Well, yesterday, Bill (our main teaching pastor at VCC) had a wonderful sermon talking about the second coming of Christ. Just as we spend this time remembering Jesus' first coming, we are also spending time looking forward to His second. There was one passage in particular that God highlighted to me. It is found in Matthew 24.
"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. So it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." Matthew 24:37-39.
Woof. "As in the days of Noah..." What were Noah's days like? Matthew describes them a little bit for us, but the bulk of the description is found in Genesis 6.
Noah's days were evil. Men were so corrupt that God was grieved that He even made man. But there was one, only one, who found favor in God's sight. This man was Noah (comfort - that is what his name means in Hebrew btw). God commissions Noah to build an ark because God is going to flood the earth and wipe out evil humanity. And so Noah, who is 500 years old, begins building an ark.
I can only imagine what his wife, children and neighbors thought. An old man who thinks he heard from God going out to chop down trees and make a big boat because it is going to rain? What the heck is rain? The old man must be nuts. You see, it had never rained before. The people had no grid for what Noah was talking about. Up to this point the earth was only watered by streams and rivers and water coming up from the ground. Rain, water falling from the sky like arrows, was completely foreign to them.
But Noah was faithful because he was sure he had heard. God had spoken and Noah would be faithful to do as he was commanded. Noah was faithful in building the ark for 100 years! He served longer than most of us will live and he was scorned and ridiculed the whole time. No one would listen to his warning. No one took him seriously - until it started to rain. And then it was too late.
Noah's story isn't really all that different from our own. Do you remember me talking about Forerunners in an earlier post? Well, this is why I want to be one. I don't want millions (billions?) of people to be caught unaware. And the message is just as crazy as what Noah had.
There is this man, his name is Jesus. Jesus is also fully God, but there isn't more than one God, there is only one. Well, Jesus came to show us what life in His Kingdom is like. He came to redeem us as sinful people and he did that by dying on a cross in our place. On the third day He rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead and then He will remake the heavens and the earth and we will live, reign and rule with Him for eternity. And He is coming back soon, but if you don't repent and believe in Him, then His sacrifice wont protect you and you will be judged and found guilty. The punishment for that is eternal life in hell. But God promises that if we confess our sin, repent, trust in Jesus, are baptized into His name and confess Him as our Lord, we will be saved and forgiven.
To me that makes perfect sense. To an unbeliever that sounds like insanity. But God is softening people's hearts - they are beginning to respond. But there are many more who are going to continue on with life as usual, thinking Christians are doing nothing more than wasting their time. Until He comes back. Then things are different. Then our message becomes "relevant." Then they can't hear enough. And it is the grace of God that they can still repent and find a place in His Kingdom.
That is our God. He is generous with His wealth. We are all undeserving of His mercy. Sometimes we forget that as Christians. Sometimes we start to feel entitled because of all of our years of service. Bull. You don't serve by your own strength, nor do I; it is the grace of God. I hope to be as faithful as Noah. I hope that I can be a faithful messenger in a crooked and perverse generation. I hope that I can love people like Jesus did and hopefully save some. I wonder is you would join me? The road is narrow that leads to life, but it has got to be wide enough for us to walk side by side.
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