How was the world judged in the past? And what’s been happening lately?

Sermon Topic Sunday April 21, 2013 Elder Adam Porter
How was the world judged in the past? And what’s been happening lately? …The days of Noah, and the Ark
Genesis 6:5, 11-12 … the world was entirely filled with wickedness and VIOLENCE. People today angrily ask Christians “Where is your God when such evil is done?”, but then turn around and condemn Christians for being “judgemental” and worshipping a mean judgemental God when he does act in response to great evil.
God did not UTTERLY destroy human, animal or plant life. Every kind of animal was preserved. And Noah and his family were found righteous … God always has His remnant (1 Kings 19:18 msl) For those who would say God is evil for destroying all those people … how many more people could have been accommodated on the Ark, if they had chosen to get on?
7:1 … 7 days before the flood started, God called them into the Ark. Do we ask God for specific preservation in our lives? …direction? …are we WILLING to have Him direct our lives? (they sat in that Ark for a week after God closed the door … during that time, could other people have chosen to knock on the door, and been admitted? msl)
Noah PREACHED righteousness so that others would not perish (2 Peter 3:9)
7:11 … Noah was 600 years old when the flood started. The people on the Ark had left families behind … that must have been a great sorrow. Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives would have only taken dependent minor children on the Ark with them … how many aunts/uncles, cousins/nieces/nephews, siblings, adult children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc. did those four couples leave behind, knowing that they would never see them again?
6:19 Each creature AFTER ITS KIND was taken into the Ark. All the different breeds of critters on Earth came from those taken on the Ark.
The “fossil record” is used to “prove” evolution from simpler creatures to more complex. Variations in KINDS of critters since the flood prove “micro-evolution”, but there is NO evidence of “macro-evolution”, or change from a simpler KIND of critter to a more complex KIND. (the only thing that the fossil record actually PROVES is that at some point in Earth’s history, billions of living creatures were SUDDENLY, INSTANTANEOUSLY OVERWHELMED, buried and hence preserved … gee, how could that have happened? msl)
7:16 … God, the LORD, shut the door. There was only one door into the Ark, and only one door into the Kingdom of Heaven (John 10)
7:18 … the waters PREVAILED … all land was covered. Modern geology reflects this, with fossils of sea creatures found on mountains (again, a creature can only be fossilized by being instantaneously completely buried … a creature lying dead would be picked away by scavengers and decay msl) … The waters prevailed for 150 days; the fact that this is recorded shows that they kept track of time back then.
8:7 … Noah sent first a raven, which didn’t come back … a raven is a scavenger and could have found any slimy thing to perch on … then he sent the dove, which came back, and a week later the dove again, which returned with an olive branch showing that the land was dried enough for plant life to grow; and again a week later, when the dove did not return.
8:13, 9:1 Noah and his family opened the Ark on the first day of the first month of Noah’s 601st year, and left the Ark on the 27th day of the 2nd month (they boarded on the 10th of the 2nd month the year before … they were on the Ark for 382 days), and were commanded by God to multiply and replenish the Earth, as were the creatures they took aboard. The multiplication and natural selection have given us all the different breeds of critters we have today.
8:20-21 … Noah built an altar and offered sacrifices to the Lord, and the Lord smelled a sweet savor…. When we perform our daily work on Earth, does He smell a sweet savor?
8:22 … the establishment of the seasons, after the loss of the water canopy over Earth.
9 … the loss of relationship with the animal kingdom, the beginning of eating animals for food, and the establishment of capital punishment for the shedding of innocent blood; the command to repopulate the Earth, and the covenant that God would never again destroy all life by flood, with the rainbow as the sign. Other religions have taken the sign of the rainbow and changed its meaning, but God’s covenant still stands. The Lord always gives a sign of His covenants.
Ether 3:8, the Jaredite migration … their boats are also described as “tight like unto the Ark of Noah”
Hebrews 11 … where is the proof of your faith? Many today believe there is a God, but choose not to serve Him. How does your faith manifest in your life? V.7, BY FAITH Noah built the Ark.
1 Peter 3:18-21 … Jesus’ sacrifice is the ONLY one that is sufficient … death has been overcome … water baptism is the answer of a good conscience toward God, engaging one’s faith in repentance. (Phillipians 2:12, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling) No half-heartedness on our parts … give it ALL to God, He wants nothing less. There are those who have gone into the waters of baptism without giving their heart to the Lord … all they got was wet.
John 10:1 enter in by the DOOR
John 10:7-9 … I AM the door … there is no other ( 2 Corinthians 11:14, the enemy masquerades as an angel of light, and offers all kinds of false doors) … There is NO salvation in any other. Just as Noah and his family entered into the only door of the Ark to be saved, and the door was shut by God, so Jesus calls us to enter into salvation thru the only door, and be closed into the fold by God.
3 Nephi 10 … Jesus teaching His people in this land that He has NOT forgotten His covenant with Jacob (Israel). 10:15 … for a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. The Jews would be a hiss and a byword, and the Native Americans were also badly mistreated by the Gentiles, but God will keep His covenant and restore them to their lands.
Matthew 24 … what is yet to come? He will be coming! V. 35 … heaven and earth shall pass away, but MY WORDS SHALL NOT PASS AWAY. Let us remember the words of Hymn #354, With A Steadfast Faith … They truly inspire us to LIVE the Christian faith. And the chorus: Though the sun and moon and starts shall cease, and the beauty of the earth decay, Yet the Word of God, oh blessed be His Name, It shall never, never pass away.
V. 37-39 … How many people just go on as they have all along; living in the flesh and never heeding the warnings, til the events happen. (Genesis 7:11; there was no time once the water burst from the earth and fell from the sky for the people to build their own boats msl) WATCH … for you do not know the day nor the hour.