This hour, we'll look at the
story of the days of Noah, and then the next hour, the days
of Lot, and then Lord will on Wednesday night, on the body,
where the body is, eagles gather. But Luke 17, read verses 20 through 21, 20 and 21. When he was demanded
of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered
them, The Pharisee. The kingdom of God cometh not
with observation or outward show. Neither shall they say, lo here,
lo there. For behold, the kingdom of God
is within you. What he said unto them is the
king is standing right in front of you and you don't know him.
The kingdom of God is here because Christ is the king who has all
dominion. John said that when he was preaching,
he preached to a lot of Pharisees. And he said, there standeth one
among you who you don't know. But I know him, he said. Because
the Spirit of God revealed Christ to John, didn't it? He descended
on his shoulder. It's the same today. Many, many
Pharisees, most religious people are Pharisees. And most talk
about, are taken up with signs and events and this kingdom,
but they're not taken up with The King. Many people want to
talk about the coming of Christ that don't know the Christ is
coming. God's people are taking up with
Him. It doesn't matter when He comes
or what happened. They're waiting on Him. Verse
22, so He starts talking to His disciples. He said unto the disciple,
you see that? Now he's talking to them. He
says, the days will come when you shall desire to see one of
the days of the Son of Man. He said, there's going to be
a day when I'm not going to be with you and you're going to
desire me. Just one more day with me. And don't you know that
they were constantly berating themselves for not listening,
not heeding, being more thankful for every day they had with our
Lord. And then he was gone. And those
three days he was gone were the worst days of their life. And
then they saw him ascend and they were standing there watching
him, remember? Watching him. And the angel said, don't gaze
up into heaven, the same Jesus so come. Well, they didn't know
when. They was hoping it'd be the next
day. But he's gone now. He's their father. Their mother, if you will, their
Lord, their Redeemer, their provider, their everything. He was their
life and now He's gone. And that's what He's saying.
There's not going to be a day when you'd like to just see one
day with me. So He's the desire of God's people. David said,
Who have I in heaven but Thee? And there's none I desire on
earth but Him. David said that. Christ truly
is the life of His disciples. He's the desire. David said,
one thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after.
What, David? That I might behold the beauty of the Lord. That
I dwell in His house all the days of my life and behold the
beauty of the Lord. I just want to be with Him. See
Him. Paul said that. I have a desire
to depart and be with the Lord. Oh, that I might win, know Christ,
win Christ, be found in Him. Christ is the desire. He really
is. And that separates Pharisees
from His disciples. God's people, Christ's people,
His bride come here to be with Him. And we come here and say,
Lord, please, I want to be with You. I want to hear Your voice.
I want to meet with You. I want to worship. I want to
see Your glory. Don't we? That separates disciples
from Pharisees. We could get a big crowd if we
talked about the apocalypse. Big, huge crowd. Events, signs
leading up to him. But our Lord plainly said, no
sign given. None. But the sign of the prophet
Jonas. What's that? Christ crucified. So he said that. Now, verse 23
and 25, they shall say to you, see here or see there, go not
after them, don't follow them. Look, they're rebuilding the
temple in Jerusalem. So what? The Lord just tore it
down again. He tore down every physical temple. That's what people worship, isn't
it? One time they found, was it Hezekiah's
day, they found the serpent on the pole, Hezekiah? They found
the serpent on the pole and they were worshiping it, like they
do the Shroud of Turin, so to speak. Like they would do the
Ark if they found it, or the Cross of Christ. But Hezekiah
had it ground to powder and thrown on the water and had them drink
it. And he called it Nahashtan. What's that? A worthless piece
of brass. That serpent on the pole didn't
save anybody. It was an emblem, a type of the
Lord Jesus Christ crucified. We don't worship things. And
so we don't run here or run there. We don't have to. Why? He's in
our midst. He's among us. He's with us. We know He is. You ask me how
I know He lives? The psalm says, He lives within
my heart. He walks with me and talks with
me. All God's people who see the
Kingdom know the Kingdom because they know the King. Verse 24,
he says, "...as lightning lighteneth out of the one part under heaven,
shineth out of the other part under heaven, so shall also the
Son of Man be in His day." Men talk about a secret rapture.
