Best of 2020: The World Changer at the End of the World Part 2: Finish the Race Well

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by some special friends of this ministry. Pastor Greg?

I wanted to say a special word of thanks to the Harvest Partners who make this ministry possible. Next time you're online, check out Pastor Greg's personal blog at blog.GregLaurie.com. You've reached some kind of a plateau spiritually. The Bible warns of him that thinks he says take heed lest he fall. Funambulism is the skill of walking the tightrope, the high wire, and performers face mortal danger. It's a long way down. The last thing they want, literally, is to make it only halfway across the high wire. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out it's even more important to finish the race of life well. There's mortal danger.

There's uncertainty and breathless moments. But thankfully, when we fall, the Lord is there to catch us and restore us. I want to focus on a man who lived in the last days, if you will. Now they were his last days.

They're different than ours. We're waiting for the judgment that will come upon the planet by fire. He was waiting for the judgment that would come upon the planet by water, and his name was Noah. He was living in the days before the great flood. And Jesus actually brought him up as a picture of what things will be like before Christ returns. And in Matthew 24, it said the arrival of the Son of Man will take place in days like Noah's. Before that great flood, everyone was carrying on as usual, having a good time, right until the day that Noah boarded the ark. They knew nothing until the flood swept everything away.

And then Jesus says the Son of Man's arrival will be like that. Two men will be working in the field. One will be taken, the other left.

Two women will be grinding at a mill. One will be taken, and the other left. So be alert and be awake because you have no idea when your master will show up. All right, so in light of that, how should we live? Let's go back to that last days believer, Noah. How did he live? We already saw this together.

If you're taking notes, here's point number one from our last message. Noah had a great reverence for God. Noah had a great reverence for God. Hebrews 11, 7 says Noah moved with godly fear or with godly reverence.

I think that's something that's lacking in the lives of many believers today, an actual reverence for God. Number two, Noah walked with God when no one else did. Genesis 6, 6, 9 says Noah walked with God. Then we know that Noah was also a witness for God. 2 Peter 2, 5 says he was a preacher of righteousness.

Listen to this. Did you know that Noah lived 120 years and never had a single convert? Yet he's called a preacher of righteousness. He stands as an example to all of the faithful seed sowers out there who cannot always measure their success in sharing the gospel outwardly.

Maybe that describes you. You've told your whole family about Jesus, no one's believed. You've told all your friends about Jesus, not one of them has become a Christian. You've let your neighborhood know you're a believer. You've invited them all to church and no one has responded to your invitation and you feel like a failure.

Well, take heart because it's not over till it's over. You see, my job is to sow seeds. By that I mean my job is to get the gospel out there and it's the Holy Spirit's job to bring about a conviction in the heart of a non-believer. Only He can do that.

But don't underestimate the power of that little seed that you've sown in your family's life, in your children's life, in your grandchildren's life, and in the lives of others. I read the story about a missionary who was named George Smith. He probably thought his ministry was a complete failure. He'd been in Africa only a short time and then he was driven from the country, leaving behind only one convert, a very poor, unknown woman. He died not long after that while on his knees praying for Africa. Years later, a group of men stumbled upon the place where George Smith had prayed and they found a copy of his Bible that he left behind in Africa and they met the one convert of George Smith's ministry. But as it turns out, that one convert had reached others who reached others and 100 years later, a mission agency discovered 13,000 people trace their conversion to the ministry of George Smith.

Okay, so you've got to think forward. So you're taking the time to sow the seed of the word of God in the life of your child and you don't have some great, far-reaching ministry and you feel like you don't have enough to do. Listen, you don't know who that child will turn out to be. You don't know about that seed that you sowed in another place, so you just pray and leave it in God's hands. So Noah didn't have a lot of people that believed, but we're still talking about him today, aren't we? So he did reach his family and that's a big deal because Hebrews 11, 7 says, By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly reverence and he prepared an ark or a boat for the saving of his household.

So he did reach his family. And I can think of people who've gone into ministry that have done a great job reaching out to a lot of people and have neglected their family in the process. My first priority is to God. My second priority is to my family. Okay, so that's very important to me.

And it should be to every one of us. You know, contrast Noah with Lot. Lot, in a sense, was like Noah in that they were both awaiting a cataclysmic judgment. Noah was awaiting the judgment of God that came through the flood. Lot was waiting for the judgment of God that came upon Sonim and Gomorrah. But Lot was so compromised, though he was a believer, but he was so compromised, he could not even reach his own family. So when he revealed to his family that God's judgment was coming and he said, we gotta get out of town, they laughed at him like he was telling him a joke. Blew him off, why should we listen to you?

