R1683 The Never God, Pt.2

God has an encouraging word for you and me today through the Bible-based teaching of Dr. Don Wilton on this edition of The Encouraging Word. Welcome to an insightful time of opening God's Word today to Genesis Chapter 8 and gaining perspective on the Never-God.

We're picking up where we left off yesterday, but don't worry if you missed yesterday. Dr. Don will catch you up in just a minute as we begin to study God's Word and understand how our God, because of His omnipotence, His power, and His great mercy is the Never-God. As we open the Word together, know that we're open to speak with you and pray with you anytime at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673 or on our website at www.tewonline.org.

We would love to connect with you. And now, today's teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. Even the very heart of God was grieved by the actions of people and the inclination of the hearts of people. And He was a very godly man. Second thing you have to consider is not just His world, but you have to consider Noah's assignment. Look at Chapter 6 and verse 9.

The Bible says, these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. And I love the next statement, Noah walked with God. So now get this, God evidently wants us to know that His place, where He was, grieved the heart of God. But God wants us to know that He had a very special assignment for Noah because he was a righteous man. This never-God, never-leave-you-nor-forsake-you wants to use you. Right throughout the Scriptures, God's people have been vital instruments in the hands of God. In the carrying out of His purpose and in the sharing of His divine will for mankind. The church has never been irrelevant. It's not a sideshow for God.

And you are the church. His world was in a shambles. His assignment was specific to Him. But the third thing about where He was, was the challenge that accompanied that assignment. And I think in order to be fair to Noah, we do need to just be reminded of the challenge.

God never tells us as believers that when He visits upon us that that's not accompanied by enormous challenge. If you just think about these things and you and I could unpack these today and I won't labor the point. But I've often tried to say to myself, I wonder what Noah must have thought when God told him to build an ark. And as a matter of interest, when you get into the specifics of the design of this ark, it gets more ridiculous with each nail. With each plank of wood. This was an enormous boat made of wood. So I already can feel the challenges.

Where do you get the wood and the expertise and the workers? It didn't stop there. Can you imagine God went on and said to him, now I want you to know, I want you to go out and get animals two by two. I've been around a lot of animals, especially in Africa.

And I know you and I try not to make light of these things, but this was an enormous impossible assignment. He didn't have dart guns. Go around and round up giraffes and elephants. How about snakes?

Because it says every animal. Birds, how do you round up birds? You ever try to round up a bird? You know, two, not one, two birds got into my house last week. And here I am, I've got all the doors open. And I'm running around trying to get them, they just flying from one room to the next. And my wife is sitting in a corner screeching.

Not helping me one lick. And you would have thought these were dinosaurs or something flying around. They were little tiny sweet little birds like that.

It was one thing to get them out, can you imagine trying to get all these in? What about the water? Usually boats float. If you go and do a study of this area in which they live, water was not just a scarcity, it was almost unheard of.

Outside of the mainline rivers. What about the opposition? The mocking. The belittling. The laughing.

The pointing fingers at. And at every turn, this man in his now was challenged. And you've just been told that the doctors have said to you that they cannot do anything more for you. That's a challenge. You're 57 years of age and you've lost your job.

It's not easy the older you get just to walk out and go and find another job somewhere. And one could go on and on, where is your now? Noah's now was punctuated by the most important thing. He was a godly man.

He was a righteous man. The point of reference that you have today through Noah is what does God see when he sees your heart in your now? God's not asking you to work it all out.

He just wants your heart now. God's not saying to you, you know what, I'm going to give you an assignment, this is what I want you to do and I want you to be totally comfortable before you agree to do it. I don't think Noah could have been very comfortable about this assignment.

Where he was was fraught with challenge. Everything lent itself to the purity of faith. What God wanted Noah to do was not to work it out or to know how to do it. He just wanted him to give everything he had to the Lord.

And maybe God has got an incredible plan for you, but he's still waiting for you to accept the assignment. So if that's where Noah was, the second thing we've got to consider is what he did. What did he do? What did Noah do? Well, he did three things if we could summarize it in such a short way. The first thing he did was he boarded the boat.

