And you may be seated. Amen.
Well, I mentioned this on Sunday, but it's been good
having brother Justin here with us this summer and has done a
lot of work around the church and just worked with a lot of
you all in the different ministries that you've that you
do. And just a great opportunity for
him, but a big help to us as well.
And he's, he's, he's on trial tonight to see if he's going to
have a fiance by the time he finishes up.
So we'll see how well he does, I guess.
But anyway, it's been good to have him here.
And he's coming with us to camp. Of course, he'll be here on
Sunday going with us to camp. And then I think he goes back
the Saturday after that, right? So Sunday will be the last, last
service that he's here with us. And but it's been good to have
him here and he's going to preach for us tonight.
So get your Bibles out and kids, get your notes out.
And Brother Justin, you come preach for us, please.
Well, it's great to be in God's house tonight and I'm thankful
for the opportunity I have to preach tonight.
And I just was telling pastor earlier, I was joking with him
that this is probably the most pressure I've ever had put on me
for a message. I told Ashley on the way here, I
gave her a pen and a pen, a pen and a piece of paper.
And I said grade me and let me know how I do so.
But anyways, take your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis
chapter 6. We're going to be in Genesis
chapter 6 tonight. Familiar story.
We're going to be looking at the story of Noah and the ark.
And this is something that's been in my heart for a while
now. We visited the ark a few months
ago, and I was just thinking and reading through this portion of
my Bible after I went and I saw some great things.
So I just want to share those with you tonight.
So we'll start reading in Genesis chapter 6 and verse #5
The Bible says, 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 it 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 who might have created from the face of the
earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing in 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, and Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and
Japheth. The earth also was corrupt
before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
And God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt, for
all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me,
for the earth is filled with violence through them, and
behold I will destroy them with the earth.
Make thee an ark of Gopher wood. Room shall thou make in the ark,
and shall pitch it within, and with within and without with
pitch, And this is the fashion which thou shalt make of it.
The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, the breadth of it 50
cubits, and the height of it 30 cubits.
A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou
finish it above, and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the
side thereof. With lower, second and third
story shalt thou make it. And behold, I, even I do, bring
a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is
the breath of life from under heaven.
And everything that is in the earth shall die.
But with thee will I establish my covenant.
And thou shalt make, and with thee will I establish my
covenant. Thou shalt come into the ark,
thou and thy sons, and thy wife and thy sons wives with thee.
Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I think
we're for this opportunity that we have to be in your house
tonight. I prayer with you, bless the
preaching of your word, prayer with you, be with me, help me or
not to say anything that wouldn't be pleasing to you and
just give us a great rest of the service tonight.
In Jesus name I pray, Amen. Now we look at Noah and no doubt
we all have this picture of Noah in our minds is the the guy who
built the ark, the guy who was in the ark for 40 days and 40
nights. And you know, we really pictured
that's all he did. But I want to take a few
examples from the life of Noah tonight.
And I've simply titled this message lessons from Noah.
But before we get into any lessons from Noah's personal
life, I just want to ask you this question.
Make sure you have a spot in the ark.
That was more of a statement, but I would say make sure you
have a spot in the ark. Judgement is coming to this
planet, no doubt. There's too much sin, there's
too much wickedness on the earth.
God is going to judge this planet for the sin that we have
committed. I got some statistics for you
tonight that I looked up. He said in 2024, just in the
United States. This is not even across the
whole world, just in the United States.
There was 1.14 million abortions in the United States of America.
Gay marriage and homosexuality are not only being tolerated,
but they're being normalized. 40 to 50% of our marriages are
ending in divorce in the world today.
I mean, there is great wickedness upon the earth today,
just as there was back in the days of Noah.
And the Bible says when Jesus comes back, it's going to be
like it was in the days of Noah. And are we there yet?
Obviously not. We might be because Jesus could
come back tonight, but I don't believe it's as bad as it was in
the days of Noah. Now we could be there, but I
just want you to think about this in your head.
If Jesus was to come back tonight, where would you be?
Would you be in heaven with him or would you still be here on
this earth? God is going to judge this world
for the sins we commit every single day.
However, not everyone on the earth back then had to go
through the judgment though, only those who were covered by
the grace of God. We're saved from the flood,
we're saved from the judgment of God, and the same is true for us
today. Only those that are saved and
covered by the grace of God in the blood that he shed, in the
in the blood that Jesus Christ shed on the cross for us, only
those people will be taken to heaven for the rest of eternity.
