In this sermon titled 'How to Live in a Wicked Generation,' speaker Paul Carrington explores the story of Noah and draws parallels to the challenges faced by Christians in the present day. He discusses the moral decay and violence prevalent in Noah's time, emphasizing the importance of finding grace in the eyes of the LORD and maintaining a strong faith. Carrington highlights Noah's obedience to God's commands and his role as a preacher of righteousness. He encourages believers to stand firm in the face of societal challenges and to continue proclaiming the gospel with enduring faith.

� Alright, well good afternoon church. This afternoon I just ask you if you could kindly open up your Bibles to Genesis Chapter 6. We're going to be spending time here in this chapter. And really what we're going to be doing is spending time with a man who embarked on what could be regarded as the greatest fool's errand in history, at least by the standards of the world. He was a laughing stock of his day, and he would have known what the Apostle Paul meant when he referred to his own ministry.

He says that we have been made as the filth of the world. The off-scouring of all things. But of course he was ultimately vindicated. Some have called Noah the second father of the human family. In fact every single one of you are in some way related to him and we're gonna read about him here in chapter 6 so we're gonna start in verse 5 and then read down to verse 12 so join with me it says here Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy men whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing, and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.' But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God, and Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked up upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you here again this afternoon. Oh Lord, we ask you for help, to understand your word and to apply it.

Oh Lord, please be with us and strengthen us. Lord, help me to render your word accurately, and Lord, that your people would be blessed and helped. We ask these things in the name of your son Jesus. Amen. Amen.

Well, really the purpose today that I have here is looking at this text, it really compels us to consider the disposition of a Christian at a time of great apostasy and spiritual confusion. And as we walk with Noah, I want us to be thinking about our own day, Where we live in this day in this hour, right now, do you understand the times that you're living in this very moment in history? And how are we to live in the days that we're living in in terms of the darkness all around us. And to help us kind of go through that, the outline is very, very simple. I want to take a look at the times that Noah lived in and then the man Noah himself.

And of course, chapter 6, we didn't read it, but if you go back a few verses, it really begins with an account of the compromise that took place in Noah's day, where the godly line of Seth had finally capitulated and began intermarrying with the godless line of Cain, the sons of men. And of course, no surprise, over time, the godly family was on the wane. Little by little, it was being kind of bred out of the human race. And you come to this man, Noah, he's really the tenth from Adam, so not all that far. His great-grandfather was Enoch, who we read about in Hebrews 11, and we're just about 1500 years from the time of creation.

But already the contagion had spread to every part of the human family. And it says there in verse 5 that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. And that every intent of the thoughts of his heart, the very center of man had become so corrupted that That's what was coming out of And that was not just once But says EVIL continually This is Romane's ONE downward spiral That you begin to see When you look through human history It was actively, intentionally destroying everything that God had created including one another. And here you find a mass of people on the face of the earth that were willing to exchange a drop of pleasure for a sea of wrath and it was going to come upon them. And you know times like this have come and gone in history.

You know I was reading about Augustine and we all know Augustine, at least the name, but he presided, he lived at the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire. There he was as a man who got converted. He got saved. He began serving the church and became a theologian. And he made this conclusion of the collapse of the Roman Empire.

He says that this illness was terminal because it was rooted in the decadence of the Roman culture and that's what led to its downfall. And although Rome fell in a day, there was a day when the Visigoths, they came down, this Germanic tribe came down and basically broke through the doors of Rome. But there's no illusion that Rome had been collapsing for a very long time. It was a process, not a moment. It was an era, not an event, that took Rome down.

And after hundreds of years, its stability, its wealth, its military superiority all of that its invincibility was just snuffeded out it seemed like in a very short period of time and he argued that though we may be pilgrims in the city of man He wrote a book called the city of God. And so he says, so we may be pilgrims in the city of man, which means living in the earth. We're not merely passing through. The city of man is also ordained by God and is under the rule of Christ. And so we have we have an interest here in the world that we live in.

And so what was true of Noah's day and the days of Augustine and also in our day, if we fast forward now to where we live, is this observation here. And it's taken from a man who wrote a book, his name is Vishal Mangowadi and he has this quote in his book. � in a book. He says that violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values that created it.