He got on. The Bible says in chapter 7 and verse 1, the Lord said to Noah, go into the ark. You and all your household. Because I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. What are you waiting for? You waiting to kind of understand it all? If you're going to understand it all, then never God is telling you that he's the one that won't leave you. He's the one that will carry you through.

That's trust. That's what God expected of Noah. Just get on board my ship. He boarded. The second thing he did was he sailed.

Now, I'm trying to minimize here. I would love to have been a fly on the wall. I'm sure there were at least two flies on the boat. But I'm going to say to you that I can only imagine when the rain started. And the Bible tells us, you know, you can read about it here in the scriptures, how the water just came down. Chapter 7 verse 17, the flood continued for 40 days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark and it rose high above.

Did you get this next word? High above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth and the ark floated on the face of the waters. The waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole earth, under the whole heaven were covered. And the waters prevailed above the mountains covering them 15 cubits deep. And so it goes on.

This was beyond any human understanding. And here's Noah and his family on this boat. He boarded, he sailed.

And sometimes we're so quick to get to the end of the story that we skip over the tumultuous nature of the journey. The panic. Can you imagine how many of people on board came to Noah every day and said, Noah, really upset with you that you got us into this mess. How many of those people understandably would have said, we're all going to perish. We're going to drown in this.

Look at the tumultuous waves. This epic journey. This is what he did. He accepted God's assignment. He just got on board the boat and then it wasn't over. He just stuck with the assignment through unanswered questions. That's the third part about what he did. He waited.

You know, the Bible says those that wait on the Lord renew their strength. In chapter eight and verse six, love this passage. At the end of 40 days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up on the earth. Then he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. But the dove found no place to set a foot and she returned to the ark for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. Then he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark.

He waited another seven days. You ever get educated, agitated with God because of your weight? You ever feel in your heart that your faith becomes diminished because you didn't get an answer immediately? You know, eventually in verse 11, the dove came back to him in the evening and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf.

This is the never God. He waited. That's the hard part, isn't it? It's hard to wait.

It's hard. It's so hard because waiting sometimes is waiting in the middle of a tumultuous sea. I can't explain why God makes some of us wait, but he does.

It's part of our faith journey. So there's a third aspect and that's when he arrived. Because the dove returned with an olive branch and the boat came to settle on the land again. And when it did, Noah did three things. First of all, he came out of the ark. That's what the Bible says in chapter 8 and verse 18. So Noah went out. He left the boat.

Some of you are at that point. God has demonstrated his love to you. He's brought you through the rough water and now it's time for you to get off. He came out, but the second thing he did, which I think is very important, was that he built an altar. That's what verse 21 tells us. Verse 20, Noah built an altar to the Lord. Many of us, God brings our boat to rest.

We say thank you very much and off we go. He built an altar. And the third thing that he did when he arrived was that he heard. He heard the promise.

After he worshiped the Lord and gave back to God what God required of him, he heard God's promise. So here's what the Lord has shown me in my own life. For God to carry you through. For God to carry you through where you are today, where I am today. Your now, in your grief, your condition, your circumstance, your need.

For God to carry you through, four things need to be said. First of all, you need to accept where you are. Stop agitating so much. Pain hurts. This is not about just saying, well, get over it. God didn't say get over it. But before God, accept your circumstance.

That's a hard thing to do. Please forgive the interruption. We'll be back with the rest of today's program in just a moment. But perhaps you've missed part of today's program or part of another broadcast this week, you need to know that on our website, TEWOnline.org, you have free options to watch and listen to all these broadcasts, whether you prefer an audio podcast or a videocast. They're all there at TEWOnline.org.

That's TEWOnline.org. It's our prayer that all of us would be spending more time on a regular basis in God's word. And sometimes the best place to start is just in a brief quiet time every single morning. If you've not done so, consider signing up for the daily encouraging word email from Dr. Don that comes out early every morning and provides that bit of insight, that point of scripture and the opportunity to launch your day in a powerful way with God's encouraging word.

Again, you can sign up right now on our website, TEWOnline.org. Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. Talking to righteous people, the Lord lives in your heart. Accept where you are, your marriage, your life, your health, your wealth.

Accept where you are. Number two, do what God tells you to do. God is very clear, and he'll speak to you now. He'll speak to you through his word. He'll speak to you through a discipleship leader, through that coach, through that teacher, through that parent, grandparent, that best friend, through your pastor, through that minister. God will speak to you. He will speak to you by his Spirit.