You can't get to heaven any other way but salvation.
There's no other way but by through the blood that Jesus
Christ shed on the cross for us. So I encourage you tonight, if
you don't know for sure you're saved, if you've never gotten
that taken care of, if you've never gotten that nailed down in
your heart and in your mind, if you don't know for sure you're
on your way to heaven, make sure that you would be there by the
time you walk out of the doors tonight.
I want you to look back at that clock.
Everybody in the auditorium, look back at that clock.
It says 740. If Jesus Christ came back
tonight at 7:42, where would you be?
Would you be on your way to meet the Lord in the air and forever
be with Him and in heaven for all of eternity?
Or would you still be in here in this auditorium?
Would you be sitting here with your Bible in your hand and your
pen in your lap and piece of paper, taking notes from the
message that I'm preaching? I wouldn't even be here.
I would be on my way to meet the Lord in the air.
And I hope every single one of you would be in here too.
But if you don't know for sure that that's where you'd be if
Jesus Christ came back at 742, get that taken care of.
Get it taken care of tonight before you walk out of the door.
So #1 make sure you have a spot in the ark number two.
Well, first of all, I want to ask you this question.
Why Noah? Why would God choose Noah?
Obviously, he was the only one living righteously.
He was the only one, him and his family that were saved from the
judgment of God. But why would God look upon Noah
and say, you know what Noah's doing right?
He's living right. He's the guy that I want to
build the ark and I'm going to continue humanity basically
through Noah. Why Noah noble #2 Noah was right
with God. Let's read verse 6 through 9 of
Genesis chapter 6. The Bible says, and it repented
the Lord, that he hath made man in the earth, and it grieved him
in 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 fouls of the air,
for it repenteth that I made them.
Now if it's not there, that's pretty depressing, right?
I mean, if you were to read that, that is no more humanity.
Everybody's gone, and that's it. God could have easily just said,
I'm done. No more humanity.
I gave it a shot, we're done. You had your chance, you ruined
it. But what does it say in verse
#8? 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.
Noah's walk with God was where it was supposed to be.
I want to ask you this question tonight.
How's your walk with God doing? Are you waking up every morning
and reading your Bible or are you going to Instagram?
Are you waking up every morning and opening your Bible, doing
your devotions, praying to the Lord?
Are you going about your daily routine?
The devil would love nothing more than to wreck everyone in
here's walk with God. He's doing it everywhere.
You see it all the time. It makes me sick to my stomach,
like pastors are just quitting. You see it all the time.
Youth pastors are quitting. They're getting tired of it.
They they say at one point when they were young, they say, oh, I
was called to the ministry. But then 10 years from now,
they'll, they'll quit, they'll walk away.
They won't do it anymore. Why?
It's because the devil at one point or another ruined their
walk with God. Don't let him do it.
He wants to discourage you from reading your Bible.
I remember one time when I was in college, I live in a dorm
full of guys. And those of you that have done
that before, it's not the most pleasurable experience you'll
ever have. I mean, it stinks in there.
Sometimes it does. It's bad, but I want to tell
you, I skip. I didn't skip it.
I something happened in the morning, I think an emergency,
something, somebody was injured. I had to take him to the doctor
that maybe they were sick. But I wasn't able to read my
Bible in the morning. And so I said, OK, I'll do it at
night. And so after my basketball
practice ended, I got back to the dorm and I showered and I
sat down to read my Bible, but I hadn't gotten a text all day.
And like literally, it was one of those days where it's like
nobody was bothering me. Nobody was really reaching out.
It was just kind of quiet. This was before I was even
dating Ashley, so she wasn't calling me or texting me,
nothing like that. But I was sitting there and as
soon as I opened the word of God, I remember I opened the
book of Psalms. And as soon as I did that group
chat started. As soon as I did that, calls
came in from the Dean of men. As soon as I open God's Word, I
was getting texts from this person, from that person.
I was getting calls. Why I believe is because Satan
was trying to discourage my walk.
I believe he was trying to keep me from reading my Bible.
Now you say, Justin, how do you know that?
I can't tell you that for sure. But I do think it's ironic that
the one point that I get to my room to read my Bible, the only
time of day I had a chance to do that is when the phone started.
Don't let it happen. When you read your Bible, put
your phone in the next room. I mean, is your phone more
important than your Bible? It's not.
Is your phone more important than your walk with God?
