The World Changer at the End of the World, Part 2 - I

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by harvest partners, helping people everywhere know God, you want to hear from you. Would you consider emailing me you can reach me at greg@harvest.org again that's greg@harvest.org and you can also make me one of your friends on Facebook and drop me a comment. You don't want to just start this race. Will you want to finish the rings.

How many trip and fall original today on a new beginning.

Pastor Greg Laurie urges us to stay faithful to press forward and not rest on our laurels. Extensive Bible knowledge and years of spiritual experience make you think you're somehow above it all. You think you bring some kind of upfront so spiritually. The Bible warns with him the things he says. The seedless he fall and in walking the type of highway warmers based mortal danger. It's a long way down. The last thing they want literally is to make it only halfway across the highway today on a new beginning for Greg Laurie points out is even more important to finish the race of life. Well, little danger, there's uncertainty worthless moments with thankfully when we fall the Lord's, and restore my want to focus on the man who lived in the last days. If you will know they were his last days are different than ours were waiting for the judge will double, come up on the planet by fire. He was waiting for the judge of that would come up on the planet by water and his name was Noah.

He was living in the days before the great flood and Jesus actually brought him up as a picture of what things will be like before Christ returns in the Matthew 24.

It said the arrival of the Son of Man will take place in days like no one's, before the great flood. Everyone was carrying on as usual.

Having a good time whited to the day that Noah boarded the ark, they knew nothing until the flood swept everything away and then Jesus is the Son of Man's arrival will be like that two men will be working in the field. When will be taking the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken and the other love.

So be alert and being awake because you have no idea when your master will show up alright so in light of that, how should we live, let's go back to that last days believer Noah. How did he live. We already saw this together. Taking notes is point number one from our last message know I had a great reverence for God Noah had a great reverence for God.

Hebrews 11 seven says. Noah moved with godly fear, or with godly reverence. I think that's something that's lacking in the lives of many believers today an actual reverence for God number two Noah walked with God when no one else did Jenna 669 says.

Noah walked with God then we know that Noah was also a witness for God. Second Peter 25 since he was a preacher of righteousness. Listen to this.

Did you know that Noah lived hundred and 20 years and never had a single convert yet is called a preacher of righteousness. He stands as an example to all of the people seed sewers out there cannot always measure their success in sharing the gospel outwardly. Maybe that describes you. You told your whole family about Jesus. No one fully you told all your friends about Jesus. Not one of them is become a Christian, you let your neighborhood know you're a believer you've invited them all the church and no one has responded to your invitation and you feel like a failure will take heart, because it's not over till it's over using my job is to sow seeds. By that I mean my job is to get the gospel out there and it's the Holy Spirit's job to bring about a can diction in the heart of a non-believer only he can do that but don't underestimate the power of that little seed that you've sown in your family's life in your children's life and your grandchildren's life and the lives of others or read the story about a missionary who was named George Smith. He probably thought his ministry was a complete failure. You been in Africa only a short time and then he was driven from the country, leaving behind only one convert a very poor unknown woman. He died not long after that wall on his knees praying for Africa. Years later, a group of men stumbled upon the place work George Smith did pray that they found a copy of his Bible that he left behind in Africa and they met the one convert of George Smith's ministry, but as it turns out that one convert had reached others who reached others and 100 years later, a mission agency discovered 13,000 people trace their conversion to the ministry of George Smith. Queso got a thing for your taking the time to sow the seed of the word of God, the life your child and you don't have some great far-reaching ministry and you feel like you don't have enough to do. Listen, you know know who that child will turn out to be.

You don't know about that seed that you sewed in another place. So you just pray and leave it in God's hand so Noah didn't have a lot of people that believe, but were still talking about them today our weight so he did reach his family and that's a big deal because Hebrews 11 seven says, by faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen move with godly reverence and he prepared an ark or a boat for the saving of his house so so he did reach his family and I can think of people who've gone in the ministry and have done a great job reaching out to a lot of people and neglected their family in the process. My first priority is to God my second priority is to my family okay so that's very important to me that it should be to every one of us.

You know contrast Noah with lot to lot in a sense, was like no, in that they were both awaiting a cataclysmic judgment. Noah was awaiting the judgment of God that came to the flood lot was waiting for the judgment of God. They came upon Sodom and Gomorrah, but lot was sold compromise though he was a believer, but he was so compromised. He could not even reach his own family. So when he revealed to his family. The God's judgment was coming and he said we gotta get out of town.

