The Courage to Face Opposition

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, October twenty-eighth. The story of Noah and the ark is more than a children's Sunday school story. Today's podcast begins a series on courage that leads off with a powerful lesson for believers of all ages. Courage is a godly characteristic. Courage is following difficult instructions in the face of danger.

Not halting at them, but following them and doing what you know is right. Well, I want us to look at this passage of Scripture and beginning in the fifth verse of the sixth chapter of Genesis. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry, that is, He was regretful that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

The Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals, to creeping things, and the birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord, and these are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time. Noah walked with God.

Noah became the father of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me. For the earth is filled with violence because of them, and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood, and you shall make the ark with the rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch."

Now the question is this. It took a courageous man to build something he couldn't even describe. He just knew he was obeying God. And so, when I think about the courage that he exhibited while facing this opposition and obeying God, it's very evident that he was courageous.

He didn't defend his actions. He continued to build in spite of all the criticism that was there. He never stopped.

It was hard labor, but he kept going until he had finished. You see, the Bible says, He walked with God. Let me ask you a question. Are you walking with God? That is, do you wake up in the morning thinking about Him? Maybe into His Word, seeing what He's got to say to you for the day? When you go to work, are you interested in sharing your faith with somebody else? Or are you interested in just being kind?

And when you are abused and misused and lied about and all the rest, do you just take that and say, That's okay? Are you walking with God? You see, the Bible says that Noah walked with God and he had the favor of God upon him. So, what I want you to see is this. How could this man build this awesome ark in the midst of all this opposition and criticism and all the rest, hard work and labor for a year more probably?

How could he do that? He had the courage to obey God. What was the basis of his courage? Now, I'm going to give you a list. You should write them down because these should be the basis of our courage.

Whoever we are should be based on the same things. Now, first thing is this. His absolute assurance that he'd heard from God. That was the first line of defense in his courage. He was absolutely sure that the God of the heavens had said to him, Build this ark, enter this ark, the animals and insects shall come, I will close the door, trust me. His absolute assurance that he'd heard from God.

I want to ask you this, and I ask you honestly, and you need to think about this. When is the last time you absolutely are assured that God spoke to you and told you something? Listen carefully. If you say this morning, I don't know that I've ever heard God speak to me, then I would plead with you in Jesus's name to go home and get on your knees and tell God, Lord, I want to hear from you. You created me.

You gave me a purpose for my life. You said that the Holy Spirit would live within me. God, I need to hear from you. You say, Well, if I do that, will He speak to me?

Yes. Listen carefully. Will you hear Him the first time you pray?

Maybe not, and probably not. And if you only care to hear Him enough to pray one time, you don't care. But you're willing to start praying, God, I want to hear from you. I want you to speak to my heart. You can say anything you want to say to me, God.

You can tell me to leave this, go there, do this, sell this, buy this, I'll do whatever you say. But God, I need to hear from you. Listen, you don't need anything today any more than you need to be able to hear from God. He was absolutely sure that God had spoken to you.

The second thing is this. The awareness of God's presence with Him. My, my, my, when I think about what He was feeling in these days, the Scripture says, These are the records of the generation of Noah. Noah was a righteous man. Listen, blameless in his time, Noah walked with God, assured of God's presence. Can you say that? Can you say today, I'm absolutely sure of God's presence in my life.

I not only feel it, I know it. I anticipate Him revealing Himself to me anytime, any way He wants to, but I know that God is in my life. The basis of His courage, He knew that He'd heard from God. And He knew that He understood what the presence of God was all about.

The third one was this. The clarity of God's instructions to Him. God didn't say, I just want you to go build this big something. He said, I want you to build an ark so long, so wide, so high, three decks, one door, one window. And He showed him step by step how to do it. He didn't have a degree in architecture.

He didn't know, He wasn't a construction man. He was a listener to God. And what I want you to say is this. Have you ever heard God give you clear instructions about something? I want you to sell that. I want you to separate yourself from this person. I want you to walk away from this job and choose to trust me.