I can tell you that it's not your phone.
If Jesus was come back tonight, like I just said, your phone
would still be here. Would you still be here with
your phone or would you be in heaven with God?
You know your phone is no more important than your walk with
God. And if you're doing your best to
be right with the Lord, you have a target in your bag.
Did you know that? If you're doing your best to
walk with God, if you're doing your best to live for him, the
devil's got a target in your bag.
And he says, I want to destroy you, Young people, the devil
wants nothing more than to destroy you.
He wants to get you out of church.
He wants to get you from living like a terrible life.
That's where he wants to get you.
He wants to get you to the life of drugs.
He wants to get you to the life of alcohol.
He wants to get you to divorce. That's where he wants you.
Don't do it. Stay in church.
Stay faithful to your Bible. Stay.
This goes for the adults, too. Stay faithful to your prayer
life, everything. Stay faithful to God.
Keep your walk with God where it's supposed to be.
And when I was riding out this point, I remember in 3rd grade,
I read Pilgrim's Progress. Anybody in here read Pilgrim's
Progress? Yeah, a good amount of you.
So you don't know what I'm talking about.
But when Christian was in the Valley of Humiliation, he was
attacked by Apollyon, and as he was attacked by Apollyon, he was
wounded. Apollyon was shooting darts at
Christian and he wounded him. Sure, he probably discouraged
him a little bit, but he did not stop Christian.
Why? Because when those darts were
being fired at Christian as he was walking through the Valley
of Humiliation, he puts up his shield.
He put up the shield that was supposed to represent his faith.
Are you putting up the shield tonight?
Can I ask you that question? Are you putting up the shield?
This is our shield. Prayer life is our shield.
Like if you just, you cannot expect to go to war without
carrying any type of a weapon. And that's how many Christians
are doing that today. They're going out into the
battlefield, They're going out to war, but they didn't start
their day with their Bible reading.
They didn't start the day in prayer.
So how can you expect to go fight the devil if you're not
even equipped yourself to go do it?
And Satan's going to be firing those darts at you.
But if when he does keep holding up the shield, you can't defeat
Satan on your own. You can't do it.
It's impossible, and even me at 21 years old knows that you
can't. Like we're not powerful enough
to defeat Satan on our own, but with God, we can.
God is more powerful than any of Satan's tactics, any of Satan's
distractions. He tries to get us from reading
our Bible. God's more powerful than it all.
And So what we need to do is we need to keep just holding up the
shield. We need to keep praying.
We need to keep walking with God.
Noah did. And that's the only reason you
and me are sitting here tonight. It's because Noah was holding up
the shield. Noah was doing it day in and day
out. And that leads me into point #3
Noah was a faithful and obedient servant.
Again, we asked the question, why Noah?
Why would God get Noah? Everybody else was living wrong.
But why was Noah the one that was chosen by the ark?
He was a faithful and obedient servant.
Noah worked in the ark for a long time that he worked on the
heart for 120 years. Can you imagine none of us in
here are going to live till 120 years And if you do like, I want
to know you because you're probably going to be pretty
famous, but Can you imagine working on the same project day
after day, year after year for 120 years?
He followed God's exact instruction.
Let's look at verses 14 through 16.
Make thee an ark of Gopher wood room.
Shall thou make in the ark. This is God speaking, and shall
pitch it within and without with pitch, And this is the fashion
which thou shalt make of it. The length of the arc shall be
300 cubits, the breadth of it 50 cubits, the height of it 30
cubits. A window shalt thou make to the
arc, and then a cubit shall thou finish it above, and the door of
the arc shall thou set in the side thereof, with the lower
second and third story shall thou make of it.
And behold, I even I do bring a flop.
Actually that was 16. I went on the 17.
Sorry about that, But he was obedient.
He knew what God had told him to do and he did those exact and
God gave him the exact measurements for the ark.
He gave him the exact things that were going to go in the
ark. He gave him the everything about
it. God laid it out and said do it
like that. And Noah did it exactly how God
said it would be done. How often do we not do that?
We say, OK, God, I'll do what you want me to do.
I'll be faithful what you want me to do even, but I'm going to
do it my way. I mean, if we do anything our
way, it's not going to work. If we do it opposite to what God
says or if we don't do what God says or exactly what God says,
we're not going to be successful.
God says go and give the gospel to every creature, doesn't he?
God says give the gospel to everyone.
