Was there ever a world like ours?
Do you ever feel discouraged, disheartened, weighted down?
A politician wants to remove the mention of God from all government activities.
A judge rules that possessing child pornography is legal and the right of an individual.
A young teen dies in a mindless, drive-by shooting.
A mother stabs her own new-born baby.
Around the world atrocities mount until we feel we must shut it out or go mad.
Every day we hear of more appalling injustices, more ghastly atrocities. The whole world seems to have gone insane with hatred and cruelty.
We are assaulted on every side by lurid temptations which appeal to all that is lowest and basest within us.
How is it possible to live in such a world as a Christian?
(Genesis 6:5,9) The wickedness of man was great in the earth and every imagination and intention of all human thinking was only evil continually -- but -- Noah was blameless in his evil generation.
Blameless? How did he manage that? The verse goes on to tell us that Noah walked in habitual fellowship with God; a fellowship which protected and enabled him. But then ... ark? rain? What are they? Noah had never heard of such things. Just consider the amazing faith of Noah; a faith that did not begin with the threat of the Flood but a faith that was born and nurtured in his habitual fellowship with God.
After decades of shipbuilding and explaining, was Noah dejected as he entered the ark? Apart from his family he had not led one person into salvation. Did he feel like a failure? Was he?
Because he TRUSTED AND OBEYED, the Lord performed an amputation which preserved the human race.
Yes the Flood was God's judgment but it was also God's merciful surgery.
Because of Noah, you and I are here today.
Noah demonstrated that by trusting and obeying, even in the dark, we can be involved in God's awesome purposes; purposes as far beyond our imaginings as rain was to Noah.
With love and prayers,