Remember Lot's Wife — Richard Langworthy

The Kingdom of God and the Coming of the Son of Man

Kingdom of God is not a geographical place. When Christ comes into my life, He is the King of the kingdom, isn't it? So when Christ comes into my life, I become a member of the kingdom of God. I come under the authority of God's kingdom.

So the kingdom of God is not out there. It's only found in the hearts of those that are born of the Spirit. Now, then He said to disciples, the days will come when your desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

Interesting comment. He said the days are going to happen when you're going to look up in the skies and say, give me some indication that Jesus is about to return, and you will not see it. For a very good reason.

Because just prior to His coming, there's no warning. You will not see it. Okay? And they will say to you, look here, or look there. Do not go after them or follow them. For as a lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven and shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day.

But first, He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Now we start to see a sequence. And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will also be in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Likewise, it is also in the days of Lot. They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built. But on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

Even so, it will be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day, He is on the housetop and His goods are in the house. Let Him not come down to take them away. Likewise, the one who is in the field, let him not turn back.

And then this arbitrary comment, remember Lot's wife. Why put that in there? Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, in that night, there'll be two men in one bed and one will be taken, the other left.

Two women grinding together, one taken, one left. Two men in the field, one taken, one left. And the answer to him, where Lord? And he said, wherever the body is, the eagles will be gathered together.

Lot's Wife and the Warning of Judgment

We're going to come back and examine this portion in a second. But we need to go back, first of all, and examine the story of Lot's wife. Because as I looked at it, I found some things very, that interested me.

And suddenly I began to understand the context of all that Jesus was saying and the warning He was giving us for these days. Now, in the time of Abraham and Lot, few people believed in serving the Living God.

They were not monotheistic. In other words, they didn't worship one God. The majority of the people, because of Nimrod and the influence of Nimrod and all the rest, had given themselves over to paganism.

And so they were worshipping idols, they were worshipping demons. The whole of the Middle East was given over to some form of demonic darkness. Abraham and Lot stood alone. Very few people actually believed what they believed and worshipped the way they worshipped.

So when Lot goes down to Sodom, he goes down to one of the most wicked cities in the area. Now, last week we looked at where his wife came from. And it seems clear that he found a wife in Sodom. And it seems clear that Lot, because at first the Bible says he pitched his tents outside Sodom, and then later on, when the angels come, he says, come to my house.

So he moved from outside Sodom, he's now got a house inside Sodom. But, and it says in Peter that the lifestyle of the people of Sodom grieved him. So obviously, although he was living there, he went, as you saw last week, for convenience, because he wanted to do business, and he liked the green grass, and he liked all the protection and everything else.

And he was grieved by their conduct, but he tolerated it. But he must have spoken to them about his faith. He spoke to them about the sacrifices that he learnt with Abraham. He spoke to them about Jehovah, and why he worshipped Jehovah, and why he wasn't like them.

And obviously, there was a young girl there that listened to him, and decided that she agreed with him, and finally they got married. And this young girl was there when the people of Sodom were captured by the kings.

And this young girl was there when Abraham rescued them. And this young girl was there when Lot and Abraham met Melchizedek. Lot's wife was right there. She met Melchizedek. She met Abraham. She met the man who came from Salem, the Prince of Salem, the King of Righteousness.

She met this man that the whole community talked about. She was there. She heard what her husband had said. She believed in what her husband did. She was there. She was influenced. She was exposed to the gospel.

She was exposed to a life of faith. She was exposed to what these men taught, how they should follow God, and serve him by faith. She was exposed to it, and to a certain extent, to how much I don't know, but she agreed with it.

She was part of Lot's family. She was exposed to all that could have changed her life. And so are we. Hearing the gospel doesn't mean that we live the gospel. There's a lot of people who hear the gospel.

There are many people who have been baptized. There are many people who are involved maybe in church. We are doing Christian things. We give mental agreement to it. But when the time of testing comes, there may be a difference in our lives, which we'll look at.

The Angels' Warning and the Flight from Sodom

Now we move on in the story to when the angels arrive, and they knock on the door of Lot's house. And they tell Lot, we have to flee. Go and rescue your car before someone else does. If you hear the engine start, then you know you're in trouble.