Think about that for a moment. And so I want to talk to us a little bit about our times here. It's fair to say I think that we are living in unprecedented times, and Christians should be the first to kind of recognize �—the Holy Spirit—hopefully we can we can do that because you can't really name a time when a head in the sand approach has been an effective way to live. You remember when Esther was approached and told of the plot by Haman to overthrow and destroy all the Jews. She kind of wanted to just kind of let things go without really taking much action or doing anything about it.

Mordecai rebuked her and she was awakened. The approach to just pretend everything is good isn't usually the best approach. But to see things as they are, not become disheartened, but then decide, how should we live in the light of the reality that we find ourselves in? And so, would anyone accuse me of exaggeration if I said that we were living in very similar times of moral decay we're in a bad spot and granted we're not in as bad a spot as some other nations But there's something that makes our condition worse than I would say any other nation, and maybe any other nation, in history. See if this resonates.

Which country has been more blessed in human history than America? Try to think of another nation when you start adding all of the blessings up. And so it's not only that we're doing evil, and I'm speaking generally as a nation, as a culture, not as a specific church or churches and things like that. It's not only that we're doing evil, but it's in the face of the blessings that God has so bestowed upon this nation, which makes the crime all the greater. As that quote said, each civilization dies from indifference towards the unique values that created it.

And there's a modern kind of, I would say, observer of human culture or American culture. His name is Aaron Wren, and he wrote an essay called the three worlds of evangelicalism and I won't go into all the details but he says you know there's a positive world, a neutral world, and then a negative world and he categorizes them like this that positive world would be kind of American culture leading up until about 1994 that's a long time isn't it? A long time where it was kind of the Christian moral norms were the basis of culture was just taken for granted where even to be an atheist took courage and even the atheists that were there were some would call them even Christian atheists and that they they borrowed so much from the Christian worldview to make sense of the world that they were trying to refute and explain But then from 1994 till about 2014, he describes what we call kind of a neutral world, where yeah, sure, you can be a Christian, but you can just as easily be a Muslim, a Hindu, anything else. Just a collective shrug, nothing matters. Be an atheist, be whatever you want, and you're fine.

And that lasted from 1994 to about 2014. But then something happened in 2014 and of course we all know what happened in 2015 with Obergefell but he says this a Obergefell is by the way a symptom of the problem, not the problem, but here's a quote where he says this, he says, society in negative world, that's what we're gonna be talking about, in negative world society has come to have a negative view of Christianity. Being known as a Christian is a social negative, particularly in the elite domains of society. Christian morality is expressly repudiated And seen as a threat to the public good and the new public moral order. Subscribing to christian moral views or violating the secular moral order brings negative consequences.

A secular moral order. And so here's here's the argument that I would like to make. We find ourselves in a new world so to speak. Really the first time in about 400 years that the culture as a whole, and you can argue with 2013, 2014, 2015, that doesn't really matter. But the point that he's making is that we're kind of in the first time in our history where it's a negative, prevailing negative view toward Christianity and Christian morals.

And being a christian can carry with it a diminished social status well the reality is most of us as christians in in the u.s are still operating as though everything is just fine and normal things you know we're still kind of living in positive and neutral we can't really figure out what's really going on there's still lots of churches real Christians scattered across the land but something's afoot like no other time in our history and when you begin to catalog it and look at things good is increasingly being regarded as evil and vice versa right where sweet is now bitter bitter is now sweet and I want to look at some of these symptoms here just to help us understand really the times and again there are symptoms of a greater deeper problem of the heart If we just begin to look at abortion itself, our brother prayed about that this morning about our work here as a church down at the abortion mill. But even with the overturning of Roe that took place in 2022, did you know that abortion rates have actually gone up since then? They haven't gone down as a result of Roe as being overturned.

No, it's become actually increased higher than it was in 2020 by about 8% more. Broken homes, 40% of all children are born out of wedlock. Here's a major moral problem that you probably don't put in the category of moral. But think about this, our border right now is virtually non-existent. I wouldn't even flatter the state of things and say it's porous, it's not even, it's non-existent for the most part, where you've had in the last three years, eight plus million illegal people, illegal immigrants come across into the country.

And think about this, that if you were to take that eight million of illegal immigrants, it would be the 13th largest state in the Union. Every single month, the equivalent of a Wyoming or a Vermont just comes over the border. Every single month. Last month, January, you just had the population of Vermont or Wyoming come into the country illegally and disappear nowhere. But is that a moral problem?

