Rescue Of A Doomed World

Mr. Kubik, of course, wrote to all of us here just this past week about all the different natural calamities that had been taking place. He describes these as devastating hurricanes in Texas and Florida and Mexico, as well as being hit by an earthquake there and along the coast of Mexico. He mentions deadly monsoons in India and in Nepal and Bangladesh, which obviously don't directly affect you or me, but you hear about those type of things around the world, roaring fires in the western United States and fatal snow avalanches earlier in the year in Afghanistan. All of these, not only these natural calamities, but of course the destabilizing nuclear saber rattling that we hear on almost a daily, surely weekly basis from North Korea. And warfare in Syria, warfare in the Ukraine with Russia involved. You know, it's really kind of sad to have to listen. That's what he's mentioning here. It's sad to have to listen to the, in a sense, the catastrophes that this world is suffering. And so there are seven billion people on earth, approximately, and those people are in for a big surprise. At least most of them are, even though you're not. You're well aware of what's going to happen because you celebrate the holy days of God, because you know what God's purpose is and His plan, and because we look forward. We yearn for it. We pray, thy kingdom come. We desire an answer to the chaotic conditions that we see in the world today. And yet, as Mr. Kubik also pointed out, to those of us who know what God's doing, we can have contentment. We can have peace. He mentioned Psalm 34, and actually, if you look at Psalm chapter 34, you can read through the entirety of that Psalm. And it's really uplifting to know, because this Psalm is written in order to draw us closer to God in verse 8 of Psalm 34. He says, O taste and see that the Lord is good. And it says, Blessed or happy are those who take refuge in Him. He talks even more about that in verse 17, when the righteous cry for help the Lord hears, and He rescues them from all their troubles. Verse 18, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and He saves the crushed in spirit.

He says many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them, rescues them out of them all. God is in charge of a master plan. He is the great sustainer of human life. And actually, what we find pictured by the fall holy days, that we're looking forward to celebrating the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Last Day, those are the concluding holy days for this year. And yet, those fall holy days picture this doomed world being rescued. It tells us that God will rescue us. And I can only imagine, as Mr. Smith wrote about, being there in Houston and having the ongoing rain for only seven days.

You would have to just be completely helpless, because what can you do? All you can do is watch the water rise. I would guess that's what the people at the flood thought. Hmm, this doesn't look very good. Oh, this looks even worse. You know, it's getting worse. Well, our house is underwater. That would be the type of thing. And clearly the same thing. You could watch weather reports on a hurricane in Florida, and you could wonder how bad is it going to be. And clearly, if people live in the Keys, the Florida Keys at the end of the peninsula there, that Florida is, you anticipate you'll have that kind of problem at times, but you never know how bad. It's pretty hopeless. Whenever you get in that situation, if people were weathering a storm in some kind of bunker or basement or whatever they had, as far as that goes, you know, somewhat of a helpless condition. And yet people, people of God, are scattered throughout the area. And as Mr. Kubik was mentioning, we can be, we can look to God as our refuge. We can look to Him as the one who will rescue us. And I think that that's certainly a wonderful blessing that we have in knowing what these Holy Days picture, what they mean, what we can expect. You know, things are going to be much worse for each of us between now and Christ's return. We see some of those things happening now, if they become more widespread. Of course, that's our desire, you know, bring the kingdom. But we don't want to really bring the problems that are going to happen before the praying kingdom comes. But we want to be prepared for that, knowing that, well, the Lord is our refuge. And He's going to rescue us. Here in Hebrews 11, you see a verse that in many ways is a focus for our celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles.

