Bible Prophecy and Inspiration

Once again the inspiration for this post is to remind you you’re never too far along in life to get started in your ministry for the Lord.

Noah was also a man that wasn’t influenced by ridicule.  He was building a boat for a flood and rain.  It hadn’t rained yet on earth as far as we know.

Genesis 2:4-6 – ⁴ This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.         When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- ⁵ and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, ⁶ but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground-

 So a guy is building a humungous boat with no water nearby.  Must have been quite a site?  Who were his mockers?  Men that we’re so evil that God came to the conclusion they needed to be wiped off the face of the earth.

Chuck Missler does a great study on the Nephilim talked about in Genesis 6:4.

Genesis 6:4 – ⁴ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

Son’s of God, Fallen Angels?  Whatever they were, they were creating a super evil, super fallen race. 

Noah stuck to his guns and built an Ark.

Genesis 6:15 – ¹⁵ This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.

 Did he have any other help other than his sons?  I suppose they could have paid some of them and they may have help, but they didn’t get a ride when the waters came.  I have a feeling had anyone volunteered to help build it for free; God would have rewarded that kind of faith.  So I’m going to say Noah and his family were the ones who built on it without being paid, if they had help at all.

We know the rest of the story.  The floodwaters came and only Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark survived.

At 500 years old Noah began the peak of his ministry.  If you’re not 500 yet, you’re starting before Noah. 

All kidding aside, Noah walked with God a long time before this and on a violent and evil man covered earth.  His obedience allowed mankind to continue on from that point till now.  Pretty important ministry?

You have a ministry to serve God!  Everyone has a ministry to serve God!  It won’t fail if you earnestly seek God and it’s 100 percent for the Kingdom of God.  All you have to do is continue to prepare and say, “Here I am Lord, use me.”

Would you rather stand in front of Him knowing you did what you could, or do you want to continue to spend time on yourself?

If you doing it all for yourself then you will have wood, stubble, and hay to present to the Lord.  Nothing left of that when it gets tested by fire.

1 Corinthians 3:12-15 – ¹²If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. ¹⁴If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. ¹⁵If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

We’re going to do a series called, “How Old Were They?”

What’s the reason for this post?  To remind you, that you are never too far along in life to be a great worker for the Kingdom of God.  For those who are younger it’s time for preparation and to do what the Lord has planned for you.

For our first example we will start with Noah.  Let’s look at Genesis 6:8.

Genesis 6:8 – ⁸ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

In the scriptures before this one it says that man was so evil all the time that they grieved God.

I won’t examine those scriptures today as I will do separate posts on them.  One man found favor on earth, just one.  How old was he?  Well we know that he was stated to be 500 in the scriptures right before the ones that state God was sorry He made man.  We also read Noah was 600 before the flood came.  I can do some math and figure Shem was born when Noah was about 503, the others weren’t probably born too many years right behind him, so Noah would probably have been in his early 500s when instructed to build the boat.

Understanding that we don’t live that long today, still 500 years is a long time before the major portion of his ministry took place.

Genesis 6:3 – ³ Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

So Noah was a man who found favor in God’s eyes.  I can imagine he must have been a man that was pretty tuned into God.  Why, because I draw a lot of my strength from the encouragement and teaching of others.  He didn’t have any of that.  It says man was evil and only Noah found favor at the time.

Genesis 6:9 – ⁹ This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.

Tomorrow we will continue with this post.

America is so open minded anymore that there is no right and no wrong.

When someone is murdered on and they show it on TV, I’m supposed to feel sorry for the murderer anymore.  The victim isn‘t the voice that can’t speak or the dead person, it’s the person that supposedly has been wronged by society.

This execution of the innocent victim with no voice has been going on since 1972.  We shouldn’t be surprised I guess that it has finally moved on from the unborn to others.

Isaiah 5:20 – Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Murder isn’t our only problem.  Frivolous lawsuits fill our courts hoping for the right jury.  Others would rather stay on extended unemployment or welfare because it pays the same or better than getting an actual job.

Ah, but America and its media is taking a hard line on something.  They are winning the battle.  That battle is against intolerance.  You want to know why the news media hates Christianity?  Because the Bible when taken literally is about absolutes.

When God says:

Isaiah 43:11 – I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior.

Isaiah 45:5 – I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me,

When Jesus says:

John 14:6 – Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

And that there in this country, is intolerance my friends.

Remember one thing that’s very important.

John 15:18 – “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.

The real comfort is, the victory has already been won.  We know the future and the battle because God shared it with us.  You might not know what tomorrow brings, but if you’re a blood boughten saint of Jesus Christ, you ultimately have victory!

I Corinthians 15:54-57 – ⁵⁴When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
 ⁵⁵“Where, O death, is your victory?
      Where, O death, is your sting?” ⁵⁶The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you want life’s victory and haven’t accepted Jesus yet, please go to the top right upper corner column of this blog.

God Bless.

Hebrews 6:11 – ⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Yesterday we spoke about how it is impossible to please God without faith.  What kind of faith does God love?  He loves a humble loving faith and we looked at scriptures that talked about having faith like a child.