You, what kind of example are you? He couldn't get his own wife out of the place. He got out of the city, but she looked back and faced God's judgment.

So the point is, he was a failure in reaching his own family. But Noah was not. And then the Lord gives to Noah a very unusual command.

It's in Genesis 6, so pop over there now. Genesis 6, verse 14, the Lord tells him to build an ark or a boat. Verse 14 of Genesis 6, build a large boat from gopher wood, says the Lord, and waterproof it with tar inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior. Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high, leaving 18 inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat.

Put the door on the side and build three decks inside of the boat, lower, middle, and upper. So this was a supreme act of faith, considering the fact that it had never rained up to this point. It had not rained yet. The way the earth was watered was through this unique sort of water canopy.

The Lord had set in place, creating a terrarium type effect on planet earth and you had all the beautiful vegetation and so forth. So it had not yet rained and there was no water nearby and the Lord says, build a boat. Noah's thinking, a boat?

What am I gonna do with a boat? But he obeyed the Lord. One of the greatest acts of faith in history when Noah cut down that first gopher wood tree to build this ark, but he did it. You know, it's an interesting thing because Noah was not a builder. The Bible doesn't tell us he was in the building profession. He was what you would call an amateur.

Well, I think experts built the Titanic and that didn't turn out so well. But an amateur built the ark and it was very buoyant and very seaworthy as we'll see in just a moment. But he put feet to his faith and did what God told him to do. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. We hear from so many people who find Christ through Harvest Ministries and it's a blessing to know that God is using his word to touch hearts. Pastor Greg, thank you for leading me to Christ three years ago at the Harvest Crusade. Although I'm not perfect, I realize that Christ in all his glory has made me want to become a better man because of everything you taught me. Through the word of God, I am now at peace. I've struggled my whole life with addiction and I've only overcome that battle because of everything that's been revealed to me.

And I want you to know that you had a major influence on my life and I can't thank you enough. God bless you and harvest eternally. An encouraging story of how God's word is changing lives through the ministry of harvest. Do you have a story to tell of how Pastor Greg's teaching has touched you? Call us and let us know at 866-871-1144.

That's 866-871-1144. Well, we're studying the Bible's account of Noah today in one of the most requested messages of the past year called The World Changer at the End of the World Part Two. Let's continue. I want you to think about the spiritual life of Noah for a moment. He had to sit on that boat for 40 days and 40 nights as the rain came and he ultimately was on board around a year. And the sea can be a very lonely place, can't it? And that thing must have stunk, honestly.

All those creatures in there. But now his voyage is about to come to an end and God's Holy Spirit blew across the land and the clouds began to dissipate. The sun appears and eventually the grass and the plants and the trees begin to come back to life. As the children's song says, the sun came out and dried up the landy landy.

Everything was fine and dandy dandy. You ever heard that song? But he waited and finally the moment has come for him to get off of this ark and I want you to notice what he does. Genesis 8 20 says, then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He built an altar to the Lord. You know, it would have been very easy to just climb up that boat and say, okay man, I'm so sick of being on the water.

I want to just run around for like a month on terra firma, on firm ground. But the first thing he did, because he had his priorities in order, is he built an altar to the Lord and gave thanks to the Lord. He put first things first. And there's a lot of ways that we can do this as well. The simple act of saying grace over a meal is a great way to just give thanks to God. And by the way, when your meal comes and you say grace, it doesn't honestly need to be a 10 minute prayer, okay? Just give thanks and eat the food. Pray for the missionaries afterwards.

It's good, pray for them. But eat the food while it's still warm. And I think it's actually a really great testimony if you're in a public place with your family and you bow your heads to say grace. But just make sure you leave a tip afterwards and don't be a bad witness, right? But that's a way to put God first. Remembering the Lord with the faithful giving of your finances, whatever money you make, that's given to you by God. And you take a tithe of that, also known as a tenth of that, and you give it to God. And the scripture promises that if you honor the Lord with your wealth and the first fruits of your crops, your barn will be overflowing. I saw a bumper sticker on a car that said, tithe if you love Jesus, anybody can honk. Right?

So that's just a percentage. Okay, I'm putting God first. And then another way to put God first is, you know, on Sunday it's like we're going to church today. That's what we do on this day, the Lord's day. Remember God and God remembered Noah. You know, Ecclesiastes 12 one says, remember now the creator in the days of your youth.

I think sometimes when we're young we think, well, you know, I've got my wild oats to sow. Really, why? Well, just because everyone says I do. Why should you?

