Fighting For Truth

Well, I wanted to read to you from 2 Peter 2, where the Lord talks about the rise of false teachers, and he talks about the faithfulness of Noah.

2 Peter 2, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of the truth will be maligned." and in their greed they will exploit you with false words their judgment from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep for if god did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment and did not spare the ancient world but preserved noah a preacher of righteousness with seven others his wife his three sons and their respective wives preacher of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly and if he condemned the cities of sodom and gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes having made them an example of those who would live on godly lives thereafter and if he rescued righteous lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men for by what he saw and heard that righteous man The Bible calls Lot a righteous man, the same man that offered his daughters to the lust-filled sodomites who wanted to have sex with the angels who looked like men.

For but what he saw and heard, that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds.

Then...

The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.

So here's what I was thinking about this morning.

Noah, one of my favorite men in scripture, Noah, the man who built the ark, the man who found favor, Genesis 6, Noah found grace, he found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

The whole earth was rotten and God was sorry in his heart that he made man and he said, I'm gonna destroy man from the face of the earth.

But Noah found favor in the Lord's sight, and the Lord called Noah to build this great vessel we know as Noah's ark.

And he was building that ark from my reading of Scripture for 100 years, from the time he was 500 until he was 600.

The Bible mentions in Genesis 5, Noah was 500 when he had his sons, and then he was 600 when he went on the ark.

And so there's a 100-year period in there Some say 120 years, because Genesis 6.3 says, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, yet his days shall be 120 years.

There's a big gap of time, a long time in there.

The Bible says in 1 Peter 3 that the patience of God was waiting in the days of Noah.

Here's the thing about Noah.

He's an ark builder, right? He's a preacher of righteousness.

And he preached and preached and preached, even though we may not know exactly how long it was building that ark.

We know that those hundred years are mentioned.

He was 600.

Nobody denies that when he went on to the ark.

For a long time, for decades, he was building the boat, and for decades he was preaching that this is the ark of salvation, that God is going to destroy the world with a flood.

And he was faithful in that message.

And here's the thing that is so encouraging about Noah.

This is what makes him an example to me, is he saw really outside of his own family, he saw zero results, zero converts.

Well, I wanted to read to you from 2 Peter 2, where the Lord talks about the rise of false teachers, and he talks about the faithfulness of Noah.

2 Peter 2, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of the truth will be maligned." and in their greed they will exploit you with false words their judgment from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep for if god did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment and did not spare the ancient world but preserved noah a preacher of righteousness with seven others his wife his three sons and their respective wives preacher of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly and if he condemned the cities of sodom and gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes having made them an example of those who would live on godly lives thereafter and if he rescued righteous lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men for by what he saw and heard that righteous man The Bible calls Lot a righteous man, the same man that offered his daughters to the lust-filled sodomites who wanted to have sex with the angels who looked like men.

For but what he saw and heard, that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds.

Then...

The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.

So here's what I was thinking about this morning.

Noah, one of my favorite men in scripture, Noah, the man who built the ark, the man who found favor, Genesis 6, Noah found grace, he found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

The whole earth was rotten and God was sorry in his heart that he made man and he said, I'm gonna destroy man from the face of the earth.

But Noah found favor in the Lord's sight, and the Lord called Noah to build this great vessel we know as Noah's ark.

And he was building that ark from my reading of Scripture for 100 years, from the time he was 500 until he was 600.

The Bible mentions in Genesis 5, Noah was 500 when he had his sons, and then he was 600 when he went on the ark.

And so there's a 100-year period in there Some say 120 years, because Genesis 6.3 says, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, yet his days shall be 120 years.

There's a big gap of time, a long time in there.

The Bible says in 1 Peter 3 that the patience of God was waiting in the days of Noah.

Here's the thing about Noah.

He's an ark builder, right? He's a preacher of righteousness.

And he preached and preached and preached, even though we may not know exactly how long it was building that ark.

We know that those hundred years are mentioned.

He was 600.

Nobody denies that when he went on to the ark.

For a long time, for decades, he was building the boat, and for decades he was preaching that this is the ark of salvation, that God is going to destroy the world with a flood.

And he was faithful in that message.

And here's the thing that is so encouraging about Noah.

This is what makes him an example to me, is he saw really outside of his own family, he saw zero results, zero converts.