Okay, look back here. Now the angels come, and they said to Lot, listen my friend, we have to leave. You've got to leave now. And they grabbed him, and his wife, and the two daughters, and the Bible says, and they pulled them outside the gates of Sodom, and they put them outside the gates of Sodom, and they said to them, run to the mountains.

But Lot had gone to his son-in-law's. And when you read it carefully, it looks like these two men were engaged to the girls, because they weren't with them. And Lot says, the mountains are too far. And if you read in Genesis, it's very clear.

It says that it is in the twilight, just before the sun rose. There must have been about four o 'clock in the morning. And Lot says, the mountains are too far for me to go. I want to go down to this little town here called Zor.

Now the angels say something interesting. They say, alright, then we won't destroy Zor. It was on the list of towns to be destroyed. So they kind of just pulled the fire back. And they said to Lot, run, and don't look back.

So the Bible says, and Lot took his family, and they went, and they said, we won't do anything until you enter the city. And the Bible says, and Lot entered Zor. And then when the sun was up, God rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now how far can you run from four o 'clock in the morning to seven o 'clock in the morning? Not far. Three, six k's? With a bit of fear, seven k's? Eight k's? Huh? Now here's, you must understand, it's early in the morning, four o 'clock, it's still a bit dark, the twilight's there, and you're going, and the angels say, nothing's going to happen until you're there.

So you are running for your life. You've never seen one ounce of sulfur. You've never seen one ounce of fire. You're not sure what's going to happen, but you just know you've got to go. And you're moving like this, it's all dark.

The sun comes up, the sun comes up, and you get inside the town, and they close the doors. You're only seven k's away from where you left, because these towns were small, except Sodom and Gomorrah, by the way, was big.

Then it says this, okay, in Genesis chapter 19 verse 26, and it says, and his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Now I see, I see two words being repeated. I see the word back and behind, it said almost the same thing to me.

But now, where was Lot? Lot was in the town. You know, you always get the picture that while they are running, that she, she caught a little glimpse, like, huh, and as she went, huh, she froze. But I don't think it's like that.

It says Lot was already in the town before the fire started. And here's the next problem. If you're seven k's away from fire and brimstone, do you think you can see it? You'd better believe you can see it.

There must have been a big black thundercloud over the whole area, and when you look at the area along the Dead Sea, the towns are spread out. The five towns that got judged run right along the edge of the Red Sea.

It's probably about a 15 or 20 k belt of destruction. So you've got this massive black cloud, whatever it was, sitting over there, just there, seven k's, you've got a thundercloud, just over Queen's Park.

Can you see it from here? You'd better believe you can see it. If it's lightning, you can see it. If it's dark, you can see it. You can look out over Zor and go, oh, the town, the sky turns orange as the fire falls down.

Orange, orange, orange. The whole, the whole thing lights up. You're hiding behind your little brick wall going, ah, you can see it. It's visible. So it wasn't like Lot could not see it, that people of Zor could not see it.

That's not the story. It says she looked back behind Lot. In other words, something happened, and it's difficult to interpret it, but I think, because of the word behind, I would think that it would mean that she stayed behind to have a look, because Lot was in the town.

And so I think it started, and she said to Lot, look, just hang on a sec, there's a little hill here. I just want to climb it, because nothing's happened. Nothing's happened. Honey, just carry on. I just want to, I just want to, everyone's I love is in there.

She had no understanding, do you understand? But when the fire fell, she must have been just close enough that she was destroyed with them. She died with the pagans. The gospel came to her. She heard it, but it didn't change her heart for Sodom.

Exposure to the Gospel Without Transformation

And so when the time of judgment came, Lot's wife had been received the grace. The angels came to pull her out. The angels came to take her to safety. The angels came to preserve her. But as Lot and the girls were running for their lives, she climbed the little hill just to watch in case, because she had no idea, no idea of the severity, no idea what was going to happen.

They'd never seen sulfur. They'd never seen fire. They'd never seen it. All they had was the word of the angels. And either in this case, you took their word by faith, and you ran by faith, and you obeyed God by faith, or you challenged that, and you had a little look to see, is it really going to happen?

And when it did happen, you know what, we watched a little article last night on Sodom and Gomorrah. The towns exist. They found them. You can see them. You can see the walls. You can see the buildings.

