sinner. But both

Noah and Lot, and any other filthy, dirty, rotten sinner here, that will look away from themselves and look to Christ, can be saved.

It's not Lot was so good. Yes, he was called righteous in 2 Peter, but because of who God was, who

Christ was, you can take the worst sinners, Noah included, Lot included, you don't have to read too far in Genesis chapter 9 to realize how horrible

Noah was. And you don't have to read too much farther in the Genesis account of Lot to realize the horrible things that they've done.

But they didn't look to themselves, they looked to the God and they took his word for it. Abraham believed

God and it was credited to him righteousness. Genesis 15. That word believe is where we get our root word amen.

It's pretty close to that. Lewis Ferry Chafer used to say, and Abraham said amen to God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Your sinfulness, your uncleanness, your corruption will not prevent you from being saved because you're no worse than Lot or Noah.

They just both looked to the promises of God and they believed what he said. Look to the

Savior and live. Look at verse 30. You should probably write on the side of that note, surprise. Catching people by surprise.

So absorbed in life that they're not ready to die. Now that I'm 50 years old,

I think to myself, my dad lived to be 55, my mother lived to be 66, I got 10 years to go.

When I face God and meet God, I can't say, Oh, I knew Greek and I preached to the church and I taught people the

Bible. When I stand before him naked and undone as a sinner, I have absolutely no hope besides Jesus lived in my place.

He died on my behalf. He was raised from the dead and I believe every word Jesus said, I'm taking his word for it.

That's your only hope as well. And so if the society is preoccupied and oblivious,

I'm not going to preach a sermon today to just keep you preoccupied and oblivious. I want it to be a wake -up call.

You say, Oh, I don't like to talk about it. Of course you don't like to talk about it. Who does? But I like to talk about it if Jesus likes to talk about it.

Verse 29. But on the day when lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur, brimstone, rain from heaven and destroyed.

Do you see the theme? Them all. They're gone. So, verse 30, you can see what

Jesus is trying to do. You all want to know when my kingdom is coming back? Focus on the king for safety.

But when I come back, it's going to be obvious, evident. So will it be on the day when the

Son of Man is revealed. No hiding, no running, no kind of asbestos, you know, asbestos you can put over yourself so the gaze of God can't see you.

Son of Man comes. He brings judgment to those who hate him. I ask you the question.

Are you so busy in your life, eating, drinking, marrying, buying, selling, sporting, listening, that you don't say to yourself,

I have a God I must serve. Four responses Jesus gives to these two truths.

They're right there in the text, so let me give you those four. Jesus is coming back. What's my response?

There are four. Number one, motivate.

Repent and have a wholehearted devotion to Jesus Christ, found in verse 31. This isn't, well, you know,

I'll do this later kind of talking. Verse 31, on that day, let the one who is on the housetop with his goods in the house not come down to take them away.

And likewise, let the one who is in the field not turn back. Those are things back in those days you would be tempted to do.

Let's say Jesus is coming. The end of the world is going to come. Let's say I just need to run into my house and get that photo album.

Everything else can be replaced. I just have to get some goods in my house. No, because then if you're thinking about that, you can tell your mind is split.

Your mind is not wholehearted to God, to his second coming, to eternity, to answering to God.

You're thinking, but I've got things on earth I've got to get. Find things to think about unless it's in this situation.

Jesus says, I want everything. I want your life, your soul, your everything. You're created for me.

And somehow to think, well, you know what, I'll get religion when I get married, and I'll get religion when I have to teach my kids. He wants it all.

It's all or nothing. I've said a hundred times here, it's all or nothing. If you don't say, even though I'm a sinner and even though I don't follow like I want to, my whole heart, my life, everything, it's devoted to you,

God. You've affected me. You've changed me. You've born again. You've made me born again, and I repent from running my own life.

I believe in you. You've got it all. If you can't think that way, then you are oblivious.

Or you say, I can't think that way because I'm weak. God, help my faith. I want to live that way.