Secrets? Lightning? Boom! Every eye shall see Him, like
lightning. How significant. The sun of righteousness. You know, lightning is one of
the greatest displays of power and light in the universe next
to the sun itself. In fact, they say it has more
wattage than the sun itself. One bolt of lightning. How significant is it that the
first thing God said, the first thing God created was, let there
be light, and the last thing people are going to see is the
light, Christ. I don't believe you. Yeah, you're
in darkness. We do know. We do. Because God, who caused
the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. John, never get tired of quoting
me. That's what happened to me, John. I was in darkness even
as others. But light surrounded me. Paul didn't see the light.
The light surrounded him. Christ came. The gospel's not
a A fishing rod with an artificial
lure on it, trying to lure bait, like men use today, to bait people
to come in. It's a net! A gospel net. What's a net do? It surrounds
you. It lays hold of you. You can't
get out. If the Lord sends His gospel
by His power, you ain't going anywhere. You're coming to Him.
You're coming into His ship. Oh, Hank Williams, I saw the
light. No, you didn't, Hank. You just made millions on that
song. No believer says, I saw the light. They say, thank God he saw me.
Thank God he looked on me. Thank God he apprehended me.
Thank God he chose me. I would not come. Thank God he
said, you will come unto me. That's the good news for those
without God, without Christ, without hope. Enlightenment. No secret rapture. We're going
to talk about that when we get to two together and one taken. We're going to talk about that
later. All right. Now he says in verse 25, but
first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation. He was rejected of his generation
and the generation he Well, speaking of is our generation. This is
the last generation, 2,000-year generation, Adam to Abraham,
Abraham to Christ, and Christ until he comes back. And so this
generation, he kept talking about all these things, this generation
shall not pass away. These are the last days. When
Christ walked this earth, it was the last days, okay? He must be rejected, he must
suffer many things. Christ came to suffer. This is
what the Jews didn't like, didn't believe, they didn't know. They
read the Scriptures, but they just didn't know that Christ
must suffer. according to the Scripture. The
whole Old Testament, all those lambs, turtledoves, bullocks,
and all that blood that was shed, everything, the mercy sick, the
blood is typical of Christ crucified. Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
came to be an offering to God, a burnt offering, to suffer,
to suffer the wages of sin. He didn't sin, but we sin, God's
people sin. He came to put away sin. And
the Jews thought that the Christ was coming just to make the Jews
have this happy kingdom again. That's all they wanted, like
people today. Pie in the sky. My dad from Alabama,
he used to always talk about religion wants pie in the sky
and to sleep by and by. A little cabin in the corner
of glory with mama. And that's the truth. God's people want Him. But no, Christ didn't come to
set up a carnal utopia here. He came to suffer. To just for
the unjust. That's why He came. And the Pharisees
didn't like that. They didn't need that. They weren't
sinners. Most religious people aren't
sinners. Okay, we believe on Jesus. We accept His sacrifice.
We accept all that. Let's go on to other things.
Right? We're no longer sinners. We've
cleaned up our act. We don't need to hear about the
blood anymore. Let's talk about the victory. What is the victory? It's what
Christ obtained. But Pharisees didn't need mercy. They didn't need righteousness.
They didn't need forgiveness of sin. They didn't need blood.
They didn't need atonement. They weren't sinners. Nor will
you find many today sinners. And if you do, you know what
they want to hear all the time? Christ crucified. Alright? So this is connected with what
he says about Noah. Okay? You know how few people
were in that ark? Why? They weren't any sinners. They didn't believe God was holy.
They didn't believe God was just. They didn't believe God would
by no means clear the guilty. They didn't believe God would
punish sin. They didn't believe there was
sin. God hates people and is going
to destroy people, and you say there's one way? No, one way?
