The question we want to look at today
is, was the flood, the Genesis flood, worldwide?
Many scientists have rejected the idea of a
worldwide cataclysmic flood, and now many theologians and
even pastors are rejecting or casting doubt on
the idea of a worldwide Genesis flood.
But what is the truth?
And you might also be thinking, what does
it mean to me, one way or the
other?
What does it mean to me today, where
I live, in my struggles, in my problems
of life?
Turn with me to 2 Peter 3, verse
3, to introduce this subject of, was the
flood, the Genesis flood, worldwide or not?
2 Peter 3, verse 3, because I believe
that the skepticism about the flood and the
worldwide nature of it is something that was
predicted through the apostle Peter 2,000 years
before it even took place, the scoffing of
the worldwide nature of the flood, and it
is a sign of a deeper problem.
2 Peter 3, verse 3, knowing this first,
that there shall come in the last days
scoffers.
These are the last days and we've got
scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying,
where is the promise of his coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep, all things
continue as they were from the beginning of
the creation.
So what they're saying is things just go
on the way they always have.
Oh, back in the old days, there may
have been some special things, but really just
as a uniformity to history and things just
go on the way they were and the
way things are happening now is the way
they happened previously.
He says they're walking after their own lusts.
The real problem is that they want to
live for themselves.
They want to deny God's power in the
world.
And then verse five, he says, for this
they willingly are ignorant of.
There is a willing ignorance here, not just
ignorance.
Some people say ignorance is bliss, maybe in
certain areas.
But willful ignorance calls for judgment.
And God says they are willingly ignorant of
this, that by the word of God, the
heavens were of old and the earth standing
out of the water and in the water,
whereby the world that then was being overflowed
with water perished.
It says that originally created world.
Perished, it was destroyed.
The same concept here is John 3, 16.
Shall not perish, but have everlasting life if
they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, there
was a world that perished.
He says they're willingly ignorant of that.
But the heavens and the earth, which are
now by the same word, the word of
God are kept in store, reserved under fire
against the day of judgment and perdition of
ungodly men.
He says judgment is coming again and in
the last days, just before the times when
that judgment begins to come, they're going to
be scoffers are going to say, well, it
never happened back then and it won't happen
now.
And so they say, don't sweat it, these
prophets of doom, they keep on saying there
was a flood and there's going to be
a great fire, a destruction of the world
to come and the rapture and the tribulation,
all that kind of thing.
Don't believe them.
Things just go on the way they ever
had.
Hasn't happened yet.
Why, these preachers have been preaching this for
2000 years.
You remember, they'll say, well, remember, 20 years
ago, prominent preachers were saying we're in the
last days.
It's going to happen.
And look, it's been 20 years and hasn't
happened.
So it's not coming.
They say, where is the promise of his
coming?
Everything continues on the way it has.
Don't worry about it.
And if the flood of Genesis was not
a real worldwide cataclysmic flood, as the Bible
says it is, then what concern should I
show about a prediction in the same Bible
about a worldwide conflagration of fire, worldwide fire,
or why should I even be worried about
the fires of hell?
The same Bible that tells about hell and
that tells about the world being destroyed by
fire is the same Bible that tells about
a worldwide flood.
And if one is to be doubted, then
you have pulled the rug from out underneath
the whole concept of future judgment as well.
We have today the idea going around that
God is strictly and only a God of
love and of forgiveness and of grace and
of mercy.
And it's some doubt how he has outgrown
or outlived the judgmental, negative kind of punishment
and retribution concepts of the Old Testament.
And God is going to let us off
the hook somehow at the last minute and
that perhaps people have never been saved, maybe
they'll have a second chance and maybe, maybe,
maybe.
They fail to see that God is the
same yesterday and today and forever, that, yes,
he is a God of love and forgiveness
of mercy, but he's also a God of
justice and holiness and retribution and judgment and
condemnation of sin.
And it's only against that background of condemnation
that comes upon us because of sin, that
dark background, that stormy background, that the bright
light of his grace and redemption can be
properly seen.
And so we need to understand the past
in order to properly understand the future.
And very much in the Bible, as we
study the flood, we see that if we
want to know what's going to happen in
the future, let's look at what God did
in the past.
I'd like us to look today at the
evidence, the Bible evidence for the worldwide flood.
I believe there is considerable scientific evidence for
the worldwide flood.
But if you knew what marks I got
in science in school and the difficulties I
had in the science area, you would not
be too impressed with my teachings in the
area of science.
So I'm going to stick to the area
that I like to concentrate on, and that
is the Bible itself.
There's some excellent books that would help you
in the scientific areas if you were so
inclined.
The Genesis Flood by Whitcombe and Morris, a
fine Genesis commentary called the Genesis Record by
Morris and many other good books on that
subject.
And that will be a help to you.
But I'd like us to look at seven
proofs for the worldwide flood, that if the
Bible is taken seriously and taken at face
value, literally, that there is no other conclusion
that can be come to other than the
fact that this was a worldwide flood.
If you'd like to study the scientific things,
I was going to say, talk to Jim
Hovis.
He studied this quite a bit, knows the
books and is involved in some of the
creation research society kinds of things, and I'm
sure he'd be glad to talk with you
about it, right?
Yeah, OK.
He'd be glad to talk to you about
it any time.
He's done a lot of study in this
area.
I start reading some of these scientific books
and they lose me as soon as they
stop talking about the Bible and get into
all those other things.
OK, let's take a look at the evidences.
You're the jury.
I'm the lawyer and I am, in a
sense, showing you the evidence in the Bible,
in these documents for the point that I
want to make is that the flood was
worldwide in scope.
It covered the whole earth and destroyed the
whole earth in Noah's time.
First of all, let's look at the first
one.
Only Noah and his family were saved.
Look at verse one.
If you have an outline, you can follow
along and see where we're going.
But look at verse one.
And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou
and all thy house into the ark, for
thee have I seen righteous before me in
this generation.
The first evidence is that only Noah and
his family were saved of all the people
on the earth at that time.
Only they were saved.
Now, if it was a local flood with
the wide distribution of population on the landmass
before the flood, then some people very easily
could have escaped or in seeing the rain
start to come, could have escaped even then
or could have just not been where it
happened.
If it was just in Mesopotamia, as many
Bible scholars believe, it's amazing.
If you go to the Bible study books
on this chapter and study them, you will
find so many of them, even from respected
denominational leaders and others who will say, well,
it was a local flood.
It took up just that area of Mesopotamia
or just that area where the Bible accounts
took place.
But he says to Noah, Come thou and
all thy house into the ark.
It's interesting, this is the first place in
the Bible where God says, come, come.
He didn't say go.
He said, come.
Why did he say come?
Because he was going to be with them
in the ark.
He was not just sending them into that
ark, that dark boat that was going to
somehow carry them through the storm.
But he was with them in the ark.
He said, come.