There's only one problem. They are solid ash. The houses are still there. They're standing. You can see the outlines. They're all there. The big walls are still there. But the walls, the houses, everything has been burnt with such an intensity, they've actually turned to ash.

The walls are standing ash. They maintain that the towns were burnt to 6 ,000 degrees Fahrenheit, was the intensity of the fire that fell. They found the sulfur. It's all over the place, the little balls of sulfur.

It's right there. And they took it into the labs, and they analyzed it, and it's 99 pure sulfur. Volcanoes only produce sulfur of about 45 pure. 99%. Where did that come from? It wasn't a volcano that exploded.

It was a sovereign act of God that ignited balls of sulfur with such an intensity that when they landed, when they struck the wall of a house, they caused the bricks to explode with heat. 6 ,000 degrees.

So intense was the wrath of God. So intense was the fire of God that anyone standing even within the proximity got consumed. And it petrified her body. Just poof. They found some bones from the people.

The very marrow in their bones liquefied. Sodom and Gomorrah, there. It's not a Bible story. You can drive in your car, you can go and see it. You can walk through it. It's there. You can see the sulfur.

You can see where it stopped. And the green garden was gone. It's been a valley of salt and destruction ever since then as a memorial to all mankind of the severity of the wrath of God against iniquity.

Amen? But this, why did Jesus say, remember Lot's wife? Because she's the only person we have in history who having come out of her truth, looked back with an attitude of indifference, not understanding the fullness of why God was calling her life and kept one foot in the world, one heart in the world, where the judgment of God came, she was consumed with the sinners.

Sudden Judgment and the Examples of Noah and Lot

The angels didn't stop the fire because she was Lot's wife. The fire consumed her, no matter how good her intentions were, no matter what she had believed, she was out of the place of protection. Now come back with me to the story here in Luke.

And you'll see the sequence of what Jesus is saying. And he uses three examples, which we're going to touch on this morning. But you must go back to verse 24. He says, there are going to be no signs preceding my coming.

That will give you a warning. We have prophetic signs, yes, but no signs in the heavens that will tell you tomorrow morning, Jesus is going to come. No thunder, no rumblings, you understand? No little lightnings, nothing coming.

He says, and as lightning goes from the east and to the west, have you ever seen lightning go slowly? Can you follow lightning with your eye? And when it goes from the east to the west, it goes in an instant.

There's a brightness. There's an awesomeness in it. There's a roar of thunder. There's an explosion when you least expect it. Ever had lightning crack next to you and you jump out of your skin? We were driving back from Gueru the other day, a year ago, two years ago.

And it was a nice, real deal storm. Lightning struck an anthill on the other side of the road from our car, just there. I mean, woof! It's just slightly ahead of us. It's instant. The brightness is just too much.

And as it's gone, the anthill is burning, it's cooking. And what are we doing? We have an adrenaline rush of note. Huh? It's just like, cha-choo! And you realize how quickly you could be dead. He says, that's how I'm coming back.

Now he goes on and he says, it was, let me talk to you, he says, about the days of Noah. He says, they were eating and drinking, marrying, giving in marriage and building houses. What he means is, the people were living normal lives.

But there was Noah building an ark. And Noah, the Bible says, was a preacher of righteousness. So every day, he would stand and he'd talk to these people who were living in iniquity and he'd warn them of a coming judgment.

And the ark has been found, by the way. The ark is there in Turkey. And there's a little, there's a little, the Turkish government have built a visitor's center. You can go to the visitor's center. You can see the ark.

It'll show you the artifacts from the ark. You can go and inspect it. The history of the ark is there. Everything is there, plainly to be seen. No one is hiding it anymore. They understand it's the ark.

They've put out the archaeologists. They've measured out with their metal counters, all the little, the beams and the metal nails that put it together. They've marked out the whole thing. The ark is there.

It's incredible that we have evolutionists today. There's the ark. There's Solomon Gomorrah. We have evidence of what the Bible says. And they try and tell us God doesn't exist. The guys are stupid. Stupid.

Noah's Preaching and the Failure to Heed Warning

So Mr. Noah is building an ark. It's almost two-thirds the size of an aircraft carrier. It's huge. It took him 120 years. Do you think he built it by himself? I don't think so. I think him and his sons are working on the ark.