That's ridiculous. I'll have you know, I've been
believing God all my life. We'll see. If you do, you'll
get in the ark. So this is connected, verse 26. As it was in the days of Noah,
our Lord said, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of
Man. Now, when He comes, they did eat, they drank, they married
wives, they were given in marriage until the day, until the day
He Destroyed that world. They didn't have a clue. And
the flood came and destroyed them all. Did you read the bulletin
article by Matthew Henry? Did you have time to look at
it? That Matthew Henry and these
men, preachers back then and now, God's true preachers, are
not fools. They're not, they're wise men.
like Solomon, like Isaiah, like Elijah, wise men, wiser than
the men of their generation. They were given wisdom from above.
Well, Matthew Henry said that they had calculated, those who
could, that there were as many as 11 billion people on the earth
at the time of the flood. He said some had it as high as
80 billion people. Is that possible? Yes. 1950,
the population was around 3 or 4 billion people. Right now,
it's 10 billion. In 50 years, 10 billion. If the
Lord doesn't come in another 50 years, how many will be? That's a lot of people, isn't it? Eight souls. on the ark. They asked the Lord,
are there few that be saved? We're going to find out. Oh, boy. So let's look at this
a little bit. This won't be a full message
on the ark, Noah's ark. We've preached it so many times.
But this will be a message, an urgent message, like our Lord
gave it, as in the days of Noah. Let's look at the days of Noah.
And we should not, and we do not, try to prove God. We don't
do it. God doesn't prove himself to
men. He reveals himself. God doesn't prove himself. Well,
if he proves himself, I believe him. Day after day after speech. The heavens declare his glory.
No, God's not going to prove himself to an unbelieving man
that hates him. No, sir. He reveals Himself to
some of those who hated Him. Thank God. And we know. We believe. We see it because
He's revealed Himself to us. We don't try to prove the flood.
We're not going to do that. We declare
it. God's Word says that Christ talked,
Ricky, Jesus Christ talked about the flood. He talked about hell
more than anyone else. Jesus Christ. We believe Him. I don't care what the world says.
I don't care what science, I don't care what anybody in this world
says. I believe Jesus Christ, don't you? All right, he talked
about Noah and the flood. He said, as in the days of Noah,
that's the way it's going to be when I come. All right, let's
look a little bit at Noah. Let's look at Noah's day, Noah's
ark briefly, and the mission. Noah, who was Noah? 1 Peter 3,
go over there quickly. You have to turn fast. I've already
gone 20 minutes. 1 Peter 3, look at this. Who was Noah? Well, he was a
preacher. 1 Peter 3, look at verse 18. It said, Christ suffered, once
suffered for sins, and just for the unjust, that he might bring
us to God. Who's Peter writing to? God's
people, the church. being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit. See, that is talking about Christ
crucified. That's the message. By which, the Spirit that is,
by the Holy Spirit, this is not Christ going to preach to people
in hell. No, sir. It's the Spirit of God
through the preaching of Noah to those who were right then,
when Peter wrote this, in hell. Noah preached every day for a
hundred years. Look at it, verse 19. He preached
unto the spirits in prison, right now, which sometime were disobedient,
unbelievers, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of
Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls,
were saved by water. Go to 2 Peter 2. 2 Peter 2. So Noah was preaching for a hundred
years as he was As he was preparing that ark, Hebrews 11 says, to
the condemnation of the world, to the saving of his house and
the condemning of the world. And he became an heir of righteousness
by faith. He believed God. What? That God
is holy. That God is just. That God is
angry. And no one believed. I'm a sinner.
I need grace in the eyes of the Lord. I need mercy. I need salvation. I need a place, a safe haven. I need a covering. I need pitched. Covered. I need to be found in
that ark, which is a picture of Jesus Christ. Noah, God revealed
that. And that's what Noah preached.
That's who Noah preached for a hundred years. Judgment's coming. God is holy. God is holy. Get
in the ark. Get in the ark. This ark is Christ.
It's one way. This is the truth. This is life
outside of it. God's a consuming fire. This
world's going to perish. Rain's going to fall. Rain never
fails. Genesis 2, verses 5 and 6 says
that there was no rain, that God watered the earth by a mist.