Well, of course it is. And there'll be massive consequences to that. � to that economically you get into all the details we're punishing future generations by the way that we're spending you could go down the line we're waging lawfare not Warfare but lawfare where we take what were originally righteous laws and we're overthrowing them and penalizing people really who aren't necessarily doing evil and then letting those who are doing evil off scotfree everything's been flipped on its head against this side Ali this is what's going on and I was trying to figure out like how can you sum up the slide that's taken place in our culture and you know I was just doing some reading on our first Supreme Court justice his name was John Jay he's actually one of the founding fathers and this is what he said so going way back to the founding and pre-founding of this country look what he says look at the gravitas and the respect for the Word of God. He says, �' siveness and liberty apart from the moral precepts of the Christian religion. Should our republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance, this great experiment will then be surely doomed.

Here's our first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay. Well, what about our latest addition to the Supreme Court by the Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson. During her confirmation hearing She's asked a very simple question that anyone I would hazard over to in this church could answer. Can you provide the definition for the word woman? And looking around confused, her response was, I'm not a biologist.

It's not my domain. I don't know. Someone who's going to be judging the land according to the precepts and principles that relate � out, can't tell or doesn't want to say I should say what it is to be a woman. Think about that slide from John Jay our first to our last Supreme Court justice and it somehow hopefully captures exactly what's gone on in this country. Well what you ought to see, hopefully you can see it is there's an out-and-out gloves off war against the Creator and His Design well welcome to negative world that's That's really where you find yourself if you're willing to kind of face the consequences.

And guess what? Like Esther, you were born for such a time as this. It's not a time to necessarily be discouraged or woe is us or what are we going to do. There's so many things we can do as we'll talk about. And in verse 6 it says this, and the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart and we know that that god had a plan from the foundation of the world.

But but this scripture is really conveying the depth of the problem that God looked down and he saw the state of man and the affairs that men were conducting upon the earth and in his heart that means in his in the very center of his being. It grieved him when he saw what man had become these short 1,500 years after creation. It's with this understanding that we read verse 7. It says, So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, � in birds of the air for I am sorry that I made them well things have been unfolding for a long time God had been merciful he'd been long suffering for centuries but now he's going to show himself a God of judgment and evil had taken such hold of the culture, the prevailing culture of that day that we read in verse 11 and 12, it says, the earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth Greech and indeed it was corrupt for all flesh Had corrupted their way on the earth and what what were do you see over and over there three?

כשיו There are three times corrupt Corrupt decay ruin Destroyed is really what that means men when men no longer fear God they're no longer going to respect one another. And so violence was the predominant theme. Well, we've seen the times that Noah was in, we see the times that we're in as well, but I want to look at the man and see if we can glean anything from the man himself, Noah. You know, aren't you glad when you are reading the word of God And then you come across those words like in Ephesians chapter 2, but God. Right, you see that, but God.

And you kind of, you know, you perk up because you know God is, it's about to be announced that God did something to break something terrible going on. Well finally we have some good news here in verse 8. It says, but Noah found grace in the sight, in the eyes of the Lord. And this is the first time that the word grace ever appears in the scriptures and you can't find a more welcome word against such a dark backdrop of what we just discussed in terms of the human condition and of course God is never at a loss he's never caught off guard he's never confused or wondering what he's gonna do next None of that ever takes God off guard. But let's talk about the man himself.

Well, there's three big things that characterized Noah in his life. The first one is he found grace. He found grace. This is always the most important thing about a man, about a woman, about a child, that they found grace amidst all the corruption, the ruin, the decay Here's a man who loves God. This tiny little light shining in the midst of all the prevailing darkness.

You know, there was a time when Elijah, you remember Elijah the prophet, he felt so alone. When there he was, he was standing up for God, he was, you know, he was witnessing, he was doing everything he could. And he got to that point where he wondered aloud, am I the only one left? And the Lord challenged him. He says, there are yet 7,000 that have not bowed the knee to Baal.

But What do we have here? What a travesty. We've got just a single man, not even a church, not a community, nothing like that. Well, we have a man and his wife, his three sons, and their wives, and they had all found undeserved favor, but they're in a terrible, terrible minority. But if you have found grace in the eyes of the Lord, it's the most important, most powerful thing that can ever take place in a man's heart, irregardless of the external circumstances and the society that you've found yourself in.

