“Of Noah & Lot” – FBC Morning Light (11/16/2023)

Well, a good Thursday morning to you. So we have finished the first half of the month of November, and we have just a month and a half left in this year. On this Thursday morning, we're reading in Ezekiel chapters 37 and 38, and 2 Peter chapter 2.

The Day of the Lord and the Coming Judgment

In chapter 3, anticipating a little bit ahead of what we're going to read tomorrow, in 2 Peter 3, the Lord says that the day of the Lord is going to come as a thief in the night. There's coming a day of judgment, and it's going to come suddenly, unexpectedly.

And he goes on to say, "...in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, the elements will melt with fervent heat, both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up or be laid bare.".

And, you know, those who have any kind of a sensitivity to right and wrong have a sort of an innate understanding that there has to be a day of judgment. There has to be a day of reckoning. And, you know, you read passages like this, that, you know, the heavens are going to pass away, and the earth and all the works that are in it are going to be laid bare, this great asize, as it's often been called, this great day of judgment.

It can cause distress. It can cause anxiety. You know, how am I going to endure such a thing? How will I ever make it through such a day of judgment? Well, in the first place, if you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, as we saw the other day, if God's for us, who can be against us?

If God is for us, he who has redeemed us, he has given us all things, he's going to save us from the wrath to come. We have that assurance. But we also have, in 2 Peter 2, a couple of examples of some men who are living in times of great wickedness, great debauchery, and God brought severe judgment upon their world.

Noah, the Ark, and a Preaching of Righteousness

One of them is Noah. And you know that at the time of Noah, every man did the imagination of his heart and it was only evil continually. There was great wickedness in the earth, and so great was the wickedness, God said, I'm going to destroy every living thing on the planet.

But he also said, except for Noah and his family. And that's what Peter refers to here in verse 5 and following. In verse 5 he says that God did not spare the ancient world, he brought judgment upon the ancient world in that flood, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, God bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly.

So I want you to think about Noah's position for a moment. Here he was, day after day after day, for all those years, working away on the ark, and even his work was a testimony, it was a preaching of righteousness, declaring, hey, a day of judgment's coming, God said it's coming.

And the whole time he's also vexed by the constant, incessant wickedness surrounding him, all around him, like he's swimming in a sea of debauchery, and he cannot escape the reality of that, it's all around him.

And God, in his day, brought great judgment. Peter goes on to say, and God also turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them to destruction, making an example to those who afterward would live ungodly.

Lot, Vexed by Wickedness, and Delivered from Sodom

But he delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. Lot gets a lot of bad press for what he did, understandably, living in Sodom and all the rest of that, I get it. But Peter makes some commentary on Lot's life, and he says that Lot was, in his day, a righteous man.

He was vexed constantly because of the wickedness going on all around him. And the cities in which he dwelt, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, they ended up being incinerated under God's judgment. But the reason that Peter is highlighting both of these men is that, yes, God brought judgment on their world that was so wicked and wretched, but he also, God did, delivered these two men, Noah and his family, Lot and his family, delivered them from that destruction.

The Lord Knows How to Deliver the Godly

So Peter makes the application in this way. He says, the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, or out of trials, and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment. Here's your encouragement, child of God.

If you are one of the godly, that is, you're one of God's chosen people, just as Noah was chosen to be in that ark, just as Lot was chosen to be delivered out of Sodom. If you are one of the godly, one of God's chosen people, then he knows how to deliver you out of these times of trial or judgment that he would bring upon a nation or the world because of wickedness and iniquity.

So take great comfort in this, great encouragement in this, that God knows how to deliver the godly out of the trials of judgment, even as he brings that judgment upon the world all around us. So aren't you grateful today, you who are Christ's, aren't you grateful for that security that you have in Christ Jesus?

So Father, we do thank you, we do praise you today, because of your great power that can deliver those who are your children out of times of great trial, great wickedness, and great judgment to come. We thank you for it, in Jesus' name, amen.

Alright, well listen, have a good rest of your Thursday, may the Lord bless you, and good day.