And Mr. Jackson was mentioning this and what he covered in the sermon at today. But here in Hebrews 11, it talks about, starting in verse 8, it talks about Abraham and how he obeyed God and how his life was uprooted. He moved to another location. In some ways, he wasn't exactly even sure where he was going, but I'm following God. I'm obeying God. And verse 10, it says, he looked forward to a city that has foundations whose architect and builder is God. See, Abraham, throughout his lifetime, had to grow in faith, and he ultimately would be tested and tried in incredible ways. And yet, what it says about him is that he was envisioning future, not just another city here on earth, but its future beyond that. As we read in verse 13, all of these, talking about Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham, all of these died in faith. They died, never having received the promises that God had made, but from a distance they saw them, and they greeted them, they welcomed them. Their focus was on the Kingdom of God, whatever they understood about a kingdom that was yet to come. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth. Strangers and pilgrims for the people who speak in this way make it clear that they're seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they left behind, they would have considered returning, kind of like the Israelites. How come you took us out here in the miserable desert? We were not that bad off. At least we knew where we were going to get something, however poorly it was, to eat. We knew what we were going to do the next day. We were going to go make bricks. We were going to be enslaved. Out here, we don't know what to expect. Out here, at least Moses could realize, well, yeah, we're just following God. Wherever the fire and wherever the cloud goes, we... And so, in talking about Abraham and others, these people had a vision of what is mentioned here as a homeland, a city. Verse 16, as it is, they desired a better country. That is a better heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. Indeed, He has prepared that city for them. See, we envision that. We celebrate that. We enjoy going to the feast. We enjoy having a time when we're able to get together with brethren to envision the future, to come to services as often as we can. We'll have services every day. But we need to come as we are able and be able to gain more of the vision of the kingdom of God. And of course, what we see in these few verses that we've read here in Hebrews 11 is that we're envisioning something that is beyond today. That's why our program, that's why our magazine is named Beyond Today because we're envisioning what God is going to do because here it says He's preparing that city for them. We need to also be prepared. We need to be motivated. We need to be excited. And of course, there is a great deal of hope. Even as we look at the world today and even as we look at news that isn't very pleasant to listen to and certainly to listen to it over and over again if you listen to any cable channel, they tend to be able to repeat the same thing four eleven times until something new comes up. But we have hope that is beyond this mess. Hope in the message of the Gospel. Hope in the coming Kingdom.

Now, in the same chapter Noah has mentioned in verse 7, it says by faith Noah warned by God about events as yet unseen.

See, God told him I'm going to flood the earth. Now that would be hard news to digest. That would be a serious problem to consider. But, God warned Noah about what's going to happen. See, we know in general things that are to happen between now and Christ intervening. So we've been warned. We're aware of what to expect. But as Noah was warned by God about the events that are yet unseen, he respected that warning. See, we want to respect the warning as well today. And he says he built an ark. He did the work of God at that time. See, that was 4,500 years ago. Most of us can't envision that. That's approximate. About 1445, 4,400 years ago, here on this earth, everything was inundated with water to a depth that was way above the highest mountain. That's what we read in the book of Genesis. But it says Noah respected the warning that God shelled an ark to save his household. And by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is according to faith. How did he know to do that? Well, God told him. It was interesting visiting the replication of the ark there south of Cincinnati when we were back there earlier this year. It's kind of hard to envision. It looks like a big boat, but of course, in comparison to the whole world, that's a pretty tiny boat. That's just a little speck. And yet the immense size of the boat, and perhaps even the way that it could have been set up and the way that it would have been designed to be able to house or to cage. I hadn't really thought about that. I just thought they were all out there in a melee, trying to keep the lines away from the lambs and the leopards away from the birds. I'm sure probably having some kind of cage and having some type of system where you can water and feed and dispose of remains. That makes sense that God would set it up that way. And in one of the little depictions they had where it was an interaction talking to Noah, asking him questions. Of course, they asked him, well, how did you know how big to make it? No problem. God told me, make it this size. That was real easy. And then they asked, well, how did you know that that'd be big enough? God said it would be big enough. And then, well, how did you know different things about it? Well, God was the one who was designing it, not me. I'm simply the builder. I just did the work that God gave me to do. That's why we're in the church today, brethren. We are here to do the work of God. We are here, not just to in some way try to earn salvation. And we're doing the work of God because it's required. It's required of those who are going to participate to be engaged in the work. So what we found when we look back and study what happened in the days of Noah, you know, it was a parallel to kind of what we find the world today. The world today that is doomed and that needs to be rescued. See, now, the world at the time of Noah didn't realize they needed to be rescued. They didn't really care about God. Even though God had for 1500-1600 years allowed the human race to increase and multiply, they didn't appear to have a lot of connection to the Creator because, of course, they were deceived. See, the Bible talks about the age prior to the flood as the world that then was. And then, since that time, since that time to the time when Jesus intervenes, it talks about that age being the present evil world.