There's so many wonderful come verses in the
Bible.
And Isaiah, come now and let us reason
together, saith the Lord, though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow.
He says, come to salvation, come to cleansing.
One of the most wonderful things about the
Christian life is the cleansing from sin, the
relief from the guilt of sin, knowing that
you can look God in the eye and
know that your sins are forgiven and cleansed.
Jesus said, Come unto me, all you that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.
That's a wonderful come, isn't it?
When you're tired, when you're worn out, when
you're fatigued, when you're grouchy, you know, when
you really have had it, you have a
wonderful savior says, come unto me and I'll
give you rest.
What wonderful rest he has for us.
The last come in the Bible is Revelation
22, verse 17.
Turn there with me, please.
Right at the end of the Bible, Revelation
22, 17, and the spirit and the
bride say come, come and let him that
hear it say come and let him that
is a thirst come and whosoever will let
him take of the water of life freely.
God's wonderful invitation, God's invitation today before the
destruction of this earth by fire is come
into the ark of safety, come to salvation,
come to Jesus Christ, the ark of safety
who will lift you above the storm that
is to come upon this earth any day.
Even as Noah preached this in his own
day.
So we preach it now, come, come to
him.
He that cometh to me, I will in
no wise cast out, you say me with
my sins, I've got to clean up my
act, I've got to straighten some things out,
I've got to take care of a few
details, then I'll come to Christ.
Now he says, come just as you are,
just as I am without one plea.
That's how you come to Christ.
You come as you are.
And then he does the cleaning up and
the straightening out and the fixing up and
he does it so much better than we
could do on our own.
Come to Jesus.
And they came into the ark.
Just them, though, only Noah and his family
were saved.
Look at verse seven.
And Noah went in and his sons and
his wife and his son's wives with him
into the ark because of the waters of
the flood.
Verse twenty three.
And every living substance was destroyed, which was
upon the face of the ground, both man
and cattle and creeping things in the foul
of the heaven.
And they were destroyed from the earth.
And Noah only remained alive.
And they that were with him in the
ark.
I think the Bible says very clearly was
only him in first Peter three twenty.
It says there were eight souls saved by
water, eight people, no more.
That's all.
How could it have been a local flood?
He said, well, there's only a few people
on the earth at that time was just
getting started.
Oh, no.
Some people have estimated that if the people
who lived that we know about in the
Bible lived, you know, they live hundreds and
hundreds of hundreds of years.
And if you just sort of trace the
situations there, if they only produced offspring every
80 years, that's a long time between pregnancies,
ladies.
Right.
Every 80 years.
But you forget how to do it.
And then there could have easily been a
billion people on the earth at that time.
Probably we're talking about an extensive civilization, a
very high civilization, multitudes of people, and because
of the climatic conditions and the long life
involved, a lack of sickness and and a
long time before people died, a lot of
things happening.
Very positive in terms of large population.
And yet out of all of those thousands,
perhaps millions, perhaps even a billion people, only
eight are saved.
That certainly does point to a worldwide flood,
doesn't it?
Secondly, the animals had to be saved.
Look at verse two of every clean beast
that shall take to thee by sevens, male
and female and beasts that are not clean
by to the male and female and so
on down.
Verse three, verse eight, verse nine, speak about
all these animals.
Thousands and thousands of animals, seven of the
clean, two of the unclean, why they need
seven, apparently three pairs, just like the three
pairs of human beings that were being saved,
and then one odd one for the sacrifice.
That Noah offered after he landed the ark,
as we see in chapter eight.
You say, well, how can he get all
those animals in the ark?
That must have been some job catching all
those animals.
He must have been better than the circus,
you know, go out there and catch all
those animals and bring them in somehow.
No, it says that God brought them in.
God brought them to the ark.
They migrated there according to God's direction, he
made them, he knows how to guide them
and direct them.
He does that every day and all the
wonderful migration abilities that animals have.
And so they migrated there to the ark
and they went in.
But couldn't the animals have survived if it
was only a local flood?
Why such a large boat, if only local
animals needed saving, that boat was big enough,
as we looked at last time, to save
all the animals around Earth at that time.
That is two in seven of each kind.
And so the animals that had to be
saved again and the largeness of that are
point to not just a local little flood,
but a very serious and worldwide flood.
Now we see even a stronger evidence in
verse four for yet seven days, and I
will cause it to rain upon the earth
40 days and 40 nights and every living
substance that I have made while I destroy
from off the face of the earth.
Now, that would be enough right there, wouldn't
it?
Every living substance that I have made while
I destroy from off the face of the
earth, that word destroy is very interesting in
the Hebrew, it's Mako.
It literally means to blot out or erase.
In Isaiah 44, verse 22, it speaks out
of the blotting out of the transgressions of
those who believe in Christ, those who believe
in the Lord.
In Second Kings 21, verse 13, God says
in his judgment on the city of Jerusalem,
he will wipe them out as a person
wipes out a bowl.
Just like washing a dish, he's going to
have it sparkling clean like it had been
through the dishwasher, as we might say today,
absolutely blotted out and erased.
He says, I'm going to erase all the
living substances off of the earth, off of
the whole planet.
You know, God has to get rid of
sin somehow.
He has to deal with sin somehow.
He must blot out and erase sin some
way.
And either it is washed away by the
blood as it was with Noah and his
sacrifice is looking forward to Christ giving his
blood on the cross.
Either it was the blood or it was
the flood that washed away those sins one
way or another.
And those people who clung to their sins
and refused the gospel that Noah preached God
into in washing their sins away from the
earth had to wash them away with it
down into hell forever.
And cleansing will come to this earth.
God is not going to have a dirty
earth covered with sin.
He either cleanses it by cleansing our hearts
of the sin, removing it from us so
that we can go to heaven to be
with him and dwell on this earth later
on after he cleanses the earth, or in
order to cleanse the earth, he has to
carry off those who cling to their sins
because he cannot abide sin.
He must cleanse it some way or other,
and either he blots out the sin in
our hearts by the blood of Christ or
he has to blot us out.
And the Bible uses that same word, Mokko,
in the Hebrew of the blotting out from
the book of life.
Is your name in that book?
Is your name in the book of life,
it can only be there when written in
the blood of Christ.
And the question today is, am I going
to accept Jesus Christ's substitute for my sin,
shedding his blood for me, or am I
going to cling to my sins and then
force God to destroy me in hell forever?
We're all sinners.
We all deserve help.
We all are deserving of punishment.
If you and I lived before the flood,
would we have been in the ark?
You know, I deserve to be washed away
with that flood as much as every one
of those people who were.
And so do you.
We shouldn't get ourselves all high and mighty
and think, well, I would have been in
the ark, would we?
Well, we believed in Christ and that's our
ark and we would have been in the
ark that way, wouldn't we?
But we deserve to be outside knocking on
the door.
