Thank you, Jerry and John. I go back with me to Genesis 6. Genesis 6, read verse 3 with
me. The Lord said, My spirit shall not
always strive with man. My spirit shall not always strive
with man." That struck me when I read that as if for the first
time. I'm not always going to strive
with man. That's it. Two reasons this message is vital. Every message, if it's from God's
Word, it's the absolute truth. We've
got to have it. We've got to have it. This is
how God speaks to men, through His Word. He doesn't speak out
loud. He speaks through His Word. This is how He operates on us.
This is how life is given. words of life so that we don't
perish. And the time is short. The reason
it's so vital that we hear this is because the time is so short.
We don't even know if we have tomorrow, do we? None of us in
here know if we're going to live another day. The time is short. And our Lord said in Matthew's
Gospel, chapter 24, He said things like this. He said, learn the
parable of the fig tree. You learned it. That when it
puts forth its tender branches and leaves, you know that summer
is nigh. That's clear, isn't it? Likewise, he said, when you
see all these things, know, you need to know this, when you see
all these things, what he was talking about, know that it's
near. The coming of the Lord is near. The last day of the day of the
Lord is near. He said things like this in Matthew
24. He said, As in the days of Noah,
so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. He said they were
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, and knew
not, didn't know, a complete surprise to most, and knew not until the flood
came and took them all away. But now, he said to his disciples
in 1 Thessalonians, we are not in darkness even as others, that
that day should overtake us as a thing. And I don't believe it's any
coincidence that we just happen to be looking at this at this
time when you see all these things. And he said here in this verse,
my spirit shall not always strive with man. Now, it should be with
the same urgency as last Sunday's message. Sound the alarm. With the same urgency, it should
be very clear to us that the Spirit of God is ceasing to strive
with man. Isn't it? Our society, very clear. But even in the church, I remember
growing up, you know, when the Spirit of God moved greatly.
And, you know, many were being brought into the fold, early
harvest. And the latter, here a little,
there a little, thank God for what He does bring. But it should
be clear to anyone who's observing that the Spirit of God is ceasing
to strive with man. Alright, we're going to see what
that means, striving with man in a minute. But look at verses
1 and 2. Look at all these verses. It came to pass when men began
to multiply on the face of the earth. Daughters were born unto
them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they
were fair, they were beautiful, and it took them wives of all
which they chose. Now, did you see a distinction
between sons of God and sons of men. See that? All people. Scripture is very
clear. There's a distinction between
the sons of God and the sons of men. Our Lord said there are
sheep and there are goats. Isn't it? There are wheat and
there are tares. Yet all are not the children
of God. Sons of God and the sons of men. And that distinction
As time goes by, it becomes more and more clear to the sons of
God. It's a clear distinction in all that they believe and how they act and so forth.
But the distinction is clear. And for us in here, everyone
in here, we need, as Scripture says, to give diligence to make
our calling and election We need to know. We need to know, to
give diligence, to make our calling and election sure. And distinction
becomes clearer and clearer, as in the days of Noah. Scripture
says that Noah... You want to turn there, 1 Peter
chapter 3. I told you Noah was a preacher. This is where this tells us about
Noah. Here it is, 2 Peter 2. And 1 Peter 3 speaks about Noah
and the ark and the Lord through the Holy Spirit preaching to
people back then. Well, He did it through Noah.
Noah was a preacher. But 2 Peter 2, verse 7, it says
that God spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person,
a preacher of righteousness. A preacher of righteousness.
Noah back in his day was a stranger to the world he lived in. He
was a strange man to the world. He preached a strange God, a God who did not love everybody,
but was going to destroy the world. wicked and evil. And Noah believed
that. And Noah told people that. He
preached righteousness. Whose righteousness? God's absolute
holiness and righteousness. God's holy, holy, holy. And man is not. And God hateth
all workers of iniquity. That's what the Bible said. Noah
believed that. And he preached that. And so
he had a strange God and a strange doctrine, didn't he? In a day
when everybody must have thought God loved them, this can't happen
to us. Noah preached judgment. I ask you, except in very rare
cases, when do you hear about the judgment of God anymore?
