Christ our Ark (Part 1)

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.

Two words in my opinion describe our society. You could pick two words to describe what's going on out there in the world, maybe in West Boylston, maybe in Worcester, maybe you live in Boston, maybe you're here just visiting.

Probably lots of words you could come up with, but the two for today I have are these.

One, preoccupied. Preoccupied. We live in a preoccupied society.

People are so busy, so taken up with, so absorbed in, so engrossed in all kinds of things they are preoccupied.

Matter of fact, not even in always bad things. Some are preoccupied with sin, but some are just preoccupied.

Education, work, sports, fun, rest.

People are immersed into just things and being busy. The second word that I think describes our culture today is this.

Not just preoccupied, but secondly, oblivious.

The world around us today is completely, absolutely, entirely oblivious to what happens after they die.

That Jesus would return. They're so busy in things like eating, and drinking, and marrying, and being busy building, they forget that one day

Jesus will do what he says, and that is return. And one day there's going to be judgment.

It's appointed for man to die once, and then what? Judgment. And the judgment isn't death. The judgment comes after death.

And if we as a race, as we as a people, are those typified by those who have sinned and fall short, not just of the law of God, but of the glory of God, what will happen?

My question now becomes very personal. Are you the type of person that is so immersed, so absorbed in, so preoccupied with things, maybe even good things, or maybe sinful things, that you forget that you are born to worship your creator?

There's a reason to live. You have been created to give honor and worship to your creator. My second question to you is, are you the kind of person that's completely oblivious to what's going to happen when you die?

Have you considered your latter end? Have you thought to yourself, one day Jesus is really going to come back?

Memorial Day weekend, people like to look in the past to help them be affected in how they live today.

That is to say, let's look back so we can live this way. Let's remember some wars and those men and women who fought in those wars so that we can live this way, more thankful, more appreciative, et cetera.

Well today I want to make you look at two historical facts that should motivate you to live today.

We're not going to look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2 today. We're going to look in Luke chapter 17. If you've got a

Bible, Luke 17. If you don't have a Bible, you should use one because we're not called Bethlehem Bible Church without cause.

We're going to look at two historical events that so mirror our society today, but should motivate you to live for someone else.

I don't want you to be oblivious. There's nothing wrong with working. There's nothing wrong with education.

There's nothing wrong with sports, but if you're preoccupied with them and you forget God and you become oblivious to judgment day and safety only found in Christ Jesus, then this sermon's for you.

I am absolutely positive there are people here today who aren't Christians. I don't mean all visitors aren't

Christians, and I don't mean just because you're a member here, you are a Christian. I think I even have people in my own family that need to realize they aren't going to get to heaven on the coattails of pastor dad, on baptism, on last rites, on anything else, and I don't want you to be so preoccupied with school or anything else that's good that you become oblivious to your latter end.

Two historical facts in Luke chapter 17 that should motivate you to live today.

Jesus is going to return, and he says, today's just like these other days.

Let's look at those other days so we don't make the same mistake. Sometimes if I go to a large sporting event and I say to myself, there are 80 ,000 people here,

I think to myself, I never see that many people in my life altogether. 80 ,000 souls, every one of them will live forever, and every one of them, except for the grace of God, is running around chasing things that will not matter on judgment day.

Luke is a gospel written by Luke, and basically what Luke wants to do is this, he as a physician wants to put together an orderly account of Christ Jesus.

You would imagine a physician being orderly, and so here Luke says, I want to show you that Jesus is God, but I also want you to see that he's man.

And then you see in the gospel of Luke, like I read in chapter 18, that very thing. And we pick up our account in Luke chapter 17, verse 20, he's just cleansed the lepers, and now he's going to talk about his kingdom.

Jesus is a king, he calls himself king, he's the fulfillment of the prophecies of King David, and now people have some questions about his kingdom, and that will lead into these two historical events that should motivate you to question, am

I a preoccupied, absorbed person, so much in temporal things, I've forgotten about heaven,

I've forgotten about hell. You're just going to find this fascinating passage,

Luke 17, verse 20. Let's pick up the historical account here, and then we'll look at some application.

Being asked, Luke 17, 20, by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them.

The Pharisees were not nice, they were not good, they were not righteous, they were legalistic, they were religious, and now you have the king, you say you're the king,

Jesus, I don't see a kingdom. They're probably getting after him with some good sarcasm, you're the king?

You know, Rome is still taking over here, Rome dominates us, we'd like to get out from underneath their leadership, and you're going to talk about your kingdom,

I'd like to see it because you're a pretty weak -looking king. When's it going to arrive, hardy har har?

What do we look for? Jesus, you're the king, and you say your kingdom's coming? What should we look for, like you're going to rise up against Rome, like you're going to do some kind of great sign, like some of these other people have done?

Tell us, we'd really like to hear. He answered them, the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, look, here it is, or there, for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.