If we say man, that person looks pretty scary.
That person looks, I don't want to go talk to him.
They look weird. That's not giving the gospel to
every creature. That's not fulfilling the Great
Commission if we're not doing. How can we expect to be
successful if we're not doing exactly what God says?
Noah remained faithful and obedient in spite of opposition
even. How often do you see that the
opposition Christians are facing nowadays?
It's actually crazy and I can imagine Noah day in and day out.
We're not giving any specific example in the Bible where Noah
was actually laughed at or ridiculed as like Nehemiah was
or maybe even Daniel for praying three times a day.
We're not giving anything like that to where Noah faced extreme
opposition. But you can imagine.
I mean, he's the only man living righteously in the face of the
planet. He's doing it day in and day out
for 120 years. So I mean, it wasn't like it was
a weak project. He's doing it for a long time.
So Can you imagine people walking by and saying, oh,
there's that Noah guy, He doesn't know what he's talking
about. He's a lunatic.
He's out of his mind, He's insane.
I can imagine just the constant day in and day out pressure.
Noah had to say, OK, I'm done. The pressure Noah had from the
outside probably telling him you need to stop, you're wasting
your time, you're throwing your life away like this is useless.
We've never seen rain a day in our life and you're telling us
that it's going to start raining and the floodwaters are going to
come. We haven't seen it one day.
So how can you say this? You're wasting your life.
Noah remained faithful, he remained consistent and he was
obedient. Many of you know, I grew up over
at Gil Grove and I was back there the other day on Wednesday
and then on Sunday morning. And it was so encouraging to me
to see men and women who've I've known for my whole life that
have been doing it day in and day out, consistently, every
single day, every single Sunday, every single Saturday on
visitation that they have it. I mean, it's so like there was a
man, Mr. Charles. I mean, he's there on the bus
every single week. I don't remember the last time I
didn't see that man on the bus and he's there day in and day
out for years. Ever since he's been saved, ever
since he's been coming there. And it's so encouraging to me to
see people that remain faithful and obedient to what is God has
called them to do. Young people, God has might have
called you tonight to be a pastor.
He might call you to be a missionary.
He could call you to be a school teacher.
Whatever he calls you to do, be faithful, be consistent, be
obedient to what God calls you to do.
He's not going to call you to do something.
Pastor was talking about this when we were on the youth trip.
He's not going to call you to do something if he already knows
you're not going to do it. If you say no, I'm not going to
serve God if you already have it in your heart that says, oh, if
God wants me to be a pastor, I don't know if I can speak really
well. I mean, that's what Moses said.
Moses said, I can't even speak God.
I can't lead these people out of Egypt.
I can't do it. And how often do we throw up
excuses like that? All the time.
Well, I can't do this because I'm not outgoing.
I can't do this because I don't know how to give the gospel to
somebody. I can't do this because I don't
know. There's no opportunities for me
to serve in the ministry. That's not true.
Now, you can't, you can't walk around here without finding some
opportunity to serve in. But whatever God has called you
to do, whatever He's called you to serve in, do it to the best
of your ability. Be faithful and obedient, just
as Noah was. So let's review the points #1
make sure you have a spot in the ark #2 sorry #2 be right with
God just as Noah was #3 be a faithful and obedient servant
just as Noah was. And #4 in our final point this
evening, be thankful Noah was thankful.
Let's turn over in our Bibles to Genesis chapter 8, verse #20
Genesis chapter 8, verse 20. I find this funny because I
mean, how many of us, if we would have built the ark
ourselves, we would have done it.
We would have gotten off the boat.
I know I probably would have. And we I would have started
patting myself in the back. I would have said good job,
Justin, you did it like you saved humanity, all these
animals. You spared your family's life.
Good. You did a good job.
Like man, look at this ark that I built.
That's probably what I would have done.
But let's look at what Noah did. Genesis chapter 8, verse #20 It
says, and Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every
clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt
offerings on the altar. Noah built an altar as an act of
thanks for God's deliverance from the great flood.
He didn't get off the ark and say, man, I did a really great
job. All the credit goes to me.
Everybody worship me. I'm the one that did it.
No, he built an altar to God and said, thank you Lord for
delivering me from this flood. Thank you, Lord, for delivering
me from that judgement. And how many of us tonight, we
don't even thank God for the fact that we're saved.
If you're saved tonight, you should be thanking God that
you're saved from the tribulation.