You don't, do you? Where is the God of judgment?
Malachi said. Where is He? Noah and his family
were strangers to the world. Strange gods, strange beliefs,
strange ways. Noah was not of this world. And
in Hebrews 11, it said that Noah condemned the world. He condemned the world. He didn't
have anything good to say about the world. And it's what the
Scriptures tell us. He's going to save his people
from this present evil world. That's what the Scripture, that's
what God's Word says about this world. And men are so confused. God so loved the world. John
3, 16. They've made a whole denomination, a whole system of theology on
one verse of Scripture taken out of context, not knowing the
rest of the Scripture. But Noah believed that God says
he moved with fear. Fear. Fear of what? Judgment.
Fear of judgment. Now, here in verses 1 and 2,
it talks about marriage, doesn't it? This is all so relevant,
doesn't it? It talks about marriage. Marriage
between what? Men and women. Men and women. Sons of God saw
the daughters of men, and they took them wives, and they married
between men and women. How perverted is a society? when you start talking about
men with men and women with women. That's what Romans 1 says. God's
Word clearly says that when it comes to that, God has given
them over. He's quit striving with them.
He's given them over. In Romans 1, verse 24, it says,
God gave them up. Verse 26 says, God gave them
up. Quit striving. Verse 28 says, God gave them
over. That's quit striving with men. And you have absolute and utter
perversion. It's what the Lord looked down
from heaven to see. It's corrupt. It's all corrupt. The way. My way. The only way.
The true way. It's corrupt. Now, there are
lessons here about marriage. We have some young people in
here unmarried. If you marry for beauty, it's
foolish. Talked about the sons of God
saw the daughters of men and they were beautiful. What made
them marry them? They were beautiful. Beautiful women. The world was
full of beautiful women. That sounds familiar. Giant men. Mighty men. Does that sound familiar?
As in the days of Noah. But these sons of God, these
believers, the sons of God, who called on the Lord, saw the daughters
of men, unbelievers. What attracted them was their
beauty. And that was it. If we marry
for that, that's foolish. There better be something deeper,
or it's not going to last. You're going to have trouble
anyway. Paul said in Romans 7, I believe it is, that marriage,
if you get married, it's of the Lord, but you're going to have
trouble, even between believers, male and female. The very first
marriage, Adam and Eve. But here's the lesson. There's got to be something deeper
than looks. There's got to be something deeper
than lust. It's called love, is what it
is. And if there's no love for Christ, there's really not any love.
God is love. And here's a lesson, too. How
can light have fellowship with darkness? desire for the relationship with
and a close contact with and constant relationship with an
unbeliever who does not care for God, who doesn't care for
Christ, who doesn't love the truth, doesn't want to hear the
gospel, only the world and the things of the world. Something
is wrong. Something is wrong. How can light have fellowship
with darkness? It can't. Oil and water, they
don't meet. God sometimes is gracious. Thank God He is gracious. That God, He sometimes uses a
believer to bring an unbeliever to the Lord, but most of the
time, He does not. Most of the time, an unbeliever
draws away a believer. Our Lord warned of this over
and over and over and over. The young people in here, you
say, well, I don't know the Lord yet. Well, then you better ask
Him to marry you first, or you're going to probably marry wrong. There's a lot of people in here
that tell you that's so. They warn you. If you can be
married, marry in the Lord. They say they took wives. What's
that? That's polygamy. Polygamy. You know, I read recently, you
know, all this stuff about so-called gay marriages, that the polygamists
out west, Utah and places like that, multiple wives, they are
now suing to legalize that because they say, if you let men marry
men, you've got to let us marry as many wives as we want to. Who'd say that's wrong? So they
can't. So if God quits striving with
man, chaos. If there's no king in Israel,
king of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ, His Word, His authority
is not heeded, God gives you over. The society over. And then they're like Israel
of old, where every man did that which was right in his own eyes,
which everything was wrong. Because Scripture says there's
a way that seems right to man, and it's wrong. It's always wrong. It ends up in destruction. We
have billions and trillions of examples of that. It's wrong. Our Lord said, look at verse
3, My spirit shall not always strive with man. When he says
he's flesh, he's saying that in a disdainful way. He's flesh. That which is flesh is flesh.