And so we see that all living things
were destroyed from the off the face of
the earth in the flood that can only
be a worldwide flood, all living things and
animals and birds and insects migrate everywhere, they
go everywhere in order to get every one
of them, you'd have to bring water all
over the earth.
They still don't know how certain animals have
gotten to offshore islands, thousands of miles away
and to Australia and other things.
But somehow they get there would have taken
a worldwide flood.
To deal with all those things.
And then we see in verse twenty one,
and all flesh died, all flesh died that
moved upon the earth, both of the fowl
and the cattle and the beast and every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth and
every man.
Now, how could God say it any better?
How could you say it any better than
that if you're trying to tell about a
worldwide flood?
Every bug, every creeping thing was removed from
the earth.
Verse twenty two.
And in whose nostrils was the breath of
life of all that was in the dry
land, died everything, everything that breathes air and
that needs air to survive was breathing water
and did not survive in the flood.
Verse twenty three.
And every living substance was destroyed, which was
upon the face of the ground, both man
and cattle and creeping things in the fall
of the heaven.
And they were destroyed from the earth and
only Noah remained alive.
And they that were with him in the
ark, everything that was not in the ark
was destroyed.
Fourthly, we see the deeps were broken up
and the windows of heaven were open in
verses 10 through 12.
And he came to pass to after seven
days that the waters of the flood were
upon the earth in the six hundredth year
of Noah's life.
In the second month, in the same the
17th day of the month, the same day
where all the fountain even gives the day.
Isn't that interesting?
You know that in many, many cultures around
the world, November has some kind of day
of the dead kind of significance and and
days are set apart all around the world
in various cultures.
You know, if there's a worldwide flood, you'd
expect it to be remembered in the cultures
of many peoples around the world.
And, you know, that's true.
Surveys have been done that all the major
cultures around the world and even when they
go into new areas and jungles in South
America and Irian Jaya and wherever they go
around the world, they find there is some
kind of a legend about long ago there
was a great flood and only certain people
were saved in some kind of a boat.
Usually those stories are very twisted from what
the Bible account originally tells us.
But there's some kind of a remembrance of
the past and of a great death that
came upon the earth.
And it centers around this month of November,
which seems to be the month indicated here.
God isn't just talking in generalities.
He's talking about specifics and he's willing to
even put down the date.
Isn't that interesting?
But anyway, as we look here, we see
what happened.
It says the same day with all the
fountains of the great deep broken up and
the windows of heaven were opened and the
rain was upon the earth 40 days and
40 nights.
You say, wait a minute, in order to
have a flood that covers the whole earth,
you've got to have a lot of water.
Takes a lot of water.
I mean, it takes a lot of water
just to fill up my bathtub.
Look at that water bill.
And you see all the water that it
takes just to run a household and imagine
the water it would have taken to cover
the whole earth.
Where would it come from?
The Bible tells us exactly where it came
from.
It came from below and it came from
above.
It says the deeps were broken up to
see what this Hebrew word to whom means.
Look at Genesis chapter one and verse two.
And the earth was without form and void
and darkness was upon the face of the
deep and the spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.
We have a watery deep here that probably
includes the oceans and the subterranean waters.
There's a lot of water under the ground
and most places in the world you dig
down even today, dig down deep enough in
most places you'll find water somewhere even in
the desert.
It's amazing.
Apparently there was a great storehouse of water
under the crust of the earth, as well
as very deep oceans.
And God apparently lifted up the oceans and
also broke open these storehouses of water and
blasted this stuff up onto the surface of
the earth to flood it.
But not only did the water come up
from below.
And by the way, that word broken up
is a very violent word, the word broken,
the deep broken up is a word that
means to tear or to rip up, and
it's usually used in the Bible of ripping
somebody up with a sword.
I won't even go into all the details,
but it's a very violent word and it
speaks of a cataclysmic tearing of the earth's
crust.
Again, I'm not a scientist, but I'd like
to read to you from a scientist, Dr.
Morris has a doctorate in this area of
of water and hydraulics and that kind of
thing.
And he writes this, the Bible specifically attributes
the flood to the bursting of the fountains
of the great deep and the pouring down
of torrential rains from heaven.
These two phenomena are sufficient in themselves to
explain the flood and all its effects without
the necessity of resorting either supernatural creative miracles
or to the providentially ordered extraterrestrial interferences of
speculative nature.
The breaking up or literally the cleaving open
of the fountains of the great deep is
mentioned first and so evidently was the initial
action which triggered the rest.
These conduits somehow all developed under uncontrollable fractures
on the same day for such a remarkable
worldwide phenomenon.
There must have been a worldwide cause.
The most likely cause would seem to have
been a rapid buildup and surge of intense
pressure throughout the underground system.
And this, in turn, would presumably require a
rapid rise in temperature throughout that system.
Too little is known even today about the
nature of the Earth's deep interior and its
thermal activity to decide exactly what might have
triggered such a temperature rise.
Nuclear reactions involving heavy elements, a slow buildup
of temperature against some sort of insulating layer
in the deeper crust, followed by a sudden
fracture of the layer when the pressures and
temperatures became too great, various combinations of seismic
and volcanic activity, many possibilities might be conjectured.
In any case, there is surely abundant evidence
in the Earth's crust, especially in its crystalline
basement complex of intense igneous, metamorphic and tectonic
activity in the past.
Just the sort of evidence one might expect
to find if such a sequence of events
as outlined above had actually taken place.
It is also possible that some of these
phenomena could have been miraculous in the sense
of providential ordering of times and circumstances.
Once the postulated pressure rise caused the first
fountain to crack open, the pressurized fluid would
surge through at this point and further weaken
nearby boundaries until such a worldwide chain reaction
would develop, cleaving open all the fountains of
the great deep throughout the world.
The volcanic explosions and eruptions which would have
accompanied these fractures, fractures would have poured great
quantities of magma up from the Earth's mantle
along with the waters.
Furthermore, immense quantities of volcanic dust would have
been blown skyward along with gigantic sprays of
water and turbulent surges of the atmosphere.
The combination of atmospheric turbulence, expanding and cooling
gases and a vast supply of dust and
other particles to serve as nuclei of condensation
would suffice to penetrate the upper canopy of
water vapor and trigger another chain reaction there,
causing its waters to begin to condense and
coalesce and soon to start moving earthward as
a torrential global downpour of rain.
Well, you can read more about that from
Mars another time if you'd like.
But isn't that interesting?
Waters from the deep then causing this vapor
canopy around the world called the firmament to
collapse the waters above.
You notice here the windows of heaven were
opened.
There's a whole book by a fellow by
the name of Dillow who has written it
called The Waters Above and deals with this
whole thermal vapor canopy around the world.
But this thermal blanket apparently all of a
sudden came down that it protected the earth.
Some scientists believe that's why people live so
much longer before the flood was because this
vapor canopy protected from many of the rays
and from outer space that tend to speed
up the aging process.