Well the second point is that not only had he found grace in the eyes of the Lord but he had faith, and he had an enduring faith. This is so important, See like Abraham, his fellow that we meet in Hebrews chapter 11, it's a you know he talks about these men how he looked for a city that had foundations whose builder and maker is God. Well his faith was the catalyst that really enabled him to live practically in a holy way even when everything around him was disintegrating. And there's a man by the name of Tertullian. I don't know if you've ever heard of him.

He's an early church father. I want to ask you the question, have you ever considered the power of holy living? You see, before Tertullian was a Christian, he was there in North Africa he was observing the persecution it was intense persecution of Christians who would not burn incense to Caesar. And this is what he said, he says, look at them. There must be something in this.

There must be something in this belief if it can make men do that. They are prepared to give up everything, even life itself. And I want to ask us, can people by observation tell that we are Christians? The things that you care about, the things that you love, maybe the things that you hate, the way that you dress, the places you go, the way that you conduct yourself is there an observable witness that I am a christian that might even lead to someone else wondering if that is what a christian is I want to be like that person well that's what happened to tritolian so you have a man here like Noah he found grace he has this enduring faith and here's where I want to spend some time is that here was a man it says here very very simply Noah walked with God there in verse 8. He walked with God.

What a verse 9. What an amazing epitaph. If you could just have that as your epitaph when you die, that's what you put on your gravestone, he walked with God, there's nothing better to be known by. That young lady or that man or that whatever, he walked with God. It captures so much that you need to know about a person.

So somehow amidst the evil, here was a man who was he was kept and again the cultural ground beneath his feet was literally disintegrating. He was in negative world but he walked with God. It's possible and it's possible for us today. So do you see the pattern here? He found grace, he had faith, and his faith led him to obedience.

You know, it's Thomas Watson. He has this statement. He says, obedience is faith's daughter. Very simple way that you could explain that to your children. Obedience is faith's daughter.

One comes first, right? Out of faith is obedience. You don't want to get those things necessarily backwards. And you know, this whole time we've been going through this series, we've been talking really about the heart and the state of our hearts. And I was reading JC ryle.

He has a book called Old Path, such a good book. And he says this, he says the head is not the principle thing. You may know the whole truth, as it is in Jesus, and consent that it is good. You may be clear, correct and sound in your religious opinions but all this time you may be walking in the broad way which leadeth to destruction it is your heart which is the main point is thy heart right in the sight of God it's really the question here that we all have to ask and we find Noah in the midst of this declining culture keeping his heart with all diligence decade after decade well how did this obedience work itself out where there's a couple things here really do identify the first thing is he builds the arc he builds this superstructure think about what he built That even today if you go up to Kentucky to go up to the Ark, Ken Ham's Ark that he built up there, do you know that even today it is the world's largest timber structure? In 2024.

Could you imagine? And it's only when you walk up to it that you get a sense of the enormity of this thing. It's a massive structure. And it would have cost a huge amount of money he put into it, time, hour, all the construction capabilities that we have in our day today, but that's one thing. He moved and he built something that God had commanded him to do.

He built the Ark. That's important, we'll get back to that in a second. The second thing that's so critical about this man's obedience and we don't find out about it until we get to the New Testament Where Peter tells us Something astounding about this man. We wouldn't have otherwise known at all. Yes.

He built the ark, but did you also know that he was a preacher of righteousness? So beyond the the massive structure that God was having him build in that field somewhere, right, having been the recipient of grace, and then knowing what he knew, he couldn't stay quiet. And so what he would do, he would perhaps with a hammer in one hand and then just standing up on maybe a platform or whatever it was he pleaded with those all around him to see their danger and to escape the wrath that's to come to get off the train that was hurdling toward their collective destruction he could have taken the approach and this is so important hey I'm gonna be out of here in a few weeks no skin off my nose I know where I'm going but that wasn't that wasn't Noah that was in Augustine by the way that's � and women who love God conduct themselves especially in a declining culture like the one that we're living in well I'm fine we've got our little collective group here isn't it wonderful it's like a warm blanket and it is but it shouldn't render us indifferent to tE world all around us.

It wasn't what happened to Noah. See, Noah cared deeply and was troubled concerning the state of affairs all around him. You know, it's a good question to ask. Do you regret tE state of things when you look at them? Do you bemoan them?

Are you troubled by them when you look around? Are you burdened? Do times like this press upon your soul in any way? And I don't say this lightly, you know, but here he is, he's a preacher of righteousness. Imagine standing up against that wall of the culture that he was in there.