You know what the word says about the flesh? God is spirit. Holy spirit. That which is flesh
is flesh. Usually the Scripture refers
to flesh as an unclean thing. Paul said, In my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. David said, There is no soundness
in my flesh. Didn't it? God said there's flesh. And the Lord looked down in Psalm
14 upon the sons of man to see if there were any Any that call
on or seek God, they all together become stinking flesh. So God says this in a
scornful way. Flesh. And men used to live seven,
eight, nine hundred years, and He says, I'm going to cut it
down to 120. That's why He said that. 120 years. And God speaks in a way that
we can understand, don't we? When he says, it repented him,
it grieved him at his heart. Did that strike you when you
read that? It grieved God at his heart. That struck me. Do you know what it did? It grieved
him at his heart. Don't think of God as some austere,
unfeeling, you know. It grieved him at his heart.
Sin. What he sees. Does it grieve you? Does it vex
you? The sin in you? That's where
you start being vexed. That's how you know you're a
child of God. That's where it starts, when
the sin within you vexes you. And then you find yourself living
inside of them, and you're vexed with the conversation of the
wicked. You're probably one of those the Lord's going to have
mercy on, lay hold of, bring out. Vexed. But to grieve them. But the Lord said things like
it repented Him. The Lord is not a man that he
should repent. He's not contradicting himself. He's speaking that we can understand.
As you and I would say, I wish you'd never been born. I wish I hadn't done that. You
know, we can understand that, that his utter distaste for and
provocation at Man, that's why he's speaking like that. That's
how he's speaking. But he said, I won't strive with
man very long. God saw. Look at verse 3. God
said, after the sons of men married for beauty and this and that,
God said, and then down in verse 5, God saw the wickedness of
man. Verse 11, earth was corrupt before God. God looked upon the
earth. Verse 12, God looked upon. Thou,
Lord, seest us. His eyes behold. His eyelids
try the sons of men. He sees us. The wicked say, Does
God see us? No, he doesn't see us. And you
know, men mostly do, and have done, what they do wickedly,
most of it in secret, don't they? In darkness. That's what the
scripture said. Either they're drunken or drunk
in the dark. Do evil, do it in the dark. to keep from being
seen. And when things are getting really
bad, it's when they openly, outwardly, taunt and flaunt it and defy
God to do something about it. And God says, I'm about to go
with them. That's what he said. Now, you
hang in there, because we're going to make some good news
at the end of this. Pearl. You go into a jeweler's
store looking for a pearl, a diamond. They bring out a black or a dark
blue velvet cloth, don't they, to hold that pearl against that
black background so that you'll see the beauty of it. You'll
desire that pearl. You'll say, I've got to have
that one. Christ is only needful to those
that need Him. The gospel is only good news
to those who have heard the bad news. Mercy is only for the guilty. God doesn't save righteous people.
No, there's none righteous, but there's lots of things that are.