I don't know that means if you live
in a greenhouse, you live longer or what.
But certainly the world was like a greenhouse
with semi-tropical temperatures all over the earth.
That's why they find semi-tropical plants and
animals.
Fossils of them on the North Pole and
the mountaintops and all kinds of other places.
And so we see here the deep broken
up.
The waters above coming down in Job 12,
15.
It speaks of he sent them out and
they overturned the earth, speaking here of how
the world probably even tilted on its axis
by this tremendous activity taking place all over
the world.
In 2 Peter 3, 6, it speaks of
the world overflowed with water.
Water can be very heavy.
I always get nervous.
We were down at the aquarium in Baltimore
and seeing these huge water tanks up in
that building.
Makes me nervous when I think about it
because water can be very heavy and very
violent and there's hardly anything that can stand
in the way of a tidal wave or
something of that sort.
You can imagine the water and all of
this.
That's probably where the Grand Canyon came from
as well as other great geologic evidences around
the world of a great cataclysm.
So we see the source of all this
water now, if all of that's happening, does
that sound like a local flood?
No, it sounds very much like the water
was there, wasn't it?
In order to bring about this worldwide flood.
As I was thinking about this, God always
suits the punishment to the crime.
And just as the angels had left their
appointed place and it mixed with humans on
the earth.
So the firmament or the vapor canopy left
its appointed place and mixed with the waters
of the earth to produce the hydraulic cataclysm
we call the flood.
God says, OK, you want to mix that
up in the spiritual realm, then you're going
to have a mix up in the material
realm as well.
And he mixed all of that together and
produced the flood.
Imagine if our soul did prosper or rather
our body did prosper as our soul did.
As is written the New Testament to one
man of God, he said that your hope,
your health will prosper as your as your
soul does.
What if our physical health and our circumstances
were directly parallel to our spiritual life and
vitality?
But this is what God did in judgment
here as a warning to us.
Fifthly, we see the 40 days of rain,
150 days of the flood, a total flood
of 371 days before it all finished.
But that much time with the waters prevailed.
In verse 12, the rain was upon the
earth 40 days and 40 nights.
That was the rain that came, but the
water was there a lot longer.
Verse 24, and the waters prevailed upon the
earth 150 days.
In other words, it covered it all up
for 150 days.
And then it was even longer than that,
almost a year before the waters finally went
down so that they could leave the ark.
Imagine spending over a year in that ark
with all those animals and all of that.
This was a worldwide flood.
It was no ordinary local flood.
I remember hearing a story about a man
in Pennsylvania who had been there, and I
think it was a flood of 49.
Tremendous flood up in Pennsylvania.
And he loved to tell about it and
loved to tell about the flood of 49.
And the story goes that he died and
he went to heaven and they were asking
if there's anything he'd like after he'd gotten
in.
He said, well, I'd like to get a
group together and tell him about the flood
of 49.
They said, well, we could probably arrange that.
But you realize that Noah will be there.
And you know, this was not a local
flood.
As big as Hurricane Agnes was coming down
through the state park here and tearing all
that up, that was nothing compared to the
tremendous destruction that took place all around the
world in this worldwide flood.
Then we see sixthly in verses 19 and
20 that all the mountains were covered.
How high did the water go?
Was it just a little skim of water
over the earth?
No, it covered the mountains.
Verses 19 and 20.
And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth
and all the high hills that were under
the whole heaven were covered.
Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail and
the mountains were covered.
The ark is about 30 cubits high and
is about half this probably where it's set
in the water.
What he's saying is that even above the
highest mountains, you could still float that ark.
There was even that much water above the
highest mountains because he said, you know, we
float around, we never ran into anything until
the water started to come down.
Now, Mount Ararat, where the ark rested, is
17000 feet in height.
That is a lot of water.
That's got to be a worldwide flood.
The waters prevailed.
The word prevailed is Govara in Hebrew means
the overpower.
It's used in Exodus 1711 and in many
other cases in the Old Testament of battle
and how the Israelites prevailed against the Assyrians
or whatever it was.
It speaks of a of a battle that
God was bringing destruction upon this earth and
battling with mankind who had risen up in
pride and said, we don't need you, God.
We don't need you.
We can live our own lives.
We can live our own way.
We don't want your laws.
We don't want your salvation.
We don't want your ways.
We're going to live our own way.
We're going to build our own civilization.
And God said, oh, no, you won't.
All it takes is to remove the air
for you to breathe and you're finished.
Isn't that true with any of us?
All we have to do is stop breathing
and all of our plans, all of our
goals, all of our possessions, all of our
desires are finished.
And we face God as in those days,
all the mountains covered, all, all, all.
Now, if it's all the mountains, that does
sound like all the earth, doesn't it?
Overwhelmed.
It says the mountains were covered.
The word covered is Kasha in the Hebrew,
overwhelmed, washed away, destroyed, carried about in Psalm
104, verses five to nine.
Speaking of the flood, it says the water
stood above the mountains, a worldwide flood.
And either there was a worldwide flood or
the Bible isn't true because the Bible says
in every possible way that it was a
worldwide flood.
Now, the very fact that the ark was
provided speaks that it was not a local
flood because Noah had 100 years to build
that ark.
He could have traveled a long ways in
100 years if it was just a local
flood.
God could have sent him somewhere where there
wouldn't be a flood.
That's what God did with Lot when he
was going to destroy locally Sodom and Gomorrah.
He got them out and then he brought
the judgment.
But with Noah, he had to get him
up to avoid the judgment because it was
coming over the whole earth.
There was no place he could go to
avoid it.
A worldwide flood.
And what about the covenant that God made
in chapter eight with the rainbow?
He said he would no more destroy the
earth for the flood if that was a
local flood.
What does that mean?
There have been plenty of local floods since
then.
If God was saying, I'm not going to
have another local flood, that's meaningless.
In fact, it makes God a liar because
there have been plenty of local floods.
What God promised was there would never be
another cataclysmic worldwide flood, as in the Genesis
account.
And the other thing is, if there was
not a worldwide flood, then Jesus is a
liar in Luke 17, 27, because he said
the flood came and destroyed them all.
All destroyed them all, speaking of the people
who are married, given a marriage and living
before the time of the flood.
Now, turn back with me again to second
Peter three.
As we try to draw this to an
application in our own lives.
Second Peter, chapter three, verses one to 18,
second Peter, chapter three.
Now, we've already read and commented on those
first seven verses.
Let's look, starting with verse eight, at the
message that this has for us.
But beloved, be not ignorant of this one
thing.
Those people are willingly ignorant, he says.
Now, don't you be ignorant at all?
One thing that one day is with the
Lord is a thousand years and a thousand
years is one day.
Judgment is coming because it hasn't come in
yet, come yet doesn't mean it's not coming.
It will come.
