Biblical teaching - T81

The Lord is warning you : He is coming very soon

Will He find you like Noah or like Lot ?

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            Finally, Lot had to forsake all his belongings and part of his own family. He was barely able to save his two daughters. Unlike Noah, he was not faithful in everything. And it will be so in the last days when the Lord comes for the Church. He will come for His people, among whom He will only take the righteous, the ones like Noah and Lot. Some will be taken because they walked in complete victory, like Noah, and others will be taken because they are just righteous, like Lot, i.e. they do not live in sin. But their lives will not have been sufficiently filled with the presence of God for them to be living testimonies for those around them ; His presence will not have been great enough for them to save their families and to testify powerfully to those around them. If Lot was saved in spite of that, it is because he was righteous ; it is because in his heart he grieved for the sins of Sodom. He did not take part in those sins, but was not fully victorious as Noah and Abraham were.

 

            2 Peter 2 also deals with the end-times judgement. We notice that this passage is about the last judgement and also about Noah and Lot, like the passage from Luke where Jesus' words are quoted. I'll read from the first verse onwards : « But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who insidiously shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction ». He is speaking of Christians who rejected the Lord, their Redeemer. Although they were freed from the bondage of sin and death, they rejected the One who had freed them. They became false prophets and false teachers. These Christians will not be taken. They were in the Body of Christ, but they rejected their Master, and became false prophets and false teachers. They will end in destruction and judgement. They will bring upon themselves swift destruction. « And many shall follow their pernicious ways; and the way of truth shall be evil spoken of because of them. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you : whose judgement now of a long time does not linger, and their damnation does not slumber. For if God did not spare the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved to judgement, did not spare the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly... »

 

            Noah is called a preacher of righteousness ; he was righteous himself and that is why he could preach righteousness. When someone preaches, it is not so much what he says that counts, but what he shows through his way of living. Others will be more affected by our lives than by our words.

 

            Noah was a preacher of righteousness, wholly yielded to the Lord, because he himself was righteous. Actually, Noah did not save anyone except his family. We must not feel guilty when it appears that our ministry to others does not bear much fruit, when we do not win many souls to the Lord. He can allow for periods in our lives when we do not save anyone, although we do our utmost.

 

            As Noah was a preacher of righteousness, he spent his whole life preaching the Lord's word, prophesying the destruction which was to come and speaking about the flood, saying : "I plead with you to repent and to walk according to God's will so as to be saved". But no one listened to him. Nevertheless, he did what God wanted him to do, i.e. he lived a godly life and proclaimed what God told him to proclaim.

 

            « And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example to those that after should live ungodly ; and delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked (for that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds); the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust to the day of judgement to be punished. But chiefly those that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government ».

 

            Uncleanness and rebellion, uncleannness and revolt are both typical of our present world. That spirit is afoot in the world and keeps gaining ground. The Lord is moving powerfully through His Spirit, in the hearts of the righteous like Noah or Lot, to show them that the flood - or the fire - is at hand. The judgements of the Book of Revelation are imminent. The Lord is speaking to the righteous, as He did to Noah and Lot, to show them that time is running out, that the ark is almost completed, that the last living stones are being added from all over the world to build up a spiritual house, the Church, and that soon the Lord will be coming for it.

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