But they've hired a couple of local guys to cure the timber. Some guys to make the bolts. Some guys to cut the timber. Some guys to do this. And they've got a crew of guys working on the boat for them to make this thing out of wood and design it.

And every day Noah is preaching to them. And every day they laugh at him. And they hear the truth. And the community has the truth. And the community sees the ark. There it is on dry land. This crazy old man.

Then the community sees the animals come in. And they laugh at him. Have they heard the truth? Of course they have. Do you think some half-believed? I think there were those. I think there were guys there that said, you know.

They go home and say, you know that old buddy? I'm sure he's got some truth. Do you see the giraffe come yesterday? There must be something true about what he's saying. Here was the problem. They had never seen a flood.

Therefore they had no idea about what was coming. The witness of the ark was there, but the wrath of God they hadn't understood. They had never seen the flood. They had never seen rain. They had no idea that what was 24 hours away.

They could not see it. And so all those who half-believed, all those who half-agreed, all those who gave mental consent to Noah. When God closed the door and the rain started, they died with everybody else.

The moment, and you've got to see the two things. The moment God delivers the righteous, He judges the wicked. He delivers the righteous as He judges the wicked. As the rain came down and swept Noah to safety, so everyone else drowned.

It doesn't matter who you were. You drowned. So Jesus said, remember Noah. Remember Lot's wife. Then He goes on and says, remember Lot. Same thing. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah heard Lot. They heard his gospel.

They saw his righteousness. They heard what he had to say. They had never ever seen a sulfur ball. They had no idea what is 24 hours away. They went to bed that night living normal lives. Not understanding that suddenly tomorrow everything was going to change.

And the angels arrived and they grabbed Lot as a type of the rapture, as a type of the resurrection of the righteous. And they pull him out of the place of iniquity and they rush him to a place of safety as the fire starts to fall.

But Lot's wife had a heart in Sodom and died with the Sodomites. And that's what Jesus is saying. Remember Lot's wife. The lukewarm die with the unbelievers. Those whose hearts are in the world, who are not secure in the gospel, who are not part of what God is doing.

It doesn't matter if you go to church. It doesn't matter if you're baptized. It doesn't matter if you teach children's church. If your life is in the world and you're living a carnal compromised life, when the judgment of God comes, you stand a good chance of dying with the wicked.

Compromise, Lukewarmness, and Christian Obedience

Now that changes the rules, doesn't it? It changes the rules. Because we have a mentality that compromising lukewarm Christians are fine. But the warning of God is, I'll tell you why it's not fine. It's because when the time comes to change, and we always tell ourselves, I'll change my heart later.

It's too late. We don't have time to change. We're not ready. We believe we can walk in two roads. We can believe we have a little bit of the gospel and a little bit of the world. We believe that we can have a little bit of Jesus on Sunday, and yet I can mess around and live like the world on Monday and Tuesday.

And I think because I can read the signs of the times and I'm smart enough, I'll have time to put my heart right and get my life ready and make my body the temple of the Holy Spirit and really get ready for Jesus just before he comes.

In every single case, they had no idea what is coming within 24 hours. No idea. Then he goes on and he speaks to the disciples about Jerusalem. And he says, I want to tell you, the times are coming. When trouble is coming to Jerusalem, as the prophets have said, and God is going to destroy the city.

And if you're on the housetop, he said, don't go down and get your clothes. If you're inside, don't look around and pick up your suitcases. Run out of the city and run for your lives. Because when those Roman armies come over the hill, you're going to have literally two hours to save your life.

They will encircle the city and they will crush it and destroy everyone inside. And he said, when you see trouble coming, get out of town. You know what happened? A handful of Christian believers fled.

The rest stayed in Jerusalem and perished. And the Roman armies came and they starved that city into submission and they crushed and murdered the people and they burnt the temple down and the judgment of God fell.

And the people in the city had no idea how sudden and how vicious and how destructive those Roman armies would be. They thought they could withstand it. And those who are lukewarm and those who are semi-compromised and those who thought they could withstand it, died with the sinners.

You say, Brother Richard, don't talk like that. Remember Lot's wife. He didn't say, remember Isaac or Jacob or Abraham. Remember the men of faith. He said, I'm warning you now, don't play games with God's righteousness.