You can be sure you can be sure
there is hell fire.
You can be sure there is going to
be a tribulation.
You can be sure that the earth will
someday be consumed with fire.
You can be sure of it.
You say it hasn't happened yet.
It doesn't even seem like it's going to
happen.
I don't see any evidence of it happening.
It is sure because it is God's word.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promises.
Some men count slackness.
He doesn't promise and then forget about it.
But as long suffering to us, we're not
willing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance.
He does not want anyone in hell.
He doesn't want you in hell.
He doesn't want anybody to go to hell
and burn and suffer for their own sins.
That's why he provided an arc of safety
in Jesus Christ, that if we believe in
him, we would have eternal life.
And we die or he comes, we go
to heaven with him.
He wants all to come to repentance and
we should, too.
But verse 10, but the day of the
Lord will come as a thief in the
night in the which the heavens will pass
away with a great noise and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat.
The earth also and the works that are
therein shall be burned up.
He says next time won't be with water,
I promise that in the rainbows there, but
I didn't say anything about fire.
And if you think God's judgment is over
with and that was just Old Testament stuff,
you ain't seen nothing yet.
The fire that will come will melt everything.
Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, we don't
look for that.
We don't look for the melting, burning, destroying
fires of judgment of God.
We look for a new heaven, new heavens
and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
And because it righteousness dwells there, it will
be the eternity of heaven and earth.
Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such
things, do you you're looking for such things?
You're looking for that new heaven and new
earth.
Adorned as a bride, prepared for a husband
coming down out of heaven from God, as
spoken of in Revelation.
Chapter 21, new heavens and a new earth
where there is no need for the sun
by day and moon by night, because Jesus
himself is a light of it.
Where we will dwell without sin and love
and perfection forever.
He says, seeing you look for such things,
be diligent, be diligent, work at it, that
you may be found up here in peace.
Without spotting blameless, he says, start getting along
with each other.
So I can't stand that person.
I know he's a Christian, but I can't
stand him.
But you may have to live next door
in heaven.
God may just put you in the same
mansion together, you know, just to get things
worked out.
You say, well, then he'll be different.
Well, God wants him to be different now
and wants you to be different towards him
now and wants us to grow in our
love for each other.
He says, live in peace, live in peace.
As much as lies within you, live at
peace with each other.
We're talking in our prayer time this morning
in Sunday school about one of the greatest
things that hinders people from hearing God's word
is bitterness towards other Christians.
Bitterness towards a preacher, bitterness towards a teacher,
bitterness towards a husband or wife or children
or parents or towards some other believer.
Bitterness in our hearts, a lack of peace
between believers hinders God's work in our hearts.
And he says he's coming.
Let him find you in peace without spot.
You say it's not a big sin, it's
just a little spot.
But it's not a big soil.
It's not anything anybody else could see.
It's not out there in the open.
It's just back here somewhere.
I've got a little spot.
And if I keep it covered up, it
won't be any problem.
But God says I can see that spot.
If you have a spot of sin in
your life, if you have something in your
life that you're holding on to and not
allowing his blood to cleanse, he says you
get it cleaned up because I'm coming.
I'm going to judge the world for that
spot and blameless.
Blameless means no open charges against you.
You've cleared things up with other people.
If you've wronged them, you've gone to them
and you've asked for their forgiveness and you
have a clear conscience and account that the
long suffering of our Lord is salvation.
Even as our beloved brother, Paul, also, according
to the wisdom given unto him, it's written
unto you as also in all his epistles,
speaking in them of those of these things
in which are some things hard to be
understood, which they are unlearned and stable rest
as they do also the other scriptures under
their own destruction.
You therefore, beloved, seeing you see, he'd work
things out.
I think that's a good example right there.
This Paul was the one who withstood him
to the face in Galatians and told him
he was wrong and it was to be
blamed and straighten him out in public.
And it later on, Peter writes and he
says, my beloved brother, Paul, he worked things
out.
He was a good example of peace, wasn't
he?
He therefore, beloved, seeing, you know, these things
now, you know, beware, lest you also like
those people before the flood being led away
from the with the error of the wicked
fall from your own stead.
Fastness, but grow in grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
to him be glory both now and evermore.
He says, get to know Jesus, get to
know him better.
So often, even in our Christianity, Jesus is
the forgotten person in our Christian lives.
What a wonderful thing it is to read
the Gospels and to see, well, how did
Jesus handle that?
What did he do in that situation?
How did he speak to this person?
How did he deal with that kind of
a person, that kind of a situation and
just say, well, that's what I need to
be.
Because the goal of my Christian life is
to be like Jesus, be like him, be
like him.
And as we are like him, we will
draw others to him and they will come
into the arc of safety and they will
be saved.
And there's going to be many more than
eight in the arc of safety when Jesus
comes again.
Are you going to be there for Noah?
It was the blood and safety and salvation
for the other people.
It was the flood and destruction and the
judgment of God.
What will it be for you?
The blood or the fire, salvation or judgment?
Let's bow in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we believe you've been working in
the hearts of some here today who have
become hardened like those people before the flood,
just sort of thinking that things could go
on and on the way they were.
The Lord, you've been working by your Holy
Spirit and convicting some hearts today.
And there's a struggle going on in a
battle.
Lord, I just pray that you would work
in the hearts of some here today, that
they would yield to you for salvation.
First of all, let you save them and
stop any other method of their own thinking
of their own ways to be saved and
come to you and allow you to save
them.
No, Lord, I pray for believers here today
who have gone cold, who have gotten backslidden,
who have allowed sin to spot their lives,
who have not been living at peace with
the brethren, but have been living as if
things could go on and on and could
be taken care of sometime later.
Lord, I just pray that you would bring
conviction of sin, of righteousness and of judgment
upon each one according to your will, that
your work would be done in each life.
We pray it in Jesus name.
Amen.
Well, I guess I don't need any introduction.
Dan said, just go ahead.
I guess you all know who I am.
And I want to thank the church for
your support.
Grace Mission and the pastor, Bill Franck and
Pal Mistoven and that work.
And I've given Dan a videotape of that
work and so presently probably to be showing
it to you.
And I appreciate the men from this church
that have gone down to Haiti and another
group, I understand, is going down in the
middle of May and that's good.
Then I got to thinking about all the
fine looking young men and older men that
there are here in the church who are
prominently serving the Lord in so many areas.
And then I got to thinking, why is
it that we have so many fine looking
men, younger and older men that are able
to serve the Lord so efficiently?
And I thought, well, it's because of their
wives.
And I believe that's the main reason that
the men can go to Haiti.
You let a man go to Haiti for
a week or two and leave his wife
back home and she doesn't know whether, you
know, he's coming back alive or what's going
to happen to him.
And yet she's willing for him to go.
And you wives that support your husbands and
teaching in school and serving here in the
church and going over to the airport, out
in visitation and everything else.