Why would you? Do you want to do things today that you'll regret tomorrow and in the years and maybe even decades to come? Why not start sowing spiritual seed in your youth and lay a good foundation in your youth? It's almost like we have this big free pass to be crazy in our youth and do every wrong thing imaginable. Well, that is certainly not what God wants you to do. That's why he says remember the creator in the days of your youth.

Such an important time, the early years of our life. I became a Christian at age 17. I did some stupid things prior to that, things I regret.

But I'm thankful I didn't go much longer than that. And I look back on that day and I look at the course that the lives of some of my friends took that didn't believe as I believed. And I'll run into some of them every now and then and they're into their second and third and fourth marriages. Some of them have substance abuse problems.

Some of them never stop partying. And I just think of the course I took and how God blessed me and how God has taken care of me. And I realize I made the right choice. And when you're young, that's a perfect time to make the right choice.

Okay, so here is the story. Noah's Ark, beautiful. They make it to the new land.

And now they're giving thanks to the Lord. And if this were a movie and if we wrote it, this is where the story would end. You can see the closing scene. Noah's looking up to heaven, tears coming down his face.

The flowers are growing and the animals are hopping around. And there's a rainbow and the credits are on the screen. But that's not how the story ends. Because this is a Bible story. And Bible stories are true. They're not fairy tales. And when something happens that is not convenient, it's there anyway.

Because if it happens, it happens. And all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And the Lord doesn't cover up the flaws of the great men and women that he used. The story is told of the great British legend Oliver Cromwell who was having this portrait painted. And he said to the painter, make sure to paint me warts and all. That's because the painter was known to sort of flatter the people he painted.

Cromwell said, I want people to see me as I was. And indeed, when you look at the portrait of Cromwell, he has warts on his face. And so when the Bible gives us a painting of one of its heroes, if there's warts, you'll see them.

If there's flaws, you'll be aware of them. So what happened next is kind of sad in many ways in the life of Noah, but it did happen. Genesis chapter nine, verse 20. After the flood, Noah began to cultivate the ground and he planted a vineyard. One day he drank some wine that he had made and became drunk and lay naked inside of his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father was naked, went outside and told his brothers, then Shem and Japheth took a robe and held it over their shoulders and backed into the tent to cover their father. And as they did this, they looked the other way so they would not see him naked.

Wow, really? After all of that walking with the Lord, after all of that exercise of faith, this is how you're gonna thank the Lord? Well, this is what he did. A few things pop out from this story. First of all, it teaches us anyone can fall into sin. Anyone can fall into sin, including you. And if you think, well, that'll never happen to me or I would never deny the Lord or I would never sin in that way, you could.

Now, prayerfully and hopefully you won't. And the fact is God will never give you more than you can handle, right? Because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, there is no temptation taking you but such as is common to man. But God who is faithful will not allow you to be tempted above your ability to resist.

There's always a way out of every temptation, isn't there? How many of you have been tempted to sin? Raise your hand if you've been tempted. Okay, how many of you have been tempted to sin and you've given in to the temptation?

You better raise your hands, all of you. Because we all have, haven't we? Now let me ask you this. Go back to that temptation you gave in to, whatever it was, was there a way out? Could you have resisted it? Could you have walked out of a door? Could you have terminated the conversation or whatever you were dealing with? Could you have gotten out of it had you chosen to?

The answer is yes. But if you don't choose to, well, you can choose the wrong thing. And that's what Noah did. You know, it may surprise you to know that sometimes those who have known the Lord longer can be more vulnerable to slipping than the person who is young in the faith. Does that make sense to you? Sometimes those who have known the Lord longer can be more vulnerable to slipping than the person who is young in the faith.

You say, but why? Because when you're young in the faith, you know you're weak and vulnerable. So you're careful. And you hopefully surround yourself with godly people. But when you've known the Lord for a while, you're thinking, well, I'm pretty good.

I don't think I need to have those safeguards in my life anymore. I'll just pretty much not be accountable to anyone and do what I want when I want. And next thing you know, you're falling. Extensive Bible knowledge and years of spiritual experience make you think you're somehow above it all. You think you've reached some kind of a plateau spiritually.

But you'll never reach that plateau. And the Bible warns that him that thinks he sins take heed lest he fall. You know, there's a number of godly people who fell after they'd known the Lord for years. Moses comes to mind. Remember when he struck the rock with the staff and water came out? Well, he struck a rock again later in the story when the Lord had not told him to and was yelling at the Israelites saying, must we get water out of the rock as we've done before? Kind of taking the glory for himself that only belonged to God. And because of this, the Lord didn't let him enter the promised land. Moses, the man of God, the man that the Lord spoke to at the burning bush, the man who led the exodus out of Egypt, the man who put up all of the whining and complaining of the Israelites and was so faithful to the Lord, blew it at the end, and he didn't make it into the promised land. David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, the king of Israel, and the man uniquely identified as being after God's own heart, sinned later in life as well.