There it is, I see that sign, I see what's going on. Jesus doesn't say it's within you,

Pharisees, but he says it's in the midst of you, it's right here. And now look what he does in verse 22, and he said to the disciples, he changes the audience and he says now to the disciples, of course the other people can still hear,

I imagine, the days are coming when you, disciples, will desire to see one of the days of the

Son of Man. Jesus, he calls himself often and regularly with a favorite term, and that is the

Son of Man. I'm a lowly servant, I'm a suffering servant, I'm a great king, all implied in the

Son of Man, right from Daniel chapter 7. You desire to see one of the days of the

Son of Man and you will not see it. There's going to be a day, disciples, you're going to wish

I was here as king, but I'm not going to be. I'm going to be crucified, I'm going to be in the tomb. And Jesus is saying to these guys, and anybody else who will listen, no sense looking for the kingdom when

I'm here as king. It's going to be obvious when this man returns, this

Son of Man, this God -man. Verse 23, and they will say to you, look there, look here, do not go out and follow them.

Do not go out or follow them. Why? Because it's going to be obvious. Don't believe these false fictional accounts, some kind of secret

Jesus, some kind of co -Jesus, some kind of covert Jesus. It's going to be obvious, Jesus.

Verse 24, for as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to another, made me think of Wednesday night.

Did you see that lightning storm on Wednesday night? That was unbelievable. I was in Chestnut Hill, I saw it,

I drove back to Worcester, I saw it. It's got that kind of effect, it's obvious, it's evident. This is a greater lightning, but still, as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the

Son of Man be in his day. And Jesus says to the disciples, don't be seduced by people saying, look at the sky, it's a sign, here's some kind of man who says he's

Jesus, listen to him. By the way, lots of people like to say they're Jesus, and I don't want you to be seduced by some

Jesus who's not the true Jesus, because when the real Jesus comes back, Jesus said, everyone will notice.

Nobody's going to have to get on, you know, MSNBC to go, is that the real Jesus? And you think

I'm joking, but the latest false messiah in the long list of loons who call themselves

Jesus, the messiah, I mean, if you want to be called Jesus, that's not my issue, but calling yourself

Jesus the messiah, Lord and King, Jose Luis de

Jesus Miranda, he's the latest guy. Lots of people since the time of Jesus have said,

I'm the messiah, Jesus is going to come back, I'm Jesus. How about Marshall Applewhite?

That wasn't that long ago, 15 years ago, he was the leader of Heaven's Gate, committed suicide so he could rendezvous with the comet

Hale -Bopp, Henry Cristo, a

Brazilian man who said he's the second Jesus, Jim Jones, I say, Jim Jones said,

I am the reincarnation of Jesus, Buddha, and the Father Divine. That was before the mass suicide at Jonestown.

David Koresh, Branch Davidian leader, proclaimed he was the Son of God, the

Lamb. And I have a whole list of other people who said that they're

Jesus. Some say I'm not Jesus, but I'm just the messiah -like sun, young moon. Jesus says, when

I come back, you aren't going to have to turn on the TV to figure out who it's going to be.

And it's not going to be somebody divorced four times over, living a corrupt life. You're going to see what's going on.

It's going to be obvious. Do you see the passage, verse 24, for as the lightning flashes, this is indisputable, this is cosmic, this is conspicuous, plain, clear, evident.

What's the root word for evident, by the way? What's the root word for video, the

Latin to see, vid, video, you see video, evident, you see clearly, evident,

V -I -D, where we get the word video to see, it will be evident. That was just free, by the way, just a little free class there.

And there's going to be a prerequisite to Christ's return as king, verse 25. Remember, Jesus is not yet crucified.

Here's the prerequisite. But first, he, the messiah, must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

Jesus is going to have to be crucified. He will be rejected, crucified, and he will raise himself from the dead.

He's not going to die for his sins, he'll die for other people's sins. You want to sign, watch

Jesus be raised from the dead. And now Jesus shows conditions here, in verses 26 and following, that will be prevalent at his second coming.

What will society be like? We've had the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. When Jesus returns, what will society look like?

And here we have conditions existing at the second coming. What will it be like? What will be going on on earth?

And then he gives two historical times, the time of Noah and the time of Lot, so that you can be ready.

And you're going to see what was going on then goes on now. Now, let's look at Noah's day first and how oblivious they were, how preoccupied they were.

And I don't want you to be oblivious and preoccupied. Everyone here is going to die and then face judgment.

I don't know about you, but I've never been audited by the IRS. But I can imagine the gulp

I would have in my throat when I went out to the mailbox and came in and it looked like I was going to be...

How many people here have been audited by the IRS? People are like shamefully raising their hand.

Some have. But can you imagine the spiritual audit on judgment day?

Every word, every deed, every thought, every motive, every attitude, sins of omission, sins of commission, sins of thought, word, mind, and deed.

There is going to be an accounting and there won't be fees. The just holy accountant will give people what they deserve.

Or if they'll take God for his word, they'll look to the cross and he will give them what they don't deserve, grace.