So nobody believed. Right? What do you mean? Rain?
Water coming out of heaven? Seriously? God, no. Come on. Is water coming out
of heaven? We all know where water comes.
It comes from the ground. Look, it's rivers and lakes and
streams and the mist and the dew. That's where water comes
from. It's going to come out of the sky so much of it, it's going
to destroy all of us. Noah, you're a fool. Isn't it significant men take
rain for granted now and they complain about it? Fire is going to fall. Fire is
going to fall. Who said so? Jesus Christ. He's
a preacher. 2 Peter 2 verse 5, God spared
not, and Peter talks about Noah and Lot. God spared not the old
world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness. Noah preached righteousness.
Who's righteous? God's righteousness. Noah preached
that God is righteous. God is holy. God is just. It
must be perfect. You must be righteous for God
to accept you. And man is unrighteous. That's
what Noah preached. God is righteous. Man is unrighteous. God is holy. Man is sinful. And
there's nothing you can do about it. There's only one hope for
a sinner, to be accepted by God, hidden, covered in the righteousness
of another. And that righteousness, Romans 10
talks about, they're ignorant of God's righteousness. Have
not submitted unto the righteousness of God. What's that? Jesus Christ.
He's the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. He's
the Lord our righteousness, isn't He, Kelly? How do you know that? Flesh and blood didn't reveal
that. You didn't figure that out, did you? God sent a preacher
to tell you. And God sent a preacher to tell
everybody. There's one righteousness. Christ,
the righteous one, preached God's righteousness. He preached himself. I am the righteousness. I was
a preacher. The world doesn't want to hear
preachers, okay? You're going to end up in hell. All right, Noah's day. Go back
to Genesis 4. Noah was a preacher. Our Lord
was a preacher of righteousness. And Noah condemned the world.
Talking to a man the other day, and we started talking, and he
wanted to know about our youth program. Well, I said everything
we have for our youth, we do for our old people. We do one
thing. We preach God's Word. We want
them to know Christ. We preach the word, which is
Christ. That's all we do. Every time, he said, well, that's
okay. Noah had one message for 100
years. Maybe some people at first were interested, don't you think?
Like when Christ came preaching. John, maybe at first. And then
after a while, everything's fine. I don't see the haste. Wrath
of God, let's, I didn't do that. Okay. Genesis 4, men, there were
no cavemen, that's ridiculous. The only cavemen are those now
that are in science. They're leading, they're teaching
in our universities. Cavemen. Man didn't start out
on all fours, but he has, that's where he is now. He's a worm. He started just and upright like
Adam. Brilliant. Adam was brilliant. So were all his posterity. Look
at chapter 4, verse 28. Adam married Jabil, the father
of such dwelling tents, and had cattle. His brother's name was
Jubal, his father of all, handled a harp and an organ. and Zilla
and Tubalcain and the structure of artificer and brass and iron.
They were brilliant people. And they lived, they had long
lives. Chapter 5, they lived 900 years. Would you know how
to play the harp if you played it for 900 years? We brag on
Mozart. We brag on Chopin. We brag on...
Can you imagine? The artificers and brass and
iron and cattlemen and horsemen. These were brilliant people.
Lived a long time. Chapter 6, Genesis 6, here's
the days of Noah. And man, you know, the longer
he lives, the smarter he thinks he is, right? And they seek out
many inventions. Scripture talks about that. Seek
out many inventions. They began to come up with all
sorts of inventions. And man thought he was a god. Look at what we've done. Look
at what we can do. In Genesis 6, verse 4, there
were giants in the earth in those days. Giants. Does that sound like now? People
are getting bigger. Aren't they, Ray? They're getting
bigger. Oh, man, he thinks he's high
and lifted up and mighty and proud. Our Lord said in His warning,
He said, all they think about is eating, Drinking, marrying,
giving in marriage, they married wives, multiple wives. And if
you read Matthew Henry on this, oh, he talked of the great wickedness
that prevailed on the earth through multiple wives and all the incest
and corruption. His description of the earth
sounds like right now. It's just you open up, he said,
you open up the roofs of the houses, all over this world,
and you would be shocked, filled. That's what God saw. And God
said, I'm done with it. It's over. He said, man's day
is going to be 120 years. The longer he lives, the worse
he gets. And in Genesis 6, it said God looked on the The people
of the earth, he said that the whole earth had corrupted his
way. The whole earth. 11 billion people
or however many it was. It spread out all over the world.