And the time beyond Christ's return as the age to come. See, God's able to move from age to age. You know, we're stuck in one age right now, but we're praying for this present evil age to come to an end. And, see, it's easy for God to transition from one age to the next, from one era to the next. He can move. He can see what was going on in the days of Noah. He concluded what he needed to do. And he allowed water to not just be for seven days, like I'm sure they endured there in Houston, but for 40 days. Incredible amounts of water, not just raining, but the whole underbelly of the earth bursting open and water gushing out. That's very hard to imagine. But, see, that world was doomed. Where they were, according to God, was nowhere. You know, they were all going to just simply die. And God says, I'm going to allow them to die. We're going to start over. And I'm going to save. I'm going to rescue a few. I'm going to rescue, you could call Noah and his wife, and Zara, I guess. At least that's the name that they said is somewhat, maybe, tradition, I guess. And yet, Jim, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives, I don't remember their names, he says, these are the elect. These are the elect who are, respect the warning, who do the work and whom I'm going to rescue. And that's how he began this present evil age. Now, it was clearly evil before that. And as the present evil age continued, after that, see, God's going to make a big transition whenever he rescues us from this mess that this world is in. He's going to begin a new world and he's going to remove the deceiver. He didn't do that after the flood. You know, we read about a physical people of Israel being worked with and called by God through Abraham, the people of Abraham, the people who were going to learn to live by faith, who were going to be in faith training, people who were going to learn to trust God implicitly, I guess, when you're completely helpless. Trusting God is a real good offer. Trusting God, now we need to trust God when everything's reasonably good. For most of us, much of our lives, certainly I say about me, much of my life has been incredibly wonderful, relatively, you know, no real major issue. And yet, trusting God is something we want to do all the time. And so certainly, as we look back at the time of Noah, you know, that world need to be rescued. And as we think about our coming rescue here from this world that we live in, it's going to be a similar thing. I want us to look back at Genesis and read a little bit about what it says about the conditions in the world at the time of Noah and about what happened to Noah. So, how as the elect of God, he exercised faith in God and actually did the work of the ark.

Here in Genesis 6, verse 5, The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. That would have to dismay the great God. Even though he perhaps knew better than anyone how cunning the devil is, how capable of deceiving everybody, including all of us in the past.

But it says that thoughts of man, thoughts of their hearts were evil continually, and the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth and aggrieved into the heart. And God can't be happy with what we're doing today.

You know, it's just horrendous to think about the evil that can very easily be done in the Asian area, North Korea, Japan, China, South Korea. You know, hundreds of thousands of people could be killed there in a very short period of time. And then that would ignite far greater warfare. You know, we live here in the streets of Fulton, Kansas City, St. Louis, somewhat chaotic over there right now.

People filled with anger and hatred. People wanting to protest everything. And I understand some people feel, you know, that they want to do that or need to do that, but that doesn't justify the end. It doesn't justify the means. That is doomed. It's going to be rescued. See, that's the hope. We are going to be rescued. God said in verse 7, I'm going to blow it out from the earth, the humans that I created, people together with animals and creeping things, and birds. I'm going to... I'm sorry I made them.

That is just hard to read. It's hard for us to realize that God would be so grieved with the mess that Satan had in Crete brought about in his deception of man being so corrupt that their human spirit had been defiled to the point to where they are just unredeemable. We just need to put them out of their misery. They need to rise in a resurrection when things are going to be better. Actually, when the devil will be contained.

But of course, in verse 8, it says, Noah, as the elect of God at that time, Noah found grace, favor in the sight of the Lord.