I want you to choose this job. I want you to lose all of this and I have a place on the mission field where your life can count absolutely unbelievably. God Almighty is living on the inside of you. And you have promise after promise after promise in His Word. He said He will supply all your needs.

Can you not trust Him? Are you not courageous enough to watch God work in your life in that way? Another reason He was so courageous is this. And that is the experience of God's strength in Him. Build an ark four hundred and fifty-some feet long.

All this timber and all this pitch and all the time. In other words, when you look at all that, He had to know that it couldn't happen without the strength of God. Remember this, there's not a single thing God will call you to do that He'll not give you the strength to do it. And I think some people miss God's calling in the mission field because they're afraid. They're afraid they can't do it.

They're afraid of what'll suppose this, suppose that, suppose the other. God's not going to call you to do something He's not going to help you do. How did Noah and his sons, or if he had any other help, how did they build an ark? You just think about how high that scaffolding had to be. Only by the strength of God. You say, well, do you think he went home every night tired? I expect he did. Did he ever go home and think, how will I ever get all this pitch off of my hands and off my body, off my face?

I'm sure he did. But you know why he kept going? He heard from God. He had the strength of God, the wisdom of God to keep him going. Then, of course, he had the warning of God's judgment coming. He says to him, I want you to build this ark.

I'm going to destroy all life on the face of this earth except that which is within the ark. He believed God. If he hadn't believed God in the first place, he wouldn't have built the ark. He believed God. And listen, what he found out is every time God told him something and he did it, God blessed him.

You know why he did that? Because he walked with God. And the Bible says he had the favor of God. And I love what it says here when it speaks of him. Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Let me ask you a question. Do you have the favor of God in your life? Do you feel like you have the favor of God?

Are you one of those persons who thinks, I don't know where God is. You know, I pray I don't see anything, I don't feel anything, and I wonder where God is. Listen, God desires that you feel His favor. His favor comes with obedience and surrender and yieldedness to Him. And what, listen, what kept His sense of courage so strong was this, He remembered the warning of God, I am going to destroy every living thing except you and your family and those animals. He walked under the canopy of the awareness of the favor of God. Whatever He did, God was going to favor Him anyway, which meant He was going to be successful at everything that, what He didn't know how, God was going to show Him how.

What He couldn't lift, God would help Him lift it. In other words, He had the favor of God. Think about this, God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, a God of absolute, total, unquestionable, and immeasurable love. Just think about having His favor, that the favor of God covers you. That wherever you are, you have the absolute, awesome, indescribable favor of God shrouding you.

When I think about this, I just want to stretch out before Almighty God and say, show me God. How do you describe the favor of God? How do you feel, for example, when somebody you love doesn't love you?

And the favor's just one way. It breaks your heart. That's what He meant when He said, I regret that I made them.

That it stabs my heart that I made them. Courageous, bold, Noah, going it alone with his family. Why was he doing it? Because of all these things that motivated him. Then, for example, when I think about that, I think about what the Bible says, that He walked with God, which meant if you walk with God, that means you have an intimate relationship with Him.

There's not a single person in here who cannot have an intimate relationship with God if you want one. Almighty God has this capacity to be within us, express Himself in us, fill us up, overflow us, that no one else can do. And what was the basis of His courage? The basis of His courage was His intimate relationship with God. When He got tired, He didn't quit because of the Father, favoring Him, overshadowing Him. This intimate relationship, He knew He was obeying God.

And then, of course, I think there was one other thing that motivated Him to be courageous, and that is the promise that God had made to Him of His future. Here's what He said, I'm going to destroy every person on the face of this earth except you. Can you imagine what He must have felt? When I even think about that, I just want to get on my face before God and say, Lord, just give me a glimpse of what He must have felt.

I'm destroying every single person that I've created on the face of this earth. Every single person, all the animals, insects, you name it, except the ones in the ark, I'm destroying them all except you. And when I think about that, and think about when Noah entered the ark, listen, the Bible says he entered it, and when he walked in, he didn't have to shut it. Whoo, God closed it. Can't you imagine what that sounded like in a four-hundred and fifty-foot ark? Whoo, click. And God shut the door. He didn't just shut it, He locked it. He couldn't get out till God was ready.