God doesn't save good people. He saves sinners. And we've got
to first know. And this is how God strives with
us. One other way. But He said, My spirit won't
always strive. And when man begins to openly
flaunt his wickedness, and tempt God and defy God, something's
going to happen. Like that. He said, My spirit
won't strive always. And if God quits striving with
us, we're a goner. If God quits striving with man,
he's about to destroy him. That's why he said that. What
does it mean, then, for the Spirit of God to strive with us, with
man? Is he striving with you? What does that mean? Well, the
word strive means, first of all, rule and control. All right? God reigns and rules
over all. God reigns over all. He's sovereign. Sovereign. He controls all. God restrains evil. Scripture says the wrath of man
shall praise him, and the remainder of wrath he'll restrain it. What
won't give him glory and work out his purpose, he'll restrain
it. Thank God. If God doesn't restrain evil,
all hell breaks loose. And he says, I'm going to quit
striving. And it's happening. You'd have
to be a blind man not to see that this place is going to hell. God restrains men and devils,
and if he doesn't, they all break loose, don't they? He lets them
loose. And there's much said in the Scripture about Satan's
little season being loosed for a season. We're in it. We're
in it. God constrains good. God reigns and rules. If God
who is good, God who is grace, God who is love, God is mercy,
didn't make sinful men and women do something good, they'd be
no good anywhere. Nobody would do any good. Everybody
would be in it for themselves. And God makes, He constrains
people to do things. Thank God. Thank God. Without God, there's no good.
God is good. There's none good. Not one. So
if anybody does anything good, God did it. Didn't He? God is love. If God didn't constrain
the love, we'd kill each other. That's a fact. He said, I'm not
going to strive, always. I'm not going to constrain. And
Scripture says in 2 Timothy 3, in the last days, men shall be
lovers of self. in it for themselves without
natural affection even. Are we in that day or what? Or
what? The word strive means to contend
with. When you think of striving, you
think of getting a hold of somebody, don't you? And contending with
them. And that's exactly what it means. It means to grapple
with. Grapple with. Oh, man. Mac, I want him to do
like Jacob to me, don't you? Lay hold of me. Wrestle with
me. Subdue that old man before he
subdues me, before he destroys me. Lord, wrestle with me and
let me wrestle with you. Strive. He's not always going
to strive. Thank God he strives with men. Thank God through the preaching. How he does it? I'm getting way
ahead of myself, but this is how he does it. But he said one time of Ephraim,
he said, let him alone. He's joined his idols. Covetousness is idolatry. Lord, don't say that to me. Don't
say that about me. Let him alone. Don't let me alone. We need to say, everybody in
here, when we're thinking about this, we need to cry with David,
take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Uphold me with thy free spirit. Don't let me go." If he does,
we're a goner. We're a goner. Leave him alone. Leave him alone. Oh, and it starts
with me, folks. It starts with me. How does the
Spirit of God strive with us? Number one, His Word. His Word. Hebrews 4 says this about the
Word of God. The Word of God is quick, it's
powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword. The only thing that will
convince a human being of anything is the Word of God. That's so. The Word of God is powerful,
quick, gives life, life, sharper than a two-edged sword. It will
both wound... we've got to be wounded before
we're healed. We've got to be smitten before we're given life. Killed before we're given life.
No. This is what the Word of God does first. It kills you
first. Kills that old man to give you life. Wound before heals. The Word of God rebukes before
it comforts. It's dividing asunder the soul,
the spirit, discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
The Word of God. He said, it's not my word, it's
a fire. It's the only thing that will
burn up and destroy everything we think and think we think,
and everything we think about ourselves, and the only thing
that will destroy all that and reveal the truth to us. A fire
and a hammer. Hammer. We are so hard-headed
and hard-hearted. The only thing that will break
that hard heart is the Word of God. And you've got to keep doing
it, doesn't it? And just keep doing it. But I'll
tell you this, usually it's pretty quick. And if a person keeps
standing under the sound of the Word, and the Lord doesn't do
something, I'm afraid he's not striving with them anymore. Is that right, Pastor? That's
right. It's usually bam. Hear it. Commitment. Calling on the Lord. Like at Pentecost. His Word is
his power. This is how he strives with men.