I know it's right. Here's what Jesus means here. You should have single -minded focus on the right things.

The second word I want to give you in response is found in verse 32, and that's remember.

Motivate, number one. Number two, remember. Would you like an illustration of holding on to your life and possessions and things and education and business and career and family, kids?

You want an illustration of what it's like to hold on to the temporal at the risk of the eternal? Here's the answer.

Here's the illustration, a bad illustration of what not to do, of the opposite of what was in the last verse.

Remember Lot's wife. She was as close as you could get to temporal salvation.

She was out. She was there. She was saved, rescued, delivered.

Almost. Out of the doom city, and she looks back and lingers.

Close. Remember Lot's wife.

Jesus said in Luke chapter 9 earlier to another, he said, follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father.

And Jesus said to him, leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Yet another said,

I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home. Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

If you're on the very precipice of delivery, of deliverance, don't stop.

Judgment's coming. Stein said this, quote, seek without reservation the escape from the future judgment that is available in following Jesus.

Don't follow Lot's wife's example. Don't imitate her. He doesn't even say beware.

He says what? Remember. Remember.

I remember what I'm supposed to forget, and I forget what I'm supposed to remember. I ought to remember Lot's wife.

Turn with me, if you would, to Genesis chapter 19. Remember, here's what we're doing today. Two historical examples that tell us what it's going to be like when

Jesus returns so that we could not fall into the same trap of other people. Here in his grace, he warns us.

The grace of warning. The grace of his word. And so we look to Genesis chapter 6 because that's the

Noah account. Now we look at Genesis chapter 19, first book of the Bible. If you're here visiting today, just open up to the very beginning.

Genesis 19, that's the chapter. We go to verse 12 so we can see what

Jesus was talking about. He was talking about a historical Noah and a historical Lot and a historical

Lot's wife. You know how bad the city was and the homosexuality that was running rampant in the city?

I just pick it up in the middle in verse 12. You can read the rest at home. The two men said to Lot, verse 12,

Why? Because this is a corrupt, horrible city.

Because we're going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against his people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.

So Lot went out. Spoke to his sons who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, hurry and get out of this place because the

Lord is about to destroy the city. But his sons -in -law thought he was joking. Well, he probably never had mentioned his faith before.

And if he did, he wasn't a paragon of spiritual virtue. All of a sudden, Lot has now turned into Billy Graham overnight.

Go, repent. They think it's bizarre. That's a whole sermon right there.

Verse 15, Here's the procrastinating sinner.

God, with enthusiasm, takes him out through those servants. And as soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, flee for your lives.

Don't look back. Don't stop anywhere in the plain. Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away.

Lot said to them, no, my lords, please. Your servant has found favor in your eyes and you've shown great kindness in sparing me my life.

But I can't flee to the mountains. This disaster will overtake me and I'll die. Verse 24,

The Lord out of the heavens. Supernatural. Burning sulfur.

Burning brimstone. Verse 25,

See that refrain? And also the vegetation in the land. Verse 26,

Here's a lady that loves the temporal, that loves Sodom. Her heart's in Sodom.

But Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt.

And Jesus says, remember Lot's wife. Back to Luke 17, two more and then we're done.

Four responses to Christ's soon return. Motivate, number one. Remember, number two. Number three,

Luke 17, 33, lose. Our society today, as we see

Christianity on TV and elsewhere, is you just get everything. Quite opposite from what Jesus says.

Jesus says, lose. You've got to lose your life to gain it. Luke 17, 33,

Whoever seeks, Jesus says, to preserve his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life, all his ambitions, dreams, hopes, plans, calendars, all his hopes and dreams and aspirations that he's put together or she's put together, when that's lost, you'll keep it.

Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it eternally.

It wasn't like the people in Lot's day. It wasn't like the people in Noah's day. Physical preservation must be lost for eternal spiritual preservation.

Jesus doesn't explain a lot of things, he just says it. And then lastly, he says this, in verse 34 and following.