What were they doing? They weren't worshipping God.
They weren't thanking God. God was not in all their thoughts.
They were thinking about a lot of things. God wasn't one of
them. In fact, they came to the point where they didn't believe
there was a God at all. And God said, okay. He said,
I will destroy man. And he spoke in a language we
can understand. It repenteth me that I've made it. God doesn't
repent. He's not a man. It was all purpose by God. He
knew no one under God always works from the beginning of the
world. Acts 15, 18. He knew that. He knew that. But he spoke in
a language we can understand to say, I wish I'd never created
him. He's that filthy. And what I'm
going to do is just wipe him out. I'm done with it. That's
a language we can understand. But God, rich in mercy. I remember a preacher
years ago saying that God is merciful, so God must show mercy.
I remember as a young believer not thinking that. But John,
it's so. If He's mercy, that's His name,
merciful. Who's He going to show mercy
to? God show mercy? He said, I will show mercy. He
must. God is grace. God is love. God's greatest glory is forgiveness.
It's the glory of a man to pass by transgression. He has to,
according to his character. But it's on whom he will. It's on whom he will. I will
show mercy on whom I will show mercy. It's not of him that willeth
or him that runneth. It's of God to show us mercy.
I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And whom I will
I hardeneth. How's that? Leave you alone.
That's all he's got to do. Leave you alone. The only way
you'll be softened is for him to be gracious to you. To cause
the rain to fall on you. He said, my doctrine shall come
down like rain. Not destroying rain, but softening
rain. Soften that old hard heart. Now,
you believe me, don't you? I sure do. Not until then. They ate and drank. Marry it
and give it a marriage and isn't that what the world, that's all
the world thinks about today. That's it. Lots, they were buying, selling,
building, planting. That's what the world thinks
about it. Isn't it? Until the day. There's seven days. I love Noah's
Ark. Don't you love the story? Don't
you love the type of Christ in all the Ark? Everything about
the Ark. Give me 30 more minutes. Oh,
everything. Noah is Christ. His name means
rest. Noah is the one who found favor
in God's eyes and he said, Thee have I seen righteous in this
generation. That's Christ. Noah is a picture of Christ.
Preacher of righteousness. That's Christ. Noah, come thou
in all thy house. Noah, you're the one I've seen
righteous. You're the one I'm going to save people through.
Noah, you're the one that's going to go out and gather them. They're
not going to come of their own will. You're going to go get
them, Noah. Go bring them into the ark. And everybody that's
with you, Noah, in the ark, I'm going to save them. Every single
person that's with you, Noah, in the ark, God says, I will
save them. That ark is Christ. Noah is Christ. Christ is all. The only reason any animal came
onto that ark was Noah went and got them. And they followed him right willingly. They came onto that ark. A lion,
a wolf, a wild ass's colt dropped his head and followed Noah like
a puppy dog. That's our Christ. He came to
seek to save His own and bring them to Himself. The message
hasn't changed. Christ said, as in the days of
Noah, this is what all men are going to be thinking about. It's
all men are going to be doing. But God has brought us to Himself
through the preaching of Christ. The preaching of men like Noah.
The preaching of Christ, whom Noah preached, whom Noah represented.
The trumpet is about to sound. I didn't say that. He did. I told a young woman
one time, I said, well, you can either take God at His word or
take your chances. And that's a chance you don't
want to take. Because only one person in this university cannot
lie. And that's our God. That's his
pride. And he said, as in the days of Noah, so shall be the
days of the Son of Man. I'm coming. Very soon. Very soon. Okay.