If he quits speaking to us, it's over. If there's no Word, if the Word's
twisted, and it's so obvious, now that we're getting in the
Dark Ages. There are more Bibles but less
truth than ever a time in history, I think, set back in the Dark
Ages. When the Word of God is so twisted and so perverted and
so corrupted, there's so many perversions of it that it doesn't
resemble the original, that men have taken away all the offense,
taken out the things that offend men, and you don't have any Word
of God, then God's quit striving. He's quit striving. Because this
is how he strives. Conscience. God strives with
men through a conscience. In Romans 2 it says, those that
do the things written in the law show the conscience, the
Word of God written on their heart, either accusing or excusing
them, don't they? People who don't, you know, jungle
natives or whoever that don't have the Bible, they know it's
wrong to steal, to kill, Take another man's wife to lie, and
so on and so forth. Where do they learn that? The
law of God written on the heart and a conscience. And God said,
I'm going to quit striving. And it talks about people who
don't have a conscience anymore. The conscience is seared with
a hot iron. Don't have a conscience. It's so perverted that they call
good evil and evil good. God's quit striving. God's quit striving. Are we in
that day or what? Conscience. God does it. He strives
with man through providence. The rain falls on the unjust
as well as the just. You know, every generation God
has judged the unbelieving world through drought. Everything on
this planet depends on water. Let's say we can go several weeks
without food, we can only go about three days without water. And God is always, down through
the years, to show his utter displeasure, withheld the rain. He's withheld the rain, and it
dries up. And this country is literally, literally drying up
and burning up in it. Isn't it? Have you ever seen
the light? Now, when all these things know
that the end is near, He says, men are scorched with heat, over
in Revelation, are scorched with heat, but they still don't repent
to do what? Give Him the glory. That's all
He said. Give me the glory. They weren't
thankful. For what? Rain. Here this water falls out of
the sky. That's not water. That's not God. That's Mother
Nature. Worship the creature rather than the Creator. God
says, give Him up. That's it. Isn't it? Judgment. Imagination. Judgments. Calamity after calamity, after
disaster, after flood, after hurricane, after hurricane, after
hurricane, after flood. Same city will get hit with a
flood and they come bring it again. Earthquakes and tornadoes
and disasters. All that's nice. Just the global
warming. Global warming alright. And I don't preach at anybody.
And I'm just telling the truth. I'm just telling the truth. Because
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And our Lord said
in Isaiah 1, He said, Why should you be stricken anymore? He said,
I've raised up children and they've rebelled against me. He said,
The ox knows its owner. The ass knows its master's creed.
But my people, that is, those I've created, they don't know
me. He came under His own. His own received Him not. He
said, Go back to heaven. Son of God. They did worse than
that. They killed Him. And we did it. This but God is going to sound
real good in a minute. But Noah. But God said, why should
you be stricken any more? You'll only revolt more and more.
That's what he said in Isaiah 1. Why? He said the whole head
is sick. The whole heart is faint. There's no sound. Isn't there?
That's what he said. And so God says in our text,
when God saw the wickedness of man, it was great. You say, preacher,
why do you think it's now more than other times? Men used to
think back then as in the days of Noah. When God saw the wickedness
was great in the earth, that means spread all over. There
wasn't a part of the globe that wasn't corrupt. Not one part anywhere. just healed,
he said, with violence. And God said, that's it. It's
over. But Noah found grace, and he asked the
Lord. God is merciful. God is gracious,
isn't He? God is merciful. God is gracious. By grace are you saved, he said.
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, verse 8 says. That
doesn't mean that Noah was a better person than anybody. Romans 1
and 2, Paul says that plainly, doesn't he? He said, here you've
got the religious. They're no good. None good. Chapter
1, you've got the irreligious world. Don't give God a thought. None good. Chapter 2 of Romans
said they're religious. They're no good either. A bunch
of hypocrites. Chapter 3 says, are we better than they? No,
in no wise. God has before proved they're
all under sin. None good. None righteous. All
together. And so on and so on. But God. Rich in mercy. God is gracious. God is merciful. God is love. God loves some. He doesn't love all. Why should
He? Nobody loves Him. But God, in sovereign love and
mercy, chose some of these ungrateful, rebellious, sinful, wrath-deserving
creatures. How long did you go without giving
God a thought? Huh? You tell me. I'll tell you
about myself. It's all I can say about myself.