They laughed at him like he was telling them a joke blow him off. Why should we listen to you. You will get. Of example are you he could get his own wife out of the place he got out of the city, but you look back and face God's judgment. So the point is, he was a failure in reaching his own family, but Noah was not in and the Lord gives to Noah a very unusual command. It's in Genesis 60 pop over there now.

Genesis 6 verse 14 the Lord tells them to build an ark or about a verse 14 of Genesis 6 build a large boat from gopher wood, says the Lord, and waterproof it with tar inside and out, then construct decks installed throughout its interior make about 450 feet long 75 feet wide and 45 feet high, leaving 18 inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat with the door on the side about three decks inside of the boat, lower middle and upper so this was the supreme act of faith. Considering the fact that it had never rained up to this point and did not read yet, the way the earth was watered with through this unique sort of water canopy the Lord it said in place creating a terrarium type of effect on planet Earth and you at all the beautiful vegetation and so forth.

So it did not yet rained and there was no water nearby and the Lord says build about Noah Sagan about what I'm going to do with the boats but that he obeyed the Lord.

One of the greatest acts of faith in history when Noah cut down that first gopher wood tree to build this art, but he did it. You know it's an interesting thing because Noah was not a builder.

The Bible doesn't tell us he really was in the building profession he was what you would call an amateur well I think experts built the Titanic.

That didn't turn out so well. What an amateur built the ark and it was very buoyant and very seaworthy.

As we'll see in just a moment, but he put feet to his faith and did what God told him to do for Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. It's reassuring when we read letters and emails from listeners who been helped by the ministry of Greg Laurie and a new beginning to grain every morning on my way home from dropping my husband at work helped me through my hardest times. I am a little boy with moderate and I lost my mom's cancer unit. My soul has been so heavy every day you help me realize that God is who I need more than anything and he will take care of the rest. Husband and son. Now let's listen to in the car. Thank you for helping millions of people just like were so grateful to hear how Pastor Greg's teachings have helped this young on if you have a story to tell. I hope you'll contact us today. Email Pastor Gray at greg@harvest.org again, that's great@harvest.org are studying the Bible's account of know what today Pastor Greg's message called the world changer at the end of the world part two let's continue. I want you to think about the spiritual life of Noah. For a moment here to sit on that boat for 40 days and 40 nights as the rain came in. He ultimately was on board. Around a year and the sea can be a very lonely place canted and typing up that thing must've stunk. Honestly, all those creatures and their but now his voyage is about to come to an end and God's Holy Spirit blew across the land in the clouds began to dissipate the sun appears and eventually the grass on the plants and the trees begin to come back to life as the children's song says the sun came out and dried up the land. The Landy everything was fine and dandy, dandy, ever heard that song. But he waited and finally the moment is come for him to get off of this art and I want you to notice what he does Genesis 820 says.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He built an altar to the Lord, you know, it would've been very easy to just climb up that boat and say okay man I'm so sick of being on the water.

I want to just run around for like a month on terra firma on firm ground, but the first thing he did because he had his priorities in order. Is he built an altar to the Lord gave thanks to the Lord, he put first things first. And there's a lot of ways that we can do this as well. The simple act of seeing Grace over a meal is a great way to just give thanks to God and by the way when your meal comes me as a grace, it doesn't honestly need to be a 10 minute prayer. Okay it just give thanks and eat the food. Pray for that the missionaries afterwards could pray for them, but what eat the food while it's still warm and I think it's actually a really great testimony if you're in a public place with your family and you got your head to say grace but just make sure you leave a tip afterwards and don't be a bad witness right but that's a way to put God first of remembering the Lord of the people giving up your finances, whatever money you make. That's given to you by God, and you take a tines of that also known as the 10th of that and you give it to God in the Scripture promises that if you honor the Lord with your wealth and the firstfruits of your crops, your barn will be overflowing. I saw a bumper sticker and a card that said ties. If you love Jesus. Anybody can honk right so that's is the percentage okay I'm putting God first and then another way to put God first. Is it on Sunday. It's like were going to church today. That's what we do on this day the Lord's day. Remember God and God remembered Noah.

You know, Ecclesiastes, 12 months is remember now the creator in the days of your youth sometimes and were young we think, well, you know, I've got my wild oats to so really, why well just because everyone says I do. Why should you. Why would you do want to do things today that you regret tomorrow and in the years and maybe even decades to come. Why not start sewing spiritual seed in your youth and lay a good foundation in your youth.

It's almost like we have this big free pass to be crazy in our youth into every wrong thing imaginable. While that is certainly not what God wants you to do.