But he was one of the rarest species, if you will, a man with a steel spine. He would get up there and he would speak the word of God when people didn't want to hear it. And you know even if you read about men that were lions like Martin Luther, you know when Martin Luther he was at Worms in 1521, he walks into this diet of worms and there you see in front of you the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the fifth on all sides of him you had these prelates of the Catholic Church and He's told hey you see those books on the table are those your books yes they are will you recount recant what's written in those books and even Martin Luther felt intense pressure do you know that he asked for one day to consider and you know how he spent that night wrestling in prayer shouting crying out to God fighting off the devil And he came in the next day, and we have those famous words, here I stand, I can do no other. But I'm seeing how difficult it is to stand when the tides are that strong, when the wall is that hard against you.

And so above all else, saints, what we need to do is guard ourselves from the traitor that is within. There's a great danger there. We're living through a very strange kind of Reformation even right now, here in 2024. You know, on the one side we've got the proliferation of sound teaching like never before, spread across the world. Books being �.

And on the other hand, although we haven't seen anything of the likes which are going to be coming, maybe in the next couple of years, already men are failing and buckling underneath social pressure to just go along to get along. And I'm talking not about I'm not talking about the world I'm talking about Christian men and leaders in the church. You know there's a man by the name of Gavin Ortland he's one of these kind of gospel coalition-y type guys kind of regarded as like a rising star in evangelicalism. He's just all over the place right now because he's making this great argument that the flood was local it only took place in a little spot of time because God couldn't possibly bring animals and do all this we've got to make our religion more reasonable to the man who doesn't believe so we can win him over. He's a young guy.

There's another man by the name of Alastair Begg. You've probably heard of him. And I don't say this lightly. He's been a pastor longer than I've been alive. So I'm not here to throw a stone at him or anything like that.

But even him, relenting beneath cultural pressure, it just came out maybe the last week or two where he makes this recommendation to �s people, that you should, there's a woman who has a grand grandmother who has a son who's transgender, marrying another transgender. It's so convoluted, and he says, yes, you should go to the wedding and also bring a gift. Well, in what world does that make any sense whatsoever but see when you can't figure out what world I'm I and I'm still kind of in my positive world neutral you don't understand the times you can be discombobulated and not understand and you begin to capitulate and compromise. There's really only three responses, right? You can insulate yourself.

I'm not going to have anything to do with this. Let's go to the hills. You can compromise or you can live like Noah. And this is so important. See, so the reality, and you have to face it, right?

The reality is a large majority of us can't really stand to be laughed at or mocked to be thought ill of by the world we so we so covet respectability don't we we want to be respected and seen as reasonable and I think so often that's the reason we stay quiet when we should probably speak because that's not gonna muddy the waters or anything like that. Here was a man who built the ark. He was a preacher of righteousness and he kept going this is the third point not just a few years but but decades and I really ask you just for a minute here put yourself there for a second You know he found grace in the eyes of the Lord right, but he didn't find favour in the eyes of men at all. They hated him and they persecuted him, Because both by his life and his preaching, what was he doing? He was condemning them simply by those things.

But his love for God was a rebuke to the whole society that he was living in. And day in and day out he would go about his task decade by decade. How long did it take to build the ark? I don't know. And he's telling them, someday God is going to judge the earth.

He's going to bring rain. Well, it had never rained before. And the Lord didn't help him out. There were no storm clouds there on the horizon. There it's coming.

He didn't have a single convert that he could point to or draw some comfort from. Blue skies, chirping birds, barking dogs, mocking souls— that's what he was surrounded with— the only thing raining down were the insults that would have been coming on his head from those that were mocking him. And so he found great � Alert We found grace, he had faith, and then we read this beautiful summary statement in verse 22. It says this even though he was up against probably the most difficult of circumstances. It said thus Noah did according to all that God commanded him so he did.

And so in conclusion as the sun was setting on the antediluvian world two things were happening Noah was working and preaching and the world the prevailing culture was dancing and laughing or as Jesus said marrying and giving in marriage just life was carrying on as normal that is until the first drops began to fall rain what's that hadn't rained as I said just a second ago and maybe when those first drops started falling maybe the the mocking turned up even a notch higher oh maybe this is the day no and maybe it's all coming true � But what happened when the water got up to the ankles? The knees? Now it's at the torso. How many began to look out their window, maybe I should make a dash to the field, I think I'm going to wade through the field and maybe make a deathbed profession, and try to get into the Ark before it's too late. Imagine you get there and the door is shut and there's nothing else to do.