Watch this. Do what God's telling you to do. Don't sit there and try to argue with him. Stop arguing with God.

Stop trying to figure out how big your boat needs to be and how you're going to be able to float it when there's no water. He's the never God. He will never leave you.

He's got you. Number three, anticipate answered prayer. Take God at his word. Have believing faith in God's word. Take him at his word. Trust God.

Maybe it's time for you in the presence of the Lord. Say, Lord, I love you, but I want you to know that I believe. You've told me, you've shown me, this is my journey.

This is what I need to do. I don't understand it. I can't figure it out, but yes, Lord, and I will anticipate answered prayer. And then the final thing, number four, is once God takes you through, don't just walk away. The Bible is very clear, is very clear in verse 21. Once the Lord smelled the aroma of the sacrifice, he gave his promise.

Now, I'm not trying to read something into the texture, but friend, perhaps you're almost there, but what is missing in your life is exactly that. God has answered your prayer, and you've just walked off. You want God's promise? You give it all back to him. You offer that sacrifice to him. You give your life to him. You give him all praise and all glory. That's what Noah did. I mean, he had hardly stepped off that boat.

He didn't go and throw a party, evidently, immediately to say, we did it, we did it, we did it, which nobody would have criticized them for that. I'm sure there was ecstatic happiness from all concerned, given all the factors, but point priority number one was he worshiped the Lord. He said, Lord, you have proven to me and demonstrated to me that you will never leave me nor forsake me. I give it all back to you. What a powerful message from Dr. Don Wilton today on the Encouraging Word broadcast. You know, it's Dr. Don's prayer and all of us at the Encouraging Word that you've not just heard that wonderful South African brogue of Dr. Don Wilton, but it's our prayer that by the Spirit of God, you have heard the heart of God letting you know that he loves you, he's using even this broadcast to pursue you because he loves you so much, and he wants you to be in his family if you've never joined or he wants to welcome you home if you've drifted or even run from him.

You've heard Dr. Wilton teaching and preaching from the pulpit now as he steps into the studio, open your heart to what he wants to share next. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner, and I know that Jesus died for me on the cross. Today I repent of my sin, and by faith I receive you into my heart. In Jesus' name. My friend, I welcome you today into the family of God.

This is exciting news. Welcome to the family of God. I'm just convinced that some of you were praying along with Dr. Don Wilton in your heart giving your life to Jesus Christ a mile ago or perhaps rededicating your life to Jesus.

Or perhaps you are right at that moment, but you'd like to have some questions answered. Feel free to give us a call right now at 866-899-WORD. That's our phone number. 24 hours a day will connect you with one of us at 866-899-9673. Not only would we love to pray with you and answer your questions, but if you just gave your life to Christ or rededicated your life to Jesus, Dr. Don Wilton would love to pray for you and send you some resources that will help you grow. Again, share your story with us as you call 866-899-9673, or if you'd rather, meet us on our website at www.tewonline.org.

You'll find great resources like this. Hello, everybody. You know, my friends know me as Don Wilton, pastor, friend, neighbor, dad, husband, grandpa. But I'm going to tell you people all around the world just like you know and identify Dr. Billy Graham as that man that God used to reach so many people around the world for the Lord Jesus Christ. I had the privilege of knowing Mr. Graham in a very personal and intimate way, both as his friend and as his pastor. In fact, for many years, I drove up to his home in Montreat, North Carolina, and visited with him every Saturday, just like friends do everywhere. We sat together and ate together, walked, talked. We discussed politics, friends, places, people. We laughed our heads off. We did everything one could possibly imagine. That's why I wrote this wonderful book, Saturdays with Billy.

It's all about a personal relationship. And I hope and pray that Saturdays with Billy will be a blessing to you, will inspire you, and will encourage your heart, just as Mr. Graham encouraged my heart and changed my life. God bless you, my friends. That's all our time for today, but there's plenty of encouragement still on our website, on demand, anytime at www.tewonline.org. This broadcast is brought to you by The Encouraging Word and the very generous, prayerful, and financial support of friends like you. Thank you and God bless.