That's why he says remember the creator in the days of your youth. Such an important time. The early years of our life.

I became a Christian at age 17. I did some stupid things. Part of that. Things I regret but I'm thankful I didn't go much longer than that and I look back on that day and I look at the course that the lives of some of my friends took the didn't believe as I believe now run into some of them every now and then and there into their second and third and fourth marriages, some of them have substance abuse problems. Some of them never stop partying and I just think of the course I took and how God blessed me, and how God is taking care of me and I realized I made the right choice and when you're young that's a perfect time to make the right choice. Okay so here is the story Noah was our beautiful they make it to the new land and now they're giving thanks to the Lord it if this were a movie and if we eroded this is where the story would, and you can see the closing scene. Those looking up to Kevin, tears coming down his face and the flowers are growing and the animals are hopping around and there's a rainbow in the credits are on the screen that's on how the story ends.

Because this is a Bible story Bible stories are true. They're not fairytales.

When something happens that is not convenient.

It's there anyway because if it happens it happens in all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and the Lord doesn't cover-up the flaws of the great men and women that he is. The story is told of the great British legend Oliver Cromwell was having this portrait painted and he said to the painter. Make sure to paint me warts and all. That's because the peanut was known to sort of flatter the people he painted, Cromwell said I want people to see me as I was, and indeed when you look at the portrait of Cromwell feels warts on his face and some of the Bible gives us up, cleaning up one of its euros. If there's warts you'll see them if there's flaws you will be aware of them.

So what happened next is kind of sound in many ways in the life of Noah, but it did happen. Genesis chapter 9 verse 20 after the flood, Noah began to cultivate the ground and he planted a vineyard.

One day he drank some wine that he had made and became drunk and lay naked inside of his tent. Pam, the father of Canaan, saw his father was naked went outside and told his brothers then Shem and Japheth took a robe and held it over their shoulders and backed into the tent to cover their father as they did this they look the other way so they would not see him naked while really after all that walking with the Lord. After all of that exercise of faith. This is how you're going to thank the Lord will this is what he did two things popped out from the story. First of all, it teaches us.

Anyone can fall into sin. Anyone can fall into sin including you and if you think moment that'll never happen to me or I would never deny the Lord or I would never send in the wake, you could know prayerfully and hopefully you won't.

And the fact is, God will never give you more than you can handle right because the Bible says in first Corinthians 1013 there is no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God was faithful will not allow you to be tempted above your ability to resist. There's always a way out of every temptation is in their how many of you have been tempted to sin. Raise your hand to be printed. J.

How many of you been tempted to sin in you giving into the temptation regular razor hands all of you as we all have have a week now.

Let me ask you this. Go back to that temptation you gave into whatever was. Was there a way out. Could you have resisted it could.

You will walk out of the door. Could you have terminated the conversation or whatever you are dealing with.

Could you have gotten out of it. Had you chosen to. The answer is yes. But if you don't choose to what you can choose the wrong thing and that's what Noah did you know may surprise you to know that sometimes those who have known the Lord longer can be more vulnerable to slipping in the person who is young and the thing that makes sense to you. Sometimes those love known the Lord longer can be more vulnerable to slipping than the person was young and the faith is a boat. Why, because when you're young in the faith. You know you're weak and vulnerable, so your careful and you hopefully surround yourself with godly people. But when you've known the Lord for a while you think. And while I'm on pretty good. I don't think I need to have those safeguards in my life anymore. I'll just pretty much not be accountable to anyone and do what I want when I want the next thing you know you're falling extensive Bible knowledge and years of spiritual experience make you think you're somehow above it all. You think you've reached some kind of a plateau spiritually, but you'll never reach that plateau in the Bible warns that him that thinks he says take heed lest he fall. You know there's a number of godly people who fell after they'd known the Lord for years. Moses comes to mind member when he struck the rock with the staff, and water came out while he struck a rock again later in the story when the Lord is not told him to, and was yelling at the Israelites a must we get water out of the rock, as we've done before Kenna taken the glory for himself that only belong to God. Because of this the Lord and let them enter the promised land. Moses, the man of God, the man at the Lord spoke to at the burning Bush the man who led the exodus out of Egypt. The man who put up a lot of the whining and complaining of the Israelites and was so faithful to the Lord blowed at the end and even make it into the promised land. David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, the king of Israel and the men uniquely identified as being after God's own heart. Send later in life as well. He was in his 50s appears to be having something of a midlife crisis kicking back in his rooftop really should have been leading the troops in the battle that steadies scoping checks and he sees the beautiful Bathsheba. Ironically, baby herself any lust after her and you know the rest of that story how he she became pregnant and he had her husband killed to cover it up. That happened after he known the Lord for years and then David's son Solomon fell in the gross sin, in his later years as well. Solomon was given such great wisdom from heaven that people came from around the world to sit at his feet and drink it in, and yet he went on an epic backslide and recorded it for us is called the book of Ecclesiastes talks about all the things he tried and experimented with in all the things that were so empty and ultimately he says a here's the conclusion that your God and keep his commandments at the whole duty of menses and what you bring in all the sub, I'm just saying that anybody can fall into sin if they choose to. You don't want to just start this race. Well, you want to finish the race. Good insight today based on the life of Noah Pastor Greg Laurie today on a new beginning. He is presenting a message called the world changer at the end of the world part two and you can hear any part of the study. You may have missed by going to harvest.org and then were so pleased to have authors Catherine and Jay Wolf with us today. They ridden the inspiring book called suffer strong since Katherine's near fatal brain stem stroke back in 2008, life is changed radically for both of them, but the powerful lessons they've learned have brought them closer to the Lord and they can do the same for you. Catherine people quoted Romans 828 to you how things work together for good thoughts about that first about Romans 828 is totally true and it does not say things that are totally true because God's love is not attached to anything in our physical world and Isaiah 45, three says I will give you hidden tractor in the darkness, which is stored in secret places so that you may know that I am not the God of Israel, the God is something you by name and a beautiful thought in our nightmares and in the darkness is that there is trash.