Today let’s look at last portion of this scripture.

“And that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”  That on the surface it looks to say God rewards those who really love Him and seek Him.  I believe He does.  God takes pleasure in rewarding His children that love Him and seek Him.  However, this scripture adds a little bit more the way it is written.

This scripture again says because anyone who comes to Him must believe He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek him.  What does that mean?  It means He likes the double dose of faith.

Don’t just believe I exist, but believe that you also will be rewarded by Me if you earnestly seek Me.

This world is full of self seeking people.  God wants to reward those who are chasing after Him and not the world.

What are those rewards?  The same things the world is chasing after?  Five vacation homes, an airplane, a fleet of automobiles, diamonds to cover yourselves in from head to toe?  With a lot of people living in poverty and many without food and clean water, I seriously don’t think so.

No, I believe it comes in the fact he knows you need a home to live in, a car to get around in this country, relationships that are in peace and not in turmoil, health, income to pay the bills, and a spouse that helps you grow towards the most important thing of all and that’s the Lord.  These are just the earthly blessings.  Much more is waiting in the perfect life to come.

Without faith….without faith….it is IMPOSSIBLE….. to please God.  How sad, not to please God and all you had to do is believe that He is and that He cares about you and loves you.  He cared enough to have His Son die for you.  This is the One you need to have faith in and accept His sacrifice of redemption.

If you haven’t accepted Jesus and still don’t know why you should, I have condensed an outline page to the right of why you need to.  If you are ready to do so, there is a page to guide you through that also.

Hebrews 6:11 – ⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

There is a lot to this scripture.  First is the most obvious which is without faith it is impossible to please God.  So the great prize winners out there in this world that don’t have any faith in God, don’t please Him at all.  The athlete that has the whole stadium cheering and on their feet, if he don’t have faith in God, he doesn’t please Him at all.

 God’s not impressed with the scientist who sits back and states that he needs more proof if he is to believe in God.  God takes joy in the little child who has faith and comes asking for help or to tell Him that they love him.

Matthew 11:25-26 –  ²⁵At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ²⁶Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

Now is it terrible that in that verse it sounds like God wants the wise and learned to perish.  No.  The wise and learned should easily know the God exists and have faith in Him.  Why don’t they?  Pride, anger, special agendas, self seeking, etc, all keep the wise and learned from God.  They should see the obvious things around them and recognize God more than a small child would.

Jesus talking about the children again in Matthew 19 says this:

Matthew 19:14 –¹⁴Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Does He mean only children belong in Heaven?  No, what he is implying is we need to humble ourselves like little children when seeking our Father who is in Heaven.

Faith is very important and much power comes from it.  Not selfish power, but power that helps the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 17:20 – He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Now there are those who have tried to be abusive when speaking about this kind of faith.  Usually it’s in the form of asking for worldly possessions.  God will not answer prayer or reward faith that contradicts His Kingdom in any way.  However, if you have faith and it is for the goodness in the Kingdom of God, He wants to move mountains.  Faith pleases God.

Tomorrow we’ll go over another part of this scripture.

So many people ignore the gift of history in their own lives.  Your life is a road map that has already been documented.

How many times do you hear the past is the past, you can’t change it so forget about it.

Nooooooooooooooooooo. 

We need to accept Jesus and have him forgive us of our past.  He also will be forgiving us of our present and future since we are sinners.  Since Jesus is forgiving us of our past, we too need to forgive ourselves of our past and forgive those who have wronged us.

Never forget your past.  It is a wealth of information, experience, which you can use to improve your life in the future.  It can be helpful to someone else who is listening that maybe trying to make the same mistakes.

You remember the famous saying that the only thing we have learned about history is that man refuses to learn anything from history. 

For multiple reasons, it happens to be the case.

Look back on your life.  Take a good hard look at all the significant things that have happened.  Now, why did it happen?  Don’t be afraid to compare a couple of like kind things and evaluate them together.

Never look at things lightly.  There is meaning to almost every major event that sticks out in your mind.

Was God there?

He was there trust me.  If you are one of his saved children, how did it work out for you?  Were you doing something outside of His wants for your life?  Was there correction?  Was it loving?

Proverbs 3:12 – ¹² For whom the LORD loves He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights.   

What about those times when you’ve been stubborn, brought to your knees and then when you finally let go and gave the reigns to God, what happened?  He took care of you didn’t He!  No question mark at the end of the sentence on that one.  If you love the Lord and turn it over to Him it will be handled.

So why do we continue to slip back into old habits of going against God’s will and trying to do it ourselves when we know if we just turn it over to Him it will be just fine?

Because we are sinful fallen creatures.

I can tell you in my own personal life I have managed to cut to the chase on this.  Most of the time I turn the situation over to Him immediately and right away the problem is solved.   Believe me the boring roller coaster of few ups and downs is a marvelous ride!

So learn from your past.  Not just in the pitfalls but especially in your victories in the Lord.  Use those to grow in your walk in other areas with the Lord.