Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:51 — 18.2MB)

8-27-2017 Weekly Message

The contemplation of the week: Psalm 112: 1-10

Text: Genesis 6:5-22

The title of the Word: Let The Anchor Of Soul Rooted Into The Hope Of The Lord

        After about a thousand years since Adam, when the LORD God saw that the thoughts and imaginations of all the people’s minds were constantly evil, he repented that he created man on the earth. It also displeased his heart. Finally, God had decided to sweep away all who live on the earth with water. But God’s will is the destruction of the devil, who has made evil men of God’s creation, so God chose Noah the One.

        God said that he chose Noah because he found grace at the eyes of the Lord. God  also said that he was a righteous man, a perfect man in his day, and a man who walked with God. In other word, he was obedient to the words of God. The person who obeys the Word of God is the one  that obeys the word of God because  it is the Word of God, even though it does not make any sense to man.

         At the time he lived, there was never any rain in the sky. The Bible says this:

“ These are the generations of the heavens and of the  earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God  made the earth and the heavens,   And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD  God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.   But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.“(Gen 2: 4-6)

         Noah was the one who totally believed in the Word of God and walked with God in obedience to His Word, so God chose him and planned to continue the seed of man. He believed that when the rain had  not come yet at that time, many people would be judged by the flood.

          Noah’s faith was truly a belief overcoming the world. He had built a big ship with a length of 150 meters, not a chopper for 120 years. We can hardly guess how much of the ridicule and persecution against him.  We can imagine how much his nearest family such as his wife, children, and his daughters-in-law would complain and ridicule him. It is also possible to imagine that all the wicked people would come and destroyed the ship and persecute Noah. Nevertheless, Noah, a man of faith, believed in the Word of God, and by his power of faith he overcame all sufferings and completed the ark.

          The Lord’s loving disciple John testified clearly after he had overcame the world by faith:

”   For whatsoever is born of God overcometh theworld: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? ” (1 John 5: 4-5)

         When Apostle Peter wrote to Christians, he testified that Noah was a preacher of righteousness:

“And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; ” (2 Peter 2: 5)

          The Word of God is testifying to those who have overcome the world by faith. Abraham believed in the word of God that he would give him a son and bless all nations in him, so he had kept faith for 25 years. The apostle Paul testified that he was convinced that not only did he not doubt God’s promise because of the lack of faith, but that the faith was firmer and he rather glorified God over time, and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able to also to perform. (Romans 4: 18-21 )

          The scriptures testifies of  Abel, Enoch, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph and even Rahab, the prostitute, who had overcome the world by faith  (Hebrews chapter 11).

            Enoch is the model of the Church of God that shall be lifted up to heaven before the Great Tribulation ;and Noah and his family can be labeled as examples of Jews who shall be protected through tribulation during the Great Tribulation. Noah’s ark is a model of Jesus showing the doctrine that anyone who believes in Him and is baptized into His body shall be saved.

           The apostle Paul testified about Christians who entered the spiritual ark:

” Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized  into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness  of life.”(Romans 6: 3-4)

          After resurrection,  Lord Jesus Christ appeared to John the Apostle and gave him  letters to the seven churches He spoke of the church of Philadelphia, the church to be raptured before the Great Tribulation:

“Because thouhast kept the word of my patience, I alsowill keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come*upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly: holdthat fast which thou hast, that noman take thy crown.  “(Revelation 3:10-11)

         The Lord Jesus said that at the end of the Great Tribulation he would come back as the Son of Man and judge the world as it was in the days of  Noah:

“But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.   For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,  And knew not until the floodcame, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. “(Matthew 24: 37-39)

              It is a small anchor to hold on not to move even if it is a big ship. God gave each of us a anchor of hope so that our faith is unshaken in the stormy world. We have to descend the anchor that he gave  us. The Apostle Paul testified about what this anchor is.

” Which hope we have as an anchor of thesoul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into thatwithin the veil;  Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.“(Hebrews 6: 19-20)

            That is correct! As we look upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who will appear before the Great Tribulation, to lift  us to heaven  like Enoch, we must take this word of promise deeply as an anchor of our souls, and keep the hope  in the Word of God  in our unshakable faith and walk with Him.

            Therefore, the Apostle Paul cccharged Timothy the pastor to preach this word of hope. This is also the command given to all pastors:

” I  charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord JesusChrist, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearingand his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in  season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsufferingand doctrine.  For the time will come when they will notendure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;   And they shall turn away* their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.   But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, dothe work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. ” (2 Tim. 4: 1-5).

             The apostle Paul testified that he would receive the crown of righteousness because he kept faith in the Lord until he came to the end and testified that he would give not only to himself but also to all who desire the day of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rapture Day) . Amen! Hallelujah!