He was in his 50s. Appears to be having something of a midlife crisis, kicking back in his rooftop when he should have been leading the troops into battle and instead he's scoping chicks. And he sees the beautiful Bathsheba, ironically bathing herself. And he lusts after her and you know the rest of that story, how she became pregnant and he had her husband killed to cover it up. But that happened after he'd known the Lord for years. And then David's son Solomon fell into gross sin in his later years as well. Solomon was given such great wisdom from heaven that people came from around the world to sit at his feet and drink it in.

And yet he went on an epic backslide and recorded it for us. It's called the book of Ecclesiastes. It talks about all the things he tried and experimented with and all the things that were so empty and ultimately he says, hey, here's the conclusion. Fear God and keep his commandments. That's the whole duty of man. So you say, well, why are you bringing all this up? I'm just saying that anybody can fall into sin if they choose to. You don't wanna just start this race well.

You wanna finish the race well. Good insight based on the life of Noah from Pastor Greg Laurie. Today on A New Beginning, he's presenting a message called The World Changer at the End of the World Part 2.

It's near the top of our list of most requested studies of the past year. You can hear any part of this sermon again by going to harvest.org or contact us for a CD copy at 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime 24-7.

That's 1-800-821-3300. Well, Pastor Greg, I was struck by a social media post of yours recently that really crystallizes our burden for this new year and what we plan to do moving forward. You write this, Our country is in dire shape spiritually and morally, and it's my firm conviction that the only hope is the proclamation of the Gospel.

I don't see anything else that can turn America around. That's just such a concise statement of what we're all about. The Gospel can save our culture from ruin. And I'm so glad to say that we have a tool we can put into our listeners' hands that'll help them do their part in making that a reality.

Yes, well, that tool is called A Rush of Hope. And many of our listeners may remember that we put it out on our social platforms, harvest.org, et cetera, and it's been shown around the United States now on television. But now we're offering it to people for their gift of any size to have their own copy of it on DVD. And here's how this works. Here's your job.

Here's your mission should you decide to accept it. It is to get people you know that are not yet Christians in front of a screen. Now, it might be a tablet screen, could be a phone screen, better yet, a TV screen, where you show them a rush of hope. What is a rush of hope?

It's what we call a cinematic crusade, beautifully filmed with a lot of incredible scenery from Montana and Colorado. But the main focus of the film is how God can intervene in difficult situations and transform human lives. Like the story of young Bart Millard, who had his mother walk out on him and he was left to be raised by his alcoholic, abusive father. But God intervened in his life and was able to change Bart's heart, enabling him to forgive his father and have an impact on his father coming to Christ later in life. We also have the compelling story of Jeremy Camp, who was a newlywed, but tragically, his bride Melissa got cancer and he walked with it through it, hoping God would heal her.

But ultimately, she tragically died. But this is a story of how he was able to face this with faith and still have hope and trust in God and believe even when circumstances were hard. Interwoven throughout a rush of hope is a message I give, offering hope to the viewer and ending with a gospel presentation where we even lead folks in a prayer.

All you have to do is get someone to see it. We're effectively doing the heavy lifting for you and at the end of them watching it, you can turn to them and say, did you pray and ask Christ to come into your life with Pastor Greg and if not, would you like to do it right now? Get your copy of A Rush of Hope. This will be a tool that will help you reach people with a gospel like never before. Yeah, that's right and we'll be glad to send you A Rush of Hope to thank you for your donation right now. It's an investment that comes at a strategic time as we prepare to reach more people than we ever have before. So contact us today for the DVD of A Rush of Hope and along with it, you'll receive an evangelistic tract on life's most important questions and other resources to help you host a watch party in your home. Plus we'll send a digital download code so you can watch the film online right from your computer or tablet or smartphone.

That way you can take it with you and share it with a friend, a sort of a cinematic crusade in your pocket or purse. We'll only be mentioning this a short time longer. So write us today at a new beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300. 1-800-821-3300 and we can take your call anytime 24-7 or just go online to harvest.org. Well next time, Pastor Greg wraps up our study of Noah, one of the most requested messages of the past year. Join us here on A New Beginning with Pastor Greg Laurie. The preceding message from Greg Laurie was made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for Pastor Greg's free daily email devotions at harvest.org.