So, I'd simply ask you a question. How grateful are you this morning that your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life and you know what your future holds? You may not know it for a span of time, but one of these days when God calls your name, you know where you're going.

Don't you think you owe Him the rest of your life, your life here and now? Should you not have the courage to walk obediently before Him? Trusting Him, believing Him, intimate with Him, excited about Him, saying no to the world and their wickedness and their, all the sin and the corruption that's around us. Somebody says, Well, I want to have fun in life.

Well, let me tell you something. You don't know what fun is until you walk with God. And He's the one who brings joy unspeakable in a person's life.

He makes you feel absolutely complete. So, when I look at Noah and I think, Oh Lord, thank You for this wonderful example. Because you see, it takes courage to obey God. God has certainly required things of me that I just had to back up and say, Oh God, I've got to be sure I'm hearing from You. It takes courage to obey God. It takes courage to do what God called you to do. To walk away from what He wants you to walk away from. To give what He wants you to give. To yield what He wants you to yield. Surrender what He wants you to surrender.

To obey Him. It takes courage to do that. And I can think of times in my life, I've been in situations where all the odds were against me, one thousand percent. And I can remember the times when I've gotten on my face before God and said, Lord, here's what You said. I'm going to risk everything and I'm going to do exactly what You said and I'm going to trust You. And let me tell you something, God has never, never, never failed me one single time. And He'll do the very same thing for you. Now, I could give you a list of those things, but I'm not going to do that.

Some of them are pretty personal and some of them are pretty amazing, but I'm simply telling you this. You can trust Him. And there'll be times, and I can think of one time especially when I thought, Lord, I'd like to flip a coin, but I know that won't work.

What do You want me to do? God said, I want you to trust Me and leave all the consequences to Me. Thank God I'm sitting here today because I was willing to trust Him. Sometimes it takes courage. And listen, sometimes even in your courage, you can be slightly wondering, okay, God, here's what You said, but I'm going to do it. Here's what I want you to remember. You cannot, listen carefully, I've lived through a lot and I want to tell you, you cannot, no matter how you lived your life in the past, no matter what's going on in your life, no matter where you are, you absolutely cannot lose if you will obey God. He'll do the same thing in your circumstances that He did in Noah's circumstances. For him, it was an ark.

For you, it's something else. And that's my plea to you, that you'd be wise enough, sensible enough, courageous enough to obey a God who loves you absolutely, completely, unquestionably, infinitely, immeasurably. He loves you. Will you trust Him? If you've never trusted Him as your Savior, you just tread water.

One of these days, you're going to sink. It's going to all be over. If you ask the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins no matter how bad you think you've been, and recognize that the reason He's going to forgive you is not because you deserve it, but because Jesus the Son of God went to the cross, laid down His life voluntarily. It was a substitutionary, voluntary, atoning death, paying your sins and mine at the cross. Asking Him to forgive you on the basis of that. And the Father will forgive you of your sin because His Son paid your sin dead and full. Surrender your life to Him, everything is going to change.

And all of a sudden, you're going to realize what life's like and what you've missed. And no matter what you've had, it won't compare with the joy and the assurance and the confidence and the love and all the things that God works into a person's life, nothing to compare with that. Would you do that? Would you ask Him to forgive you of your sins? Would you surrender your life to Him? Do you have the courage to surrender your life to Him to be baptized?

So other people will know you are a follower of Jesus Christ. It's the wisest thing you can do. And Father, we thank You that nothing is beyond Your power, no one beyond Your reach. And I pray that every person who hears this message will be wise enough to respond appropriately, surrendering their life to Christ, opening the Word of God, and begin to feast upon Your awesome Word is my prayer, in Jesus's name, amen. Amen. Thank you for listening to The Courage to Face Opposition. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.