And it says, the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generations. He walked with God, had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And the earth was corrupt. In verse 11, in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence, filled with anger, hatred, resentment, disrespect. And coming out of Olathe, I was following a police vehicle. I like it better that way, me following him.

Instead of him following me. But I was just thinking how, you know, there are people who just hate the fact that this car is driving around, and I thank God that this car is driving around in this very peaceful city where I live, and where there is some order and rule, and law, and if you needed help, you had somebody to call. That's quite a different perspective than, you know, we want to see if we can injure the police. We want to destroy their property. We don't want them to be able to overrule us. That's horrendous. Verse 11, the earth was corrupt in God's sight. The earth was filled with violence, and God saw the earth was corrupt, and all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. So man had participated. Adam and Eve began the bad move, and everybody then picked it up. Everybody was deceived. Now God chose to deal with the very few, as we know. At least we know a little about Abel, and we know a little about Enoch.

And now we know about Noah.

Verse 13, God said to Noah, I determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence. Something was creating that at that time. And the devil's hatred and anger toward God is expressed by humans.

Earth was filled with violence because of them, and now I'm going to destroy them along with the earth. And so in verse 14, you need to do the work of God. Make you an ark of gopher wood. See, that's the story we're familiar with, and we could easily read that. And we ought to think about it as that's the kind of world we live in today. Jesus said, as it is and was in the days of Noah, so shall it be, in the days leading up to the coming of the Son of Man. That's what He tells us. And of course, He says, except for the elect's sake, these days shall be shortened. You know, this destruction, this corruption, this violence is going to continue to expand until God has to intervene and rescue this world. Because that's what He's going to do. That's the hopeful thing. Even though we can be discouraged by the news, we can be distressed about how things seem to be so out of control and so angry. Angry, upset, and violent. Everyone wants to resort to violence.

You see in chapter 7 here of Genesis how Noah built the ark. He followed the instructions that God had given. That's what I mentioned about, you know, if you were interviewing Noah, he'd know exactly how to build the ark. Apparently, he probably knew something about building boats anyway.

It would appear. And yet, he knew what size to build it because God told him. He told him, this is how big, this is what you're going to need, I'm going to bring the animals. How did you know how many? Well, God figured it out. He knew, He brought it. And in chapter 8, it says in verse 1, God remembered Noah after the waters swelled over the earth for many, many days.

Like I say, having their hurricane swirl for seven days had to make an impression on people who were aware of biblical connections because, of course, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and then, you know, another 150 days. I don't have all those in my head. They went through a long period of, you know, throughout most of a year dealing with a flood.

And yet, in verse 1, chapter 8, God remembered Noah and the wild animals and all the domestic animals that were in the ark. And he made a wind to blow on the earth and the water subsided in the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed and rain from the heavens was restrained and the waters gradually receded from the earth. See, what happened? Well, God rescued the earth. He extended hope to the elect because of the elect, because Noah was willing to do the work that God had given him to do.

God rescued him and rescued his family. He rescued his, at least a very small number of people and told them down here in chapter 8, you know, verse 17. I want you to be fruitful and multiply on the earth.

And so in verse 18, Noah went out. This was after the earth had dried sufficiently. He had tested it with the raven and the doves. But Noah and his sons and their wives went out of the ark and every animal and creeping thing and bird, everything that moves on the earth went out of the ark by families.

And of course, verse 20, Noah built an altar to the Lord and offered an offering of thanksgiving of gratitude for being rescued. Now that was certainly not going to be an easy recovery. You were essentially starting over. You didn't have the people that maybe you even kind of liked. You certainly didn't have the one who were angry at you anymore. They were all dismissed by God. But see, Noah was going to then follow the direction from God and he was building an altar to worship God and to thank God for what it was.

And yet he even repeated here in verse 21, the Lord smelled a sweet-smelling odor and the Lord said in his heart, I'm never going to again curse the ground because of mankind, for the inclination of human heart is evil from youth. And nor will I ever again destroy ever-living creatures I've done here by water.