It went a long time. Didn't give God a thought and
took credit for about everything I had and did. When like old
Gomer, it was God that was feeding me all the time. It was God that
was giving me things all the time. And I attributed it to
my lovers, or that is to the world. But it was God. And I didn't know it. And I wouldn't have known it,
but God. One day. It sounds like Ephesians
2, doesn't it? It sounds just like the first
four verses of Ephesians 2, doesn't it? And you, and the whole world,
but God. Noah found grace, not because
he was better than anybody, but because God was gracious to him.
God chose him. God determined to save a remnant
according to the election of grace. He was going to save a
people. And he chose Noah to be that
Savior. He chose Noah. Noah found grace. Have you found grace? Here's
how you know. Here's how you know if the Spirit of God is
striving with you. All right. Like I said, the Word
of God. Does the Word of God speak to
you? If any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of Him. If as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. And this is the first
thing. Turn with me to John chapter 16. John 16. I've got to hurry. John 16. The first thing the Spirit of
God uses, as we said, is His Word. And He uses His Word to
convict us. If the Word of God convicts you,
that's good. You feel guilty? Good! It's because
you are. It's the savor of life unto life.
You can tell a dead man, oh, you will. You're a no-good bum.
He won't respond. You're a good man. He won't respond.
You can jab him with a two-edged sword. He won't respond. He's
dead. But if you're alive, you feel
pain, guilt. Grief, sorrow, trouble. The Word of God, does it still
touch you? Conscience? This is what the
Spirit of God? Repentance. That's what repentance
is. Oh, my Lord and my God, I've
been... I'm a sinner. God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. This is the first thing. It's
that old-fashioned or what? Is anybody talking about sin
today? I listened to a fellow the other day on the radio. A whole message. He never used
the word sin once. Not once. He didn't know anything about
the Word of God or the Bible or the Gospel. But Christ said,
I came to save them from their sins. And He's going to destroy
everything because of that. Sin. We're either saved from
it or damned in it. John 16, verse 8, he says, when
the Holy Spirit has come, this is who he's talking about. When
He's come, He will reprove the world of sin. And you know, the
whole world has been, by the Word of God, reproved. Have they
not all heard? Yes. But after a while, it quits
driving them. Quits driving them. His people,
though, are always reproved of sin. We never quit being reproved
of sin, do we? and righteousness and judgment,
verse 9, of sin because they believe not on me. And without controversy, great
is the mystery of God and of God came to this earth. But men
don't believe that. They don't believe He's God. They don't believe on men. All that He did, all that He
said clearly revealed Him to be who He is. We don't care. We don't believe
you. They believe not on me. And the greatest sin of all is
to reject God's Son. There's no hope. Of righteousness. Verse 10. Of righteousness. Because I go to my Father and
you see me no more. We're not going to get to heaven
except by being as holy as God. As righteous as God. We're going to have no sin on our record.