Persecution, Lawlessness, and the Cost of Discipleship

Now we're living in times. I'll show you something. Come to Matthew 24. We're going to read from verse 7. Verse 7 is fine. Kingdom will rise against kingdom, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom.

There will be famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you. And you'll be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

You heard me say the other Sunday, more Christians died in the last century than all the preceding centuries before us. Don't think we are out of the persecution era. And then many will be offended and will betray one another and hate one another.

Is it possible for you to get offended with the gospel? You know it is. It is. When there's a price attached to the gospel, when your life is attached to the gospel, it's easy to choose the world. The gospel can have an offense.

Many years ago when we were running a youth group in town, we wanted to illustrate to the young people the seriousness of what it means to stand up against persecution. And so we had a small youth group.

What we did is we had a guy dressed up in old clothes and put a couple of scars on him, and he was a Christian who had come out of jail in Russia. And we were having an underground meeting, and we put a candle in the front of the church and a little couple of tables, and the youth were right there, and he was coming, and he was speaking in his Russian accent, and he was talking about how he had been so tough, and he was just explaining his testimony.

I had them all intrigued. Everything else was dark. And a friend of mine and myself, we got dressed up in army kit, and we had a rifle each. And suddenly we kicked down that door. We kicked it with our foot, and we rocked it, and we screamed.

What is going on here? And I pointed a weapon at them. I said, stand up. Girls over there. Boys over there. You're believers. You're going to die. Denounce Jesus now or you're going to die. And they all started to cry.

Was I in trouble with their parents? The elders of the church were on my case. The pastors were on my case. The parents were on my case. You scared our darling children. Well, it's like that in Russia.

You see, when there's a price attached, it's easy to serve Jesus when you have a nice, white, comfortable chair and a Sunday church to go to. You understand? But when your flesh is attached to it, and we have to give our lives for righteousness, it's easy to be offended with the gospel.

What does the devil offer? He offers us another road. A road where we don't pay a price. A road where we are going to have everything we want and call ourselves Christians, but righteousness is not a part of our lives.

We're not living in righteousness. We're not living in godliness. There will be many false prophets. We'll rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

Because every one of our neighbors is lying. Every one of our neighbors is corrupt. Every one of our neighbors is using deceitful means to earn a living. And we look around and we say, if the world is doing it, where is God?

If they are doing it, why can't I? And the moment I start to practice unrighteousness, what's going to happen to my faith? It's going to grow cold. Now hear me clearly. Remember Lot's wife. Where was her heart?

In Sodom. Was the gospel an offense to her? It was. Was the way Lot went, was she truly committed to it? No. So I come to church on a Sunday, but on Monday I'm lying at work, stealing. I'm running a little small house down the road.

I've got a girlfriend here. But I come to church on a Sunday. Remember Lot's wife. This body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. God is very clear when He says, as a Christian, you walk in righteousness. Get rid of this thing of, I lied because I was just stumbled and weak.

You lied because you're a liar. Yes? Say yes. We need to understand that. You know, I had a story a few weeks ago. Some Christians that I know well, they're involved in something that wasn't very clear.

So I asked them, did you do this? They looked me straight in the eye and said, no, never. Never. Two weeks later, I discovered it's exactly what they did. So when I confronted them, I said, yeah, no, we did it.

If you ask them, you point again, yes. How can you lie to my face and go home and sleep? How can you lie to my face and for two weeks it doesn't bother you? It's just like you ate a banana. If you can do that, you had better remember Lot's wife.

Because you're a fake. If you lie and within 10 seconds, your heart isn't screaming and you aren't running back to the person to ask forgiveness for your lie, you're a fake. Because God doesn't see your church attendance, He sees righteousness.

Do you understand that? If you haven't given your life, if you're not committed to Christ, if we're not engaged our lives in the race of faith, then we are living with our heart in Sodom. We are plastic Christians and we don't understand what is coming.

And you see, because of lawlessness, the love of many, meaning those in the church, will grow cold. We'll adopt the ways of the world. I'll be corrupt at work. I'll be immoral like my neighbor. I will steal like my neighbor.

I will lie like my neighbor. I will do what my neighbor does. Or my Christian neighbor. I'm not interested in the neighbor. I'm called to one thing. I'm being called out of darkness into light to serve Jesus Christ in righteousness.