You're saved from the judgement to come and all the wicked and
evil things that are going to happen on this planet.
Be thankful that He saved you. I mean, there's so many things
we have to be thankful of God. What has God delivered you out
of tonight? He could have delivered you out
of a wicked lifestyle. There's got to be somebody in
this church that was at one point or another living for the
world, living for Satan, doing the things of the world, doing
the things that Satan had control of you, no doubt.
But God delivered you from a wicked lifestyle.
How many of you, God's delivered you from sickness?
You see it over and over again. My aunt had cancer and God
delivered the cancer. He got rid of the cancer.
It was amazing actually, and that's amazing.
God can deliver you from sickness and I'm sure He's done
that to some of you tonight. God can deliver you out of a
financial situation. Now, somebody my age with
absolutely no money has quite a few financial situation, but you
know what? We need to trust God.
Me and Ashley need to trust God that He can deliver us from
those financial situations. And the same thing of you, you
can trust God that He'll deliver you from your sickness.
He'll deliver you from your financial situation, but you
need to be thankful for it. When he does.
You need to think him and say God thank you, Ward for
delivering me out of whatever it may be.
And I don't do that enough. There's often times I pray for
what you might think of silly things like when I was in high
school, I would have a test or something like that that I
didn't study for. And I know you can't imagine
that me not studying for a test, but I would have a test that I
would study for and I would be like, God help me on this test.
And then he would and I would get a or AB or something like
that. And I would just go about my day
and I would say, well, I did good on this test.
Look at mom, look at this grade that I got, but I would not even
think to say Lord for helping me on this test.
I would play in the basketball game and I would pray before the
game. Now, did God care about the
game? No, probably not.
But I like to think that he would help us win those games.
And so I would pray before the games in middle school and in
high school. And when we would win, I would
go about my daily life. I would say, good job, Justin,
you scored a lot of points here. Good job.
So and so you did really. And that was a nice pass or that
was a nice shot. I wouldn't go to God and say,
hey, thank you for helping us win this game.
How often do we do that with serious things?
You have loved ones in the hospital, God heals them, He
takes them out of the hospital. Do we think to turn to God and
say thank the word for getting me out of this, Thank the word
for sparing our life and we have so many things to be thankful
for. Turn over to 1st Thessalonians
chapter 5, First Thessalonians 518.
You know the Bible commands us to give thanks.
First Thessalonians 518 you probably know the verse, a lot
of you could probably quote it off memory.
It says in everything, give thanks for this is the will of
God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
It doesn't say in some things to give thanks.
It doesn't say in this area of your life, give thanks but not
in this area. It says in everything give
thanks. And that's exactly what Noah
did. Now aren't you thankful that God
saved you from sin? Be thankful that He has you in
this church. Be thankful that He's given you
ministries to serve in. Be thankful that He saved you
from lifestyle. We need to be thankful for God
for His provision, for His provision just as Noah was.
And so there's many good lessons we could take from the life of
Noah. There's many like Noah was a
great man. But I hope these remain in your
mind and you think about them as you go throughout your daily
life. I'd, I'd encourage you to read
through the life of Noah. It's a very encouraging story,
many great things. I'm sure multiple things besides
what I said tonight we can learn from Noah.
So I asked you to just take these lessons from the life of
Noah and just think about them and make sure you live them out
in your daily life. Let's pray, dear my father, I
think a word for this time that you've given us in your house
thing, a word for the message tonight.
I pray with you help, use it to be a help to somebody and just
give us great rest of the night. And you say, I pray.
Amen. Our seats with our heads bowed
and our eyes closed. Good reminder from the life of
Noah and would, would, I don't know, I think about that
sometimes what I have had enough faith to be the one that got in
the boat. We always like to think that we
would be, but that took a lot and there's a lot that went into
it. And he mentioned a lot of those
points tonight. And are you thankful?
You know, we pray and pray and pray and ask God for things and
then he gives us the answer to it and we never even come back
to say thank you. Like those lepers, 10 of them
were healed, only one came back. If we would thank God as much as
we begged Him for things, I think we'd get a lot more of the
things that we asked God for because He realized that we are
thankful for it when He gives us the answer.
I don't know. I think one of that's one of
those things that we can always be more thankful.
We can always pray more, we can always do a lot of things
better. But maybe God spoke to you hard
about something specific tonight.
And if He did, then I want to give you an opportunity as the
piano plays to come forward and deal with that tonight.