Motivate, remember, lose. By the way, I have to say it, I guess, because people might not understand losing.

The problem with your life, if you're not a Christian, is not that you don't have enough self -esteem. The problem is you have too much.

You think too highly of yourself, and that makes you not look to a savior. If you realize you're lost, like Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19,

Jesus came to seek and save the lost. They knew they had no righteousness, so they looked to another. Choose between heaven or self -esteem, but you can't have both.

Last word, I have one word, and that word is gulp,

G -U -L -P. What I mean by that is swallow deeply and swallow hard.

This is the finality of judgment. There's no do -overs, there's no extra chance, there's no purgatory.

It's right now. I tell you, that'd make me listen if I was listening to Jesus, in the light of Noah and Lot, and lose your life.

I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left.

There's a bifurcation, there's a separation. There's one who's going to be saved and another one who's not.

Taken in mercy. There will be two women grinding together.

One will be taken and the other left. When that day arrives, there's no do -overs, there's no maybe later.

The opportunity for salvation at death or the second coming is over. If you're alive now, you have the opportunity.

Once you're dead and Jesus returns, or Jesus returns, there's no other chances. Verse 34 is talking about the night.

Verse 35 is talking about the day. I guess when Jesus, the Son of Man, returns, every eye is going to see

Him. So whether it's daytime or nighttime on the globe, when Jesus comes back, it's over. This is normal stuff they're doing.

Sleeping, women grinding out in the fields, one taken, one left. Verse 36 isn't in the

Bible, so verse 37. And they said to Him, Where, Lord? He said to them,

Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. Show me the spiritually dead, and I'll show you judgment.

So what about you? If you're a Christian, I want you to take this sermon today and say two things.

I am so thankful God has saved me. Jesus has been judged in my place, and the fire of God's judgment has been assuaged on Jesus.

And therefore, I ought to be the most thankful person in the world. I hate the sin of complaining in others, and I hate it in me.

Ought we to be the one who complains about anything? No. And I also want you to think if you're a

Christian, I ought to evangelize my friends. I've said it a hundred times.

How unloving you are if you know the truth and you don't tell your loved ones the truth.

The exclusivity of Christ Jesus, His resurrection, His sin -bearing atonement, and if you don't tell them to repent and believe, don't tell me about I'm unloving.

You are love, anti -love incarnate when you won't tell people the truth. Judgment is coming, and people are preoccupied and oblivious.

And if you're not a Christian today, Jesus is alive.

And what Jesus said is true. And don't be so busy and so oblivious you've missed the time to repent and believe.

You say, yeah, but if I do, my whole life is going to be destroyed. Temporally, maybe. Temporally, maybe not.

But eternally, you will be the friend of God. And for all of us, we ought to say to ourselves,

I sure hope Jesus comes back soon. Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems for the Christian? Wouldn't that be great?

Joseph Stowell, who used to be the president of Moody, went to a home one time, and that home was for mentally handicapped kids.

And he wanted to see the children there. There were handprints all over the windows, Stowell said.

He said, there's handprints everywhere. What's that? Oh, those.

The children here love Jesus, and they're so eager for him to return that they lean against the windows as they look up at the sky.

If we could imitate those simple kids. Let's pray. Father, I pray today that you would save souls.

I pray that you would do your work through the preaching of the gospel. I pray that you would arrest preoccupied, self -absorbed people.

I pray that you would just bring people to their knees to consider their latter ends and save them.

Father, for us as Christians, your children, how joyful it is to know that we fear nothing after death.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. No war, no famine, no nuclear bomb, no anything can do anything to us because we're secure in Christ Jesus.

Thank you for that promise. I pray for these dear people that you'd give them enthusiastic hearts to tell people that they can look to the

Savior and live and run behind the cross for salvation.

Father, thank you for saving us. Help us to take you at your word as we live our lives now, anticipating your soon return.

In Jesus' name, amen. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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