Maybe someone has a bright idea, probably a lot of people. Higher ground, let's just get up higher, go as high as we can and there we'll be safe. But of course we find out not even that will preserve you. It happened to them according to the proverb. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, "'therefore they shall eat of the fruit of their own way "'and be filled to the full with their own fancies.

"'For the turning away,' you know what that means? "'The careless ease, The turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. Well, to my unbelieving friends hearing me today, a greater than Noah is here, A greater than the ark is here, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you will not have him as Savior, and there are some here who have not yet bowed the knee, you will have him as judge. Know that and turn, because you're still living in the days of his patience, there's still opportunity.

You know one of the things that's so striking when the Lord Jesus, he begins to talk about Noah, when he talks about the signs of his coming, you know he says He says that they did not know, they did not know until the flood came and took them all away. That's that's so strange. You know, here you've got a preacher of righteousness, heralding the gospel, you've got the massive superstructure sitting in a field, and they did not know? Well, what did they know? They knew what the ark looked like.

They knew where it was, they knew who was building it, they even saw the animal � those souls entering it they knew that someday was being called for that was going to come at some point they had all the information and at the same time they did not lay it to heart you see they knew not they did not lay it to heart and here's the likely thing that perhaps I guarantee you there were some souls in those days that were maybe affected there was some prick of conscience maybe I should amend my ways maybe I � to what this man is saying but then they would go back to their old ways see the habit of putting off is the everlasting damnation of millions of souls well I would just say to you today is the day of salvation to turn to the Lord. And for those who know the Lord, there's just some applications very briefly here. You know, what do you do when the foundations are being destroyed? And to some, again, this might be news depending on how insulated or isolated you've made yourself, but it's good to understand the times you're in.

I think one of the first things is just remember that God's kingdom and the kingdoms of this world or the kingdoms of men are not the same thing. � and what I mean by that is is that God's kingdom is ascending all the time may not be ascending where we are necessarily but it is ascending and it's growing and it's taking dominion and so we always always want to remember that even as human kingdoms in civilizations are collapsing It's really the story of history times like this They come and they go you've got faithful followers of Christ scattered all through history like the Waldensians You've got the reformers the Puritans these different groups of people that decide to stand for God in the midst of difficulty Remember that song we sing where one of the lines says, and though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. Such an encouraging line. Another thing we can do in terms of application is form families, raise children, plant gardens, run for office, do something to be a light, to stem the tide, the evil. Smile, be full of joy, be full of �𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘦.

The happiest Saint though, is the one that walks with God just like Noah did. So remember that. The third thing I say, don't buckle now. Don't buckle. We ain't seen nothing yet as some people say.

This is like nothing compared to what's coming. So you should be able to weather storms as we plant ourselves more in Christ because the pressure is going to increase and so pray for an enduring faith for the times that are upon us. I would just say preach the gospel go on the offensive like Noah even if you're regarded as a fool or you could be laughed at or seen as out of step with prevailing culture, still preach the gospel. And then I would say, personally, you may want to consider making physical preparations, learning some skills, but doing some things that will be able to help you weather the storms that are to come. But you know, I'll just end with this.

Noah, every time you meet Noah in scripture, he pops up all over the place and he's preserved as a beacon for holy living when the foundations are destroyed, when negative world sets in. And he's a man, he keeps his heart with all diligence. That's really the call. That's your safety is to keep yourself in the love of God and to continue following after Him and the Lord will bear you up and strengthen you and encourage you no matter what happens all around you so let's pray Heavenly Father we come to you and thank you so much for your word thank you for your help thank you for the confidence that we can have Lord irregardless of the circumstances, the times that we're in. Lord but we do pray for this culture, for this nation Lord that you would you would turn it back oh Lord that You would turn souls back from this headlong race toward destruction, O Lord, that You would use this church in such a mighty way to be a beacon, to be filled with those who proclaim Your truth, to a dying culture.

O Lord we need You we ask you to strengthen us now, and be with us as we leave this place. Thank you for all that you've allowed us to hear today in the Fellowship and for the love of the Saints, for your blessings upon us, Lord. We do thank you in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. All right, well we are dismissed god bless you