And I appreciate my daughter-in-law for
her willingness to back up her husband and
our son.
We praise the Lord for her family.
So that was all free.
We'll charge you for that.
It's about a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight for the
way you're blessing in this church.
Thank you for the open doors you've given
in visitation and on the radio and other
areas.
May your hand of blessing continue to rest
here.
We thank you and praise you for the
protection that you are giving to the leadership
and to these people who love you.
Now bless the word.
May the Holy Spirit speak to us tonight.
May Jesus be lifted up in Jesus name.
Amen.
May we open our Bibles to the book
of Joshua, chapter five, verse 13.
Joshua, chapter five and verse 13.
For the background of this verse, of these
three verses that I'm going to read, you
have to go back to the third chapter
of Joshua.
And God had said to Joshua, you are
to take Moses' place and to lead the
nation of Israel into the promised land.
That was a big job.
And I'm sure he was nervous and frightened.
But God said in chapter three, verse seven,
the Lord said to Joshua, as they started
over the Jordan River, this day will I
begin to magnify thee in the sight of
all Israel.
Now, he is going to magnify Joshua, but
I want you to see what that means.
Also, he told him over in chapter four,
verse 13, that there were 40,000 prepared
for war to go with him.
Again, on verse 14, on that day, the
Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all
Israel.
So Joshua knew that he had taken the
place of Moses and he had a responsibility,
not only for the soldiers, but maybe for
two million people.
No longer was man appalling.
The food had to be provided, security for
his people, to conquer the land, a big
job.
He might have said, well, who is sufficient
for this?
Notice in chapter five, verse 13, it came
to pass when Joshua was by Jericho, he
was looking the situation over.
He lifted up his eyes and looked and
behold, there stood a man over against him,
I believe the Lord Jesus, and with his
sword drawn in his hand.
And Joshua went unto him and said to
him, are you for us or for our
adversaries?
Well, that's what they said to Abraham Lincoln,
you know, during the Civil War, which side
has God on?
And so that's what the question is here.
Are you for me or are you for
our adversaries?
And look at the answer.
The Lord said, no, I'm neither for you
nor for them.
In other words, he's telling Joshua, I am
not going to take your part.
I am not going to exalt you.
Look how Moses failed.
Sure, he did some wonderful things, but Moses
failed.
And you will fail.
And I'm not going to take your part.
No way.
But I will take your place.
Now, that's exactly what the Lord wants to
do with us in order that we might
serve him.
You know how we got saved.
You know, the Lord did 90 percent and
we did 10 percent.
We did our very best and he did
what we couldn't do.
That right.
For by grace, are you saved through faith
and that not of yourselves?
It is the gift of God.
Why does it have to be all of
the Lord?
Ephesians chapter two, verse one tells us we
are what?
Dead in trespasses and sins.
Colossians 2, 6 says, as you received the
Lord Jesus Christ, so walk ye in him.
He said in John 15, 5, without me,
you can do what?
Nothing.
And so that's what he's telling Joshua.
Joshua, I am not going to take your
part, but I am willing to take your
place.
I am willing to occupy your life.
I am willing to take control of your
body.
I am willing to take control of your
attitudes.
I am willing to control you that you
will be in my place, doing my work,
serving me.
Now, that's exactly the way Paul lived.
Saul, the the persecutor, was on his way
to Damascus, a brilliant man, well educated, well
trained.
And yet unuseful to the Lord, though he
thought he was serving God.
And so God struck him down and then
he was blind and he came to the
place where he was willing to say, for
to me to live is Christ.
He said, I am crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me.
He said, I am only able to reproduce
and produce for God as he controls my
life.
And that is what happened to Joshua.
That is what happened to Paul.
And the Lord Jesus Christ, as a man,
lived that way, too.
He said, I do always those things that
please him.
When he had to find 12 disciples, he
might have said, I have innate knowledge, I
have the keenest mind, I have the greatest
ability.
No, he didn't do that.
He was a subjection to his father that
the Holy Spirit might control him because he
was controlled and led and filled by the
Holy Spirit.
And he spent all night in prayer, seeking
the mind of the father, because according to
Philippians chapter two, we're told that we must
be willing to have the same mind as
the Lord Jesus Christ, though he was God
in the flesh.
And yet he was willing to submit himself
to his father and follow his will and
his way and walk in his mind each
day.
And that's exactly what the Lord wants to
do with us.
In other words, our life as a missionary
or our life as a Christian is only
the overflow of the life of Christ in
us.
He wants to take control of our life.
We must be willing to let him have
absolute control.
Have thine own way, Lord.
Have thine own way.
Thou art the potter.
I am the clay.
And as we receive the Lord, so walk
ye in him.
A man one time had a thousand acres.
That's possible because I know of a Mr.
Lyon down in Port Ritchie, Florida, that has
about a thousand acres of land.
And he is giving that land all away.
Baraka Mission is going down and establishing a
home.
Word of Life has been given quite a
few acres of land to set up a
camp in that area.
This man had a thousand acres and he
said, I'm going to give it all away
for Christian work, except I want one acre
for myself.
And this Mr. Lyon I know has reserved
two or three acres for himself.
But this man who had the thousand acres
said, I'm going to, I want the acre
that I want, acre is right in the
center of that thousand acres.
And then I want to write a way
into that one acre.
Well, that would disrupt the whole plan if
a man was planning to set up the
development or whatever he might be wanting to
build in that place.
And I think sometimes as Christians, that's what
we do.
We say, Lord, I'm yours.
Everything I have, my family, my possessions and
everything, except one thing, just one thing.
And I want to write a way to
that.
And I'm going to hold on to that.
The Lord Jesus Christ and Paul, the apostle
said, everything is yours.
My life, my possessions, my family, everything.
In fact, the Lord Jesus said, unless you
hate your father and your mother, your wife
and your sister and your family, you cannot
be my disciple.
Now, he just meant he must be first.
He must have the priority in our life.
He must control our life.
And then the Christian life is just the
overflow of the presence of the Lord Jesus
within us.
But our old self does give us problems.
So God permits difficulties, testings and trials in
order that the channel of the life of
Christ might become deeper.
You that have suffered, you that have gone
through some hard, difficult experiences and have yielded
up your experience, yielded up your difficulty, yielded
up your financial difficulty to the Lord Jesus.
He has taken over in that area of
your life and in through that experience has
reproduced himself.
And others have seen the Lord Jesus living
in you.
That's why God says all things work together
for good to them that love God, to
them that are called according to his purpose.
What's his purpose?
Verse 29, that the Lord Jesus Christ might
be magnified in us, that he might be
seen in us, that Christ might be exalted
in our life.
God is forming Christ in us.
That's his purpose in working in our life.
Jesus said, search the scriptures, for in them
ye think ye have eternal life.
Some folks can quote a lot of verses.
I'm glad you're learning scripture, but it's not
enough just to learn scripture, not enough just
to put it up here in your head.
