Walk with God Or Live Like the Devil — E.A. Johnston

Noah Walked With God Amid a Corrupt Generation

I got this message, friends, while a good number of you were still asleep. Our text is found in the book of Genesis in chapter 6. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in verses 5 through 9.

Hear now, it's the Word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of His Holy Word. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And he repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them.

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. I will stop there, friends. This striking passage of Scripture says that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, meaning it was predominant.

That's a big thing. Secondly, our passage states that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's the description of a society that has become so vile and corrupt with sin that it exists to only sin.

That's a big statement. That points us to Job 15, 16, which describes the condition of man in the following terms. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water? God is saying here in Genesis that mankind has reached a tipping point that his thoughts were only evil continually.

That man can't get enough of sin. Man wakes up with sinful thoughts and goes to bed with sinful thoughts, and throughout the entire day he is consumed with thinking only evil continually. He is undressing his secretary in his mind while he's at work.

He's imagining the most perverse things he can lust over. He's drinking iniquity like water. He can't get enough of sin. In all this spiritual darkness and devilry is a man, a man by the name of Noah, who stands out like a white diamond against a black velvet background because it is said of him, and Noah walked with God.

Walking With God Rather Than Walking With the Devil

While everybody else is walking away from God in sin, here is Noah walking with God in obedience to him. Our text is saying you are either in step with God or you're out of step with God. If you're in step with God, then you hear his voice and you have his vantage point of heaven, but if you are not walking with God, then you are walking away from God.

You are walking with the devil. You're turning your back on God in sin. Amos 3 .3 states, can two walk together except they be agreed? Well, the answer is no, they cannot. This startling passage from Genesis 6 is a stark warning to us today for our society is very similar to the days of Noah where the earth was corrupt and filled with violence.

The Corruption and Violence of Contemporary Society

Why, it's not safe to go outside today. You can be gunned down by a madman just standing in line at the grocery store. Blood spills over the streets of this nation through violent crimes daily. The murder of the unborn is enough spilled blood to provoke a holy God to destroy us completely from the land.

At this moment in America, the devil has the highway and the bulk of mankind is crawling over each other's backs on a mad dash to hell. There's no fear of God in the land today and atheism is abounding.

Like a filthy sewer that's overflowing, evil is rampant in society and the most popular TV shows are the ones with the most frontal nudity and perverse sex. Evil abounds in such large measures that even most Christians are desensitized to sin and they sin as if it is a light thing.

Spiritual Complacency and the Loss of the Fear of God

And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him and it came to pass as it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam. Christians sin like it's a light thing today.

The psalmist says, horror had taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law, but I fear there is little horror today over sin in our churches. We are quite cozy with sin. There's no fear of God in our hearts and no obedience to his word.

God Searches for People Who Will Stand in Righteousness

And in all of this darkness all around us, God is looking for a man, a man who will stand out from society like a white diamond against black velvet to where it can be said of him, he walked with God.

A man who is up at odd hours of the night on his knees and in his Bible crying out to God in desperation, crying to God in desperate prayer over the sins of the nation. God is on the search for such a man.

We see this to be the case in 2 Chronicles 16 9, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. God is on the lookout for that kind of man.

God can work with that man. God can speak to that man. God can reveal the secrets that that man has seen in Psalm 25 14. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. God will speak to that man like Noah and use that man like Noah to preserve a generation.

The Cost of a Surrendered Life Under Christ's Lordship

What cost counts and what counts cost, there is a price to pay, a sacrifice for that kind of walk with God. That kind of walk with God doesn't come easy. That kind of walk with God has a cross right smack dab in the middle of it.

That kind of intimacy with God comes only through a life lived in surrender to God, a life lived under the absolute Lordship of Christ Jesus, a life lived on the full stretch for God, a life of brokenness that goes against the grain of society and lives in a higher atmosphere where the Most High dwells, as seen in Isaiah 57 15, for thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy.

I dwell in the high and holy place with him also, that is, of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. God is looking for the man who will walk with him like Moses atop Mount Sinai.

He's looking for the man like Peter and John in the book of Acts where it was said to them now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.

God is always on the lookout for such men. God is looking for a man who's so intoxicated with Christ and so eaten up with the gospel that nothing else matters, nothing but the glory of God, a man willing to be so pruned with a sharp knife so fruit can grow abundantly through his life, a man like Jonah who will emerge from the deep waters of purging and preparation, a man truly revived who can stride across our cities crying out in God's name for repentance to bring a nation to its knees.

Let me ask you, friend, are you that man? Or are you, if we as a nation sit on the brink of utter destruction and the devil has the highway and the world is going to hell, what are you doing with your life?

Are you squandering it on the things of this world? Are you just living for yourself and your family? Or are you doing all you can to reach the world for Christ? You're either all out for God or you're not.

Final Accountability Before God

Christ held nothing back on Calvary. How can we hold anything back from him? A day is fast approaching where we will each stand before God and give an account of how we lived our life for him. Will our life be gold, silver, and precious stones reflecting the face of the glory of Christ or will we stand there in the ashes of a wasted life and bend over in an attempt to scoop up those ashes and press them in his nail-pierced hands?

Are we all out for God or not? He will not honor a divided heart or a selfish life. What's going to be on your tombstone, friend? I want on my tombstone the little poem of C .T. Studd that reads, only one life which will soon be passed.

Only what's done for Christ will last.