And there's a price attached to that. That is my life. And he who endures to the end, says Jesus, will be saved. Meaning the end will come suddenly. Now, jump down from verse 14 down to 29. It says, Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.

The Signs of the Son of Man and the Final Judgment

Does that sound like a Sunday morning service? Is there anybody in church today? Does it sound like a Sunday morning service? No. Okay? The sun goes dark, the moon loses light, the stars fall from heaven, and the heavens are shaken.

Does that sound like terror? To me it does. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

The two go together. There is something happening of global catastrophic implications, and the Son of Man appears. He will send his angels and gather the folks out from the nations. Now, come with me to Revelation.

The opening of the sixth seal. Okay, Revelation chapter 6, from verse 12. This is speaking of the return of Jesus. He says,. And I looked when he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became as black as sackcloth of hair and the moon like blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth like fig trees, like figs drop figs when it's shaken by a mighty wind.

Then the sky receded as a squall when it rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. That's more than Hurricane Sandy. And the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the commanders and the mighty men and every slave and every fee man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.

That sounds like terror to me. Yes? Amen? And they said to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath has come and who is able to stand?

And then from then, skip chapter 7, it's talking about heaven, chapter 8, and he opened the seventh seal and the seventh trumpet started to blow and they are the seven judgments of God that remain now upon a pagan and an ungodly world.

The coming of Jesus Christ is not a silent rapture. The coming of Jesus Christ is like nothing mankind has ever seen before. He says, I want you to think of Noah. They had no idea that tomorrow they would be drowned.

But the boat was there. And a preacher of righteousness was there and they didn't listen. No idea when Lot was speaking to the guys in Sodom that tomorrow morning they would be burned at 7 ,000 degrees Fahrenheit to ash.

No idea. But suddenly Lot was gone and as he went, a fire came. He said, Remember Lot's wife, not the Sodomites, the ones who have heard and don't pay attention, the ones who hear and don't take it seriously, the ones to whom God's grace comes but do not give their lives by faith, but hold their lives and are lukewarm, it says in Revelation, and I will spew them out of my mouth.

The ones who want to play games with righteousness and play games with the justice of God and play games with the grace of God. He said, Remember Lot's wife. That's who I'm warning you about. The ones who have a chance to see but choose not to see because the second coming is just like the flood.

It's just like Sodom and Gomorrah. He said, As I come to fetch the righteous, so I'm going to pour my wrath upon the world in such a manner that I'll take the righteous out and the world will be shaken by the demonstration of my power and the demonstration of my glory and anyone who is not in what I take up dies with the worldly.

Your church membership is no guarantee. Your good works, no guarantee. What's the guarantee? Is Jesus Christ Lord of my life? Yes. Have I picked up my cross? Do I give my life? Am I ready to walk in obedience to what God asks?

When God spoke to Lot, the angels spoke to Lot. They said, My friend, listen to us. Obey us and run for your lives. It was his obedience and his faith that saved his life. Do you understand that? It was Noah's obedience that saved his life.

Righteousness, the Kingdom of God, and the Warning Against Deception

When God speaks to us about righteousness, it's not a game. It's not a game. That's why it says in 1 Corinthians. Let's read it. 1 Corinthians 6. Verse 9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

That means the sinners. Then he stops and he puts in this little phrase, Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, or idolaters, or adulterers, or homosexuals, or sodomites, or thieves, or covetousness, or drunkards, or revilers.

That means people who love the parties. Okay? Or extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. So what makes it that the unsaved cannot go to heaven and I can live like that and go to heaven? Be not deceived.

What he should have put there is remember Lot's wife. The woman who heard. And it's half way, three quarters of the way to safety. And she looks back because her heart was there and she says wait a minute.

Let me see what's really going to happen. I'm not sure if it's actually like that. Jesus said you're going to look for the sign of the Son of Man and you won't see it. In these days of darkness, in these days of persecution, in these days of lawlessness, men will say to you but if Jesus is coming we'll be able to see it.

Where is it? Where's the sign? Tell us. Show us. It's going to be like nothing has happened and suddenly in a moment of time Christ is going to split the heavens and he's going to call the righteous. And those who are living double standard lives, living in carnality, playing games with the grace of God, you will not have time to put your lives right.