The scriptures point to the Lord Jesus.
The scriptures exalt the Lord Jesus.
Unless Jesus Christ is magnified in your life,
the scripture is not going to do you
any benefit or any good or anyone else.
But as the word of God is lived
out in your life, then Jesus Christ is
magnified.
All through scripture he's spoken of as the
bread of life.
We're told that this word is the very
person of the Lord Jesus because in the
beginning was the word.
The word is with God and the word
was God.
All things were made by him and without
him was not anything made that was made.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among
us.
And I have in my hands the living
word of God because this is quick and
powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.
It pulsates with life.
It pulsates with the presence of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And as we read the word and let
it become a part of our life, Christ
is magnified through us.
And we find that our life is profitable,
our life is fulfilled and God is working
out his purpose within us.
Look in Philippians chapter 2 and verse 13.
A verse of scripture that has become very
precious to me.
All of us know Philippians 4.13. I
can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth
me.
Or Philippians 4.19. My God shall supply
all you need according to his riches in
glory.
What about Philippians 2.13?
Philippians 2.13. For it is God which
worketh in you both to will and to
do of his good pleasure.
He created you physically.
And if you're born again, he has created
you spiritually for himself.
And it's been the joy of my heart
and my wife these past four years to
believe this verse of scripture.
You know, we felt very much at loss
after leaving the pastorate and being in the
ministry for 40 years.
Getting involved in a work that we really
didn't know very much about.
And we found out as we got involved
in Christian work that it's quite different even
being a missionary than it is being a
pastor.
Being a pastor, well, you don't have absolute
control, but you can control a lot of
areas of the church.
And you do have quite a bit of
control, but when you become a missionary, you
don't have very much control.
You really have to submit to the Lord
and everything and have to recognize that it's
God who is working out his purpose and
his will.
We came across a little expression here that
kind of summarizes what it means to be
a missionary or in service of the Lord.
And maybe it works in other areas of
life as well.
We the willing, led by the unknowing, are
doing the impossible for the ungrateful.
We've done so much for so long with
so little.
We're now qualified to do anything with nothing.
That sort of summarizes serving the Lord.
But I would add that with Christ all
things are possible.
And with him, he is working out his
purpose and his will.
That's the joy I've found, and I think
Mel and others have too, in going to
Haiti.
Things do not function the same as they
do in the States.
And those who come down to Haiti thinking
that they should, they become very frustrated.
But the delight in working in Haiti these
many times, and Mel and others have you
been down many times, it's working with us
and my wife and I going down and
teaching in September, is that in spite of
us the work gets done.
In spite of us, the Lord is magnified.
The ministries in these areas are growing.
And you just have to sit back, you
do the best you can in planning and
working and moving and deciding and so forth.
But the final decisions are the Lord's decisions.
The final ministry is the Lord's.
The work that is accomplished, you have to
sit back and say the Lord has done
this.
The Lord is magnified.
It's just a wonderful experience to be involved
in what the Lord's doing, and then let
Him be the one that is exalted.
Because you have to say that as you
observe what's being done.
Well, it certainly wasn't me.
The Lord did it.
Praise the Lord.
If you turn with me to the book
of Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 18.
I may have mentioned this before, but you
weren't all here at that time.
And it fits into what we're talking about
tonight.
How can we permit the Lord Jesus to
take control of our life?
How does the Holy Spirit control us so
that Christ can be magnified?
You know, the longer I live, and probably
you've experienced this too, you feel like Paul
when you try to serve the Lord in
any area.
He said, the good that I would, I
do not.
The evil that I would not, that I
do.
And Paul kept saying through Romans 7, no
matter how well I plan it, it's a
mess when it works out my way.
But the Lord, when He works it out,
it's fine.
But just things don't work out quite right
when I seem to be having my way.
And finally he cried out and he said,
Oh miserable man that I am, who will
deliver me from the body of this death?
How is there going to be any help
in this experience?
And then he turns to Romans 8.
And he says there's therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus.
Praise the Lord for that.
Then he says, they who walk after the
Spirit fulfill don't fulfill the lusts of the
flesh.
They that are led by the Spirit of
God, they are the sons of God.
The Holy Spirit bears witness with my spirit
that I am a child of God.
The Holy Spirit through us does the work.
The Holy Spirit exalts the Lord Jesus Christ.
Just like faith.
Faith is a gift.
If we're dead in trespasses and sins, how
can you believe?
Ephesians 2.8, God gives you the faith
to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have found that knowing promises is a
great benefit, and I know many promises to
claim.
But you have a big financial need, for
example, and you say to yourself, my God
shall supply all my need according to his
riches and glory by Christ Jesus.
And you can still be nervous and kind
of upset.
That's what somebody said, money kept them from
being nervous.
But as you walk with the Lord, as
you let the Word of God saturate your
mind in life and believe it, and yield
to the Holy Spirit in every area of
your life that you know, the Holy Spirit
just begins to move in you because the
fruit of the Spirit is what?
Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.
And the Holy Spirit just in a normal,
natural way.
My wife has always found it easy, I
felt anyway, to believe the Lord.
And I remember one time we bought a
new Oldsmobile a few years ago, and we're
on our way up to Rhode Island to
a class reunion, and I'm coming to the
George Washington Bridge, and my car has a
knock in it.
And I said, honey, I think there's a
a rod or something's broken in the motor.
And I stopped and I pulled over the
side and stopped the motor.
I looked around for a garage, and I
said, I hate to go to these garages
near the George Washington Bridge, but I'm going
to have to.
She said, we're going to pray for the
Lord to fix the motor.
I said, honey, you expect the Lord to
get down inside of you?
Do you know where cylinders are?
You know where rods are?
How is he going to do that?
She said, I don't know, but he can
do anything.
But I said, well, maybe he can, but
I don't know how he's going to fix
this motor.
She says, well, I'm going to pray.
So she prayed for the Lord to fix
the motor, and I thought, how in the
world is the Lord going to fix the
motor?
And then she said, now you start the
car and go.
It'll be all right.
I started the car, and it sounded all
right.
And I said, well, I think I ought
to go to this garage over here and
have them check it out.
She says, it's fixed.
What do you want to do a garage
for?
But I haven't always, and it never did
it again, and it did run.
Kept that car for a few years.
Now some people explain it with certain things
and that.
I don't know what it was.
But anyway, the Lord took care of it.
But with me, it hasn't been that easy.
But I have found that as I have
been yielding to the Lord and believing that
God is working out His purpose and His
will and accepting His will in every instant
that I can, there's just my faith has
increased supernaturally.
And I find it easy to trust the
Lord to go to Haiti, to supply the
money that we need every time we need
to go.
To take care of anything.
And it's not natural to me.
That's what I'm talking about.
How does this come?
Look in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 18.
Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess.