See, this was God again reiterating that human beings are so susceptible to the attitude and the resistance and the defiance and the rebellion of the devil. That just becomes our natural way. That becomes our nature. In chapter 9, verse 1, God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So what exactly has God done? Or did God do at that time while he rescued the elect? He moved from the world that then was to a new world, but as I mentioned, he didn't remove the devil.

And of course, as we go along, we find, well, mankind continued to be corrupted. Mankind continued to be deceived and angry and hate-filled and again grow a civilization that will defy the living God. If you read chapter 11, and in chapter 12, he starts dealing with those he would call, again, out of this present evil world, to be the physical people of God, the people, the nation of Israel. Now, there are a lot of parallels to what we read in the past and what we see today. And yet, all of us, in spite of the difficulties and the troubles that we see around us, you know, we have an incredible reason to have hope.

We have an incredible reason to be filled with joy and love. And yes, things are going to be difficult. There's no doubt about that. I know it's difficult for many of the people in Houston and Louisiana and Florida and Georgia, perhaps, right now. You know, they're having a recovery. They basically need to rebuild if there was damage, and then if they can figure out how to go about doing that. But see, if they have the Spirit of God, if they have an understanding of what God is doing, then they have hope.

And that's what all of us have. We have hope because God is working in us. And He is going to rescue this world. This world doesn't know they need to be rescued, for the most part, but they are. And that's why the righteous kingdom of God is going to be coming to this earth. You know, we see in Isaiah 11, a picture, and this perhaps would be a highlight of the focus that the Church of God of the past and Mr. Armstrong wrote about as God revealed and opened to his understanding a recognition of the world tomorrow, as we often would term it.

But it talks about here in chapter 11, people learning.

People learning how to judge righteously, how to live according to the Word of God.

Verse 3, he will not judge by his eyes what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he will judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rot of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked, but righteousness will be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. And wolf and the lamb shall dwell together, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf. And lion and phantling together and the little child shall lead them. You know, we want to have the vision of that type of peace, that type of security, that type of assurance, and be able to be settled even in the chaotic world we live in, and even with the trials that we endure, because we're going to endure trials. Many of us are enduring trials right now. God knows about every single one of those. He's interested in every single one of those. He's interested in us. He's interested in us looking to him in faith, knowing that he is our refuge, knowing that he is our hope. And with that, we need really nothing else. That is what he is doing in creating a divine family. Verse 9, and talking about the world to come, talking about the world beyond today, they will not hurt or destroy. They will not be violent and destructive and damage property and kill one another. They will not hurt nor destroy, and all of my holy mountain for the earth will be filled full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. See, that's what we can look forward to. That's what we can be grateful for. That's what we can be excited about because the knowledge of God is going to be widespread at that time. But as I said, we also know in looking at the fall holy days that the Day of Atonement will be fulfilled. Satan will be contained for a thousand years, and people will be allowed to thrive. They will be allowed to not only worship God, but benefit from worshiping God throughout that period of time. And most of us have been aware of that for some time. But we want that to be something that we allow to guide our thinking and guide our interaction with one another and our interaction with others because we have a sense of hope and peace and security that you cannot have without God revealing that information to your heart and mind. In spite of the difficulties that we labor with, we have that stability that's talked about for the world to come. We have that stability here and now. So we're looking forward to celebrating the Feast of Trumpets later the Day of Atonement than the Eight Days at the Feast. And so I hope that during that time that we focus our attention on what the Word of God says, that this world, as doomed as it is, is going to be rescued. And God is very, very interested in His elect. He's very interested in you and me. I'm thankful to be a part of that. That's a blessing. It's a blessing to be known by God. Not just to know God. It's a blessing to be known by God. Paul mentions that, but I point that out because it is critical to comprehend that God has entered our lives not because of our righteousness, not because of our goodness, but that He has prepared a place, a city that He wants us to serve in. And so He is interested in us receiving the blessing that He has in store for all of us.