Shallow #5

Saturday, October 26, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

For 120 years, Noah, “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5), built the ark according to God’s instructions, and warned the world of the impending Global Flood. Eight people—Noah, his wife, and their three sons and their wives— boarded the ark just before the Flood (Genesis 7:7). God gave mankind an additional seven days to change their mind, believe His Word as spoken by Noah, and come into the ark of safety (verses 4,10). Of these perhaps four billion people in the world, not a single one came into the ark!

Jesus Christ Himself commented that when the waters of the Great Deluge came from above and from below, humanity was still pursuing carefree, satisfying lifestyles (Matthew 24:37-39). Although God’s Word, the warning of His impending judgment, was the least of their concern, violent waves of water immediately drowned their physical bodies and the flames of hell surrounded their souls. Most of the animal and plant species perished too (their fossilized remains form the geologic rock record that scientists still study today).

Approximately 150 to 200 years after the Great Flood, we come to the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). The new human population (Noah’s descendants) rejects the knowledge of God (just as Noah’s antediluvian generation did), defying God’s command to multiply and scatter over the face of the earth (Genesis 1:28; Genesis 9:1). Instead, they collaborate and begin to construct a city and a tower (place of false religious worship), Babel (just south of present-day Baghdad, Iraq). That false religious system is the “mother” of most present-day world religions. In order to slow down man’s rebellion against Him, God confounded their languages and scattered mankind across the globe (the origination of Gentile nations).

After God gave the Gentiles over to Satan, He selected one man, Abram, through whom He would create a nation of people, Israel. Now, let us see if Israel will be any different from the previous Bible-rejecters….