Now, you know what happens when you take
alcohol, I hope not from experience, but from
observation and from reading.
The alcohol goes into your bloodstream immediately.
And it saturates your mind and all of
your body right through you because your blood
circulating everywhere and you are saturated with alcohol.
Now he says in the same way, verse
18, be filled or be saturated with the
spirit.
You see, you don't hold that one acre.
You yield up the whole thousand acres.
You say, Lord, my family, my future, my
job, my wife, everything's yours, everything.
And I'll do your will.
Just tell me what it is.
I'm yours.
100%.
No, I don't, I don't hold anything back.
Everything.
Everything's yours.
Now he says if we're willing to yield
to the Holy Spirit and you have the
Holy Spirit of Christ, if you don't, Romans
8, 9, if any man have not the
spirit of Christ, he's none of his.
You have the Holy Spirit if you're a
Christian.
Just let him have his way.
What will happen?
Well, he says in verse 8, 19, you'll
be singing and humming hymns and spiritual songs
and making melody in your heart to the
Lord.
You know, that'd be kind of nice around
the house to have you humming and sing
instead of grumbling and groaning.
And then in verse 20, you give thanks.
And if you're not very thankful, come on
down to Haiti.
When you get back, when you turn on
the faucet, you'll praise the Lord.
When you have, when you can sit down
to a meal without beans and rice, you'll
praise the Lord.
And then don't have to eat goat meat.
You'll praise the Lord.
You know, you'll find a lot of things
to thank the Lord for.
And then in verse 21, you won't be
go around, you know, pounding the desk and
saying your wife has to submit.
You'll submit too, because it says submitting one
to another.
You each submit.
Then the wife will not have a problem
submitting to her husband, verse 22.
And also the husband, according to this passage,
will love his wife as Christ loves the
church.
The children in verse six will obey their
parents.
They'll honor their father and their mother.
And verse four, the father will not be
provoking his children.
Who does all that?
Is that by training?
Is that by willpower?
It's by the Holy Spirit as he takes
over in your life.
It's great to live this kind of a
life.
You don't need tranquilizers to go to sleep.
You don't need pep pills to get you
going in the morning.
It's a delightful life just to let him
have his way.
If more Christians would just believe this.
Now, how is this done?
Turn with the Colossians chapter three and verse
16.
Now, this is a parallel passage of scripture.
You'll find that if you will do this,
you get the same results.
Verse 16.
Let the word of Christ dwell or live
in you richly.
If you do, what will happen?
Same thing.
You'll sing psalms and songs.
Verse 17.
You'll be thankful.
Verse 18, wives will submit.
Verse 19, a husband loves his wife, not
bitter against her.
Verse 20, the children obey their parents.
Verse 21, servants fathers do not provoke their
children and servants, you're obedient to your masters.
Same results.
So as I see this, as we study
the word of God, and you'll find this
true, the more often you attend Sunday morning,
Sunday evening and prayer meeting and Bible studies
and listen to the word of God on
the radio and on TV and spend time
in the word of God yourself and believe
it and let it permeate down from your
head down into your life and be obedient
to the word of God in that proportion,
the Holy Spirit takes over in your life
and you are singing and rejoicing, you are
thankful and you are producing love and joy
and peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
and self-control, and you're not doing a
blessed thing.
The Lord's doing it all.
And then you just find it easy to
go over to the airport, to go house
-to-house visitation, to read the scriptures, to
be nice to your wife or husband, to
be friendly, to go out and help your
neighbors and friends because it's just the Holy
Spirit's promptings and guidance and it's just as
normal to you because the Lord knows all
your personality.
He knows your background all the way back
to Adam and he knows what you would
make you happy, what you would be delightful
in doing, and as the psalmist said, delight
thyself in the Lord and he gives you
the desires of your heart.
And you get so that when you say
to yourself, my, wouldn't I like to go
to Israel?
Where do you think that idea came from?
The Lord probably, and he wants you to
go.
He'll work it out for you.
Or he'll put another desire in your heart.
Maybe you think you ought to have a
new car because the tires are getting thin.
You know, you just never know how the
Lord will impress you.
And as he impresses these things upon you,
it's because you are walking with him and
he wants you to live this way.
He may want you to give to missions.
He may want you to give and not
have so many gadgets around the house that
you don't need.
But your life is profitable.
And who is magnified?
Who is glorified?
Then when people come around and you do
something for them, they say to you, you
know, you're a nice fella.
You'll say, really?
I'm not.
You want to ask my wife sometimes.
I'm really not.
But you know, and if you go on
saying to people, yes, I'm pretty good.
You know, I'm kind.
I'm nice.
You discourage them.
They'll say, I can't be that way.
But if you say to them, the reason
I'm kind and thoughtful and do the things
I do is because of the Lord Jesus
living in me.
You encourage them because they'll say, well, if
the Lord can help that poor wretch, maybe
he can help me.
Now, this is the way Paul lived.
And Paul said in Philippians chapter 1, he
said that Christ might be magnified in me.
Another time he said that he might be
magnified in me, whether it be by life
or by death.
Sometimes I've heard people say to me as
a Christian, you know, I'm really afraid to
die.
I really, I'm not afraid to die as
far as going where I'm going, but the
process.
The answer is you're not ready to die
then yet.
So don't worry because when you need to,
when you're going to die, there'll be dying
grace.
Whenever you have to go anywhere or do
anything, fly to Haiti, serve the Lord.
If you have no grace to do it,
you don't have to do it.
So don't worry about it.
If you ought to do it, God will
give you grace to do it.
And it's a delight.
It's great to serve the Lord.
So that's what I would encourage you to
do.
Just yield up to him.
Let go and let the Lord take control.
And he'll make you a blessing because missionary
service is really just the overflow of the
presence of Christ in you.
Let him have his way.
Praise the Lord for those to be baptized
tonight.
And they're showing to us exactly what it
means to be a Christian.
It means a willingness to die to self
and let Jesus Christ relive his life over
again through your personality because there's nobody just
like you.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this church and
ministry, for our son, the pastor, and his
dear wife and children, for the elders, those
who lead in this ministry, those who sacrificially
serve you.
And we know that there are many, many,
many people here in this church that know
and live as we've been speaking tonight.
That's why there's such a blessing.
We pray for any that may be here
tonight that have not yet surrendered to you
completely.
And you have said, I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God that you
present your body a living sacrifice.
May they present their body to you right
now at this moment.
May they be unwilling to be conformed to
this age, but may they be willing to
be transformed by letting their minds be renewed,
by studying the scriptures, listening to the Word,
coming to every service where the Word is
taught, that they may grow in grace and
knowledge of the Lord.
And then, Father, if there's anyone here tonight
that has not yet received Jesus Christ as
his or her Savior, may they pray right
now and say, Lord Jesus, I am a
sinner.
I thank you for dying on the cross
for me.
I now receive you as my Savior and
my Lord.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.