Well, let's take a look at these conditions. Very fascinating. The first historical account is Noah. And the return of Christ will be just like it was in the days of Noah.

What was it like? Verse 27. What's going on in those days? By the way, these people were wicked.

Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 makes that clear. But that's not the focus here. Oh, look at how wicked they were.

The focus is they're preoccupied. Look at how they live life. They're not thinking that there's one above me that I'll have to answer to.

They were eating. These verbs, by the way, are ongoing. They're eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage.

Is food good? Marriage good? Sex good in marriage? All these things, they're all good.

Drinking? We're not talking about inherently evil things here, but the point is these people are preoccupied so much so that they are unsuspecting.

They've forgotten that they answer to God. In the routine of their life, in their daily pursuits of degrees and spouses and children, all things that are good, the good things can turn out to be bad things.

Virtue can damn you because if it's not your virtue, your virtue's tainted, you need

Christ's virtue. Busyness. And I just, you know, as I read this, I just think of the culture today and when we're at some kind of family vacation and we're driving,

I look into the van of another family. There's about six different DVDs of every different one and everybody's got all their own eye buds in and all these different things.

And I just think people have no time to just sit there and think, I don't even go to a funeral.

I don't even look at dead people. I can't even think about these things because I'm just too busy because I don't like to think about those things.

Our society said, people that think like I do, they're crazy. They're obsessed with death.

People live unprepared lives because they will not ever consider their latter end.

Day in and day out. Show me what happened in Noah's days and here's what I'll show you. Business as usual.

They're unsuspecting. They're clueless. They're working for the weekend. It is a dangerous thing to be absorbed in the details of life so much so you forget what's coming because if you know the storm is coming, you only have to look down in Florida in the news during hurricane season for just a little bit and they say this category

X storm is coming. And what do people run to? Well, they probably run to a lot of places, but they go to Home Depot and before you know it, there's no plywood, there's no water.

They're preparing. You should be preparing for your death because you're going to die one day and then you're going to go,

I was busy going to school. I was busy going to do all these things. Just like in the days of Noah, ordinary human life.

Soccer games, recitals, 40 -hour work weeks, engagements, weddings.

What's wrong with that? Answer, nothing inherently, but if it forgets

God, everything. And what comes in a time like this, in Noah's day? The Greek word for flood is a cataclysm.

A cataclysm comes. The flood came. Paul writes to the

Thessalonians in chapter 5 of 1 Thess. Now concerning the times and seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the

Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, there's peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape.

Yeah, but you know what? We don't really ignore God. We throw the bone out for Easter. We throw the bone out for Christmas.

We go to some wedding and they've got some kind of ceremony there. I think a good word

I could have used earlier today is they're anesthetized. People are just anesthetized to the world.

They're without sensation, literally, anesthesia. Now look at the passage again.

Living in total disregard of God, they were eating, verse 27, drinking, marrying, and being given in marriage until the day when

Noah entered the ark. You think my sermons are long? A 120 -year -old sermon.

No rain ever, and here he is in the middle of some place building a boat. Here's the sermon illustration, as I'm sure he also proclaimed the truth.

You're in danger. Ha, ha, ha, we're not in danger. We're busy.

And Jesus is saying, listen, disciples, and I'm saying, listen to you. Don't think you're out of danger because it's not like bad as it was in Noah's day.

This is a warning. Flip over with me, if you would, to Genesis chapter 6. I want to just show you. I can't go through the whole flood account.

But Genesis chapter 6, show me why people want to say that it's a localized flood.

And I'll tell you, they're trying to live a corrupt life, because if you really realize there was a real flood, you'll realize

God made the real flood, and there's another flood coming, a flood of fire on Judgment Day. And so people have to somehow get rid of the flood.

Jesus believed in a world -wide flood, and he used it as an illustration in Luke chapter 17. Of course, people were wicked back in those days, chapter 6, verse 5, but they were preoccupied when

God brought the flood. You see what it says? I'm reading from the NAS here in chapter 6, verse 6.

The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said,

I will wipe mankind whom I have created from the face of the earth, men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air, for I am grieved that I have made them.

Thankfully, though, even though Noah deserved the same punishment, verse 8, you see the nature, and mercy, and grace of God.

First time in the Bible, a word for grace that means to bend down low, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the

Lord. Noah was just as bad, but God graced him. Verse 13 of Genesis 6,

God said to Noah, I'm going to put an end to all the people for the earth is filled with violence. Because of them, I surely am going to destroy both them and the earth.

You're destroying the earth already? Then I'll just turn up the volume. So make, verse 14, yourself an ark of cypress wood, put pitch on it.

By the way, the word ark means basket. It's used also when Moses was put in the basket, a thing of delivery.

Well, here are the specs, verse 15, this is how high you're to build it. The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.

Just a little bit smaller than the Queen Elizabeth number 2, the ship. 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 7 feet a day, I believe, 7 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.

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.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.