and perfect holiness, without spot or blemish, holy, unblameable,
unreproven, one God's sight to get in His heaven. How? You know, don't you? You keep
hearing the word righteousness all the time, don't you? And
sometimes I say it so much that it sounds repetitive and
I think, think of a different way to say it. No. Luther used to say, if we're
not clearly stating that which the world is not stating at that
time, we're not preaching the truth. Five hundred times it
talks about righteousness. What is it? Noah was a preacher
of righteousness. What's that? God's holiness. That's why he's going to destroy
this place. That's why he did it in the first place. And we're
going to be in it if we don't have this righteousness. What
is it? Christ. is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone who believes. The righteous one. There's none
righteous. No, not one. No man. But here
he came. One righteous man. Why did Christ
come down here? To do what he did for some people. We don't know who they are. He
did. But He did it for these people. He knew who He was coming
to save, who He was coming to make righteous, and He lived
according to God's holy law. And God looked down from heaven
the only time He ever said it about a human being. He said,
I'm well pleased with Him. I'm totally displeased with the
rest of them. Now, God said, You come to Him. Come one and
come all. You come to Him. He's the righteous
one. And like Noah's ark, We're going
to look at it. Noah found grace. How do you
know? He was found in Christ. He was found in that ark that
day. And Paul said, I don't want to be found having my own righteousness. I want to stand before God with
my little religious deeds and all that. I want to be found
in Christ, he said. In the ark, like Noah. And you know that ark bore the
whole wrath of God, didn't it? That Noah should have bore. Noah was a sinner. But God chose
him, and God warned him, and God spoke to him, and God gave
the fear of the Lord in him, and God made him move with fear.
And this is it. God said to Noah, God said to Noah, he warned him,
he said, build an ark. Noah, here's your only hope,
your only hope, an ark. Have you found grace in the eyes
of the Lord? If you have, the Spirit of God dealing with you
through His Word. The Spirit of God is still striving
with you. The Spirit of God is still convicting
you of sin, righteousness, judgment. I failed to read that. Our Lord
said of judgment, because the Prince of this world is judged,
God is going to judge this world. And the Prince of this world
is judged on Calvary. We have been judged. His people
have been. And in our substitute, their
sins have been paid for. If the Spirit of God is striving
with you, He's given you a need for Christ. Noah worked for a
hundred years on that ark. And you know, we looked at Lamech
Wednesday night, and I forgot to bring this out, but Lamech
died five years before the flood. Reckon he worked on that ark?
You know he did. Noah's father. He thought, this
is what I've been waiting on. He thought he was going to be
on it. Well, he did. He was. But God said to Noah,
he warned him, he called him. Noah being warned of God, moved
with fear, the fear of the Lord. And he said, make you an ark.
And that ark is Christ. It gives a need for Christ, a
need for the gospel. Do you need this gospel? Do you
need to hear this? Do you need God's mercy? Do you
need God's grace? Do you need God to save you or
you can't save yourself? You need Christ's righteousness
because you don't have any. You need this gospel. You have a love
for the truth. Worship. It's not just we drove
down Skufflin Hill Road today and there's just people everywhere
doing their thing. You don't have any need whatsoever
to worship God. Do you need to worship God? Do you need to hear this Word? Do you need it? Do you love it?
Do you find this more enjoyable than anything that you know of?
That's how the Spirit, He takes the things of Christ and shows
them to us. And those that love Christ just
can't get enough of it. That's how the Spirit strives
with man. And He said, My spirit shall
not always strive. And as in the days of Noah. And you know, and I'm getting
way ahead of myself again, the story of Noah's Ark. But a hundred
years just kept preaching righteousness, righteousness, judgment, judgment. So everybody, everybody was somewhat
interested in listening a little bit at first. And as time went
on, it's, ah, nothing to that. until they all dropped out one
by one. The eight people left. And then the hardest time of
all for Noah was when he went in that ark. It was finished.
And for seven days, he sat in that ark, waiting on the judgment
and the wrath of God to come. And people walked by and they
scoffed at him. Look at him. What a fool for
that ark's sake. Then the door shut. Didn't reckon how many people
wanted in. Too late. My spirit won't always strive,
he said. That's a striking verse, isn't
it? A striking verse. Sound the alarm.
The door is still open though. The door of that ark is open.
Calm down. Who's on the Lord's side? They've
come unto me, Christ said. Alright, Brother John, come lead
us in clothing. What was it? 152. Yeah, this
is good. 152. That's all I'm saying. One fifty two.