They are now when you have to guide the darkness we get to be treasure bearers for the rest of our lives and back in the extremely cold comfort when you have a child diary.

You have a massive stroke or in any of our horrific nightmares, but the thought of God selecting nice and giving us a treasure is a comfort. First, your yeah I'm I would say I went on a journey, probably eight years ago to understand the goodness of God and reconcile some of that junk that I've always believed in light of what happened to me that actions a jacket a negative way.

Just things that people would say to me that are putting Jesus Band-Aids on bullet wounds well and things that really can only be classified as like a Christian cliché that was almost meaningless and very painful and that and what I have found is that the word guide is totally defined wrongly in our world that true goodness as Sir Richard Baker, a theologian from 1600 that true goodness can never be withheld from Psalm 8411 is true because the truly good things of God are not things that all the truly good that things are peace of conscience. Joy in the Holy Spirit. There fruition of his presence in this life and the assurance of his face in the next and those things are not things the world can patch to matter much going on in our broken lives the untouchable things inside of us are the truly good ones that cannot be without. If you just tuned in your listening to Catherine Wolf talk about what she is learned in light of a life altering event that took place for her when she suffered a near fatal brain stem stroke at the age of 26 and I'm interviewing her and her husband Jay and one thing that Jay said earlier that I really liked was the looks like the end of your story when it actually is a new beginning and I think right now I might be talking to somebody that feels like they'd come to the end of their story. Some horrible news. Some traumatic event. They think that's it, but were offering the book right now, written by Catherine and Jay titled suffer strong. I love the subtitle how to survive anything by redefining everything and it's the way you look at things as you guys have shared and we want to offer this amazing new book to anyone for your gift of any size so we can continue on to teach God's word and future guests like Catherine and Jay and also to proclaim the gospel which is really the only hope because here's the bottom line whatever suffering were going through today I hundred years from now. Wolf scannable morbid thoughts will all be dead.

But if we put our trust in Christ will be in heaven and what it's really all said and done, are you ready for eternity and that is why we do what we do and and I know that really motivates Catherine in Jay as well so I think this book suffer strong is really gonna be a great message of hope and encouragement, and will also help you to redefine what you're going through this right and we have a copy waiting for you would like to send it your way to thank you for your partnership with us in bringing these daily studies each day and we have no other way of making pastor Greg insights available other than listener support to thank you for standing with us as we offer this encouragement. Ask for the book suffer strong as you write a new beginning. Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org everybody Greg Laurie here. I wanted tell you about a great way to hear God's word and worship with fellow believers, not only around the nation and around the world. It's called Harvest at Home. Millions are turning in from all over the planet and tens of thousands of make decisions for Jesus Christ.

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Next I pastor Greg wraps up our studies of Noah and a short series on some of the great heroes of the Bible.

Join us next time you're in a new beginning pastor Greg Moore and possible by harvest partners, helping people everywhere know God sign up for pastor grades free daily email, devotions@harvest.org