Sermon Tone Analysis

The hour not known

!!! Advent

!!! Morning Worship 14th December 2008, 9.30am

© Rev D Rudi Schwartz[1]

*Bible Readings*

Old Testament:                     /Genesis 6:9-22/

New Testament:                   /Matthew 24:36-51/

*Hymns~/Songs*

                1.

Approach:                        “God Himself is present”

                2.

Forgiveness of sins:        “Joy to the world”

                3.

Thanksgiving:                   “Come, O Long expected Jesus”

                4.

Response:                        “Once in Royal David’s city”

*Main Points*

1.       Introduction

2.       Noah, the preacher of righteousness

a.

A Sermon of 120 years

b.

No one paid attention

c.

A corrupt people

d.       Mercy and grace

e.       Prepare yourself

f.

The hour not known

3.       Christ is coming again – really!

4.       Conclusion

* *

!!! 1.     Introduction

Dear Brother and sister in the Lord, beloved,

Today is one of the Sundays on the church calendar referred to as Advent.

Advent is the time of preparation for the coming of the Lord Jesus to this world.

The prophet Amos was sent by God to warn his people of immanent destruction as a result of their sins and rebellion.

In his message he points to the compassion of God who constantly shows his mercies by letting the people know what his plans are.

He says:

/Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.

//The lion has roared— who will not fear?

The Sovereign LORD has spoken— who can but prophesy?

(Amos 3:7-8)/

The judgements of God therefore do not come as a surprise.

We can only be grateful that God deals with us in such a way.

!!! 2.     Noah, the preacher of righteousness

2 Peter 2:5 refers to Noah as the preacher of righteousness.

\\ …if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others… (2 Pet 2:5)

!!!! ·         A Sermon of 120 years

We don't have the sermons of Noah recorded in the Bible.

We can only say this:  in the one hundred and twenty years of building the ark, the years God waited patiently according to 1 Peter 3:20, every new piece of timber added to the ark, every beat of the hammer and every sound of the saws cutting the timber was a message in itself.

People would most probably ask this humble and righteous man.

“/What* *are you doing Noah?/”  His reply would be, "/I am building an ark because God going to destroy this generation by a flood because* *of their sin and unrighteousness./''

The people would laugh and scoff Noah.

"/Don’t be silly, Noah, how is it possible that God would do such a thing.

We have watched the 50 year flood lines, and even the hundred year flood levels, no such a thing is recorded in history./"

!!!! ·         No one paid attention

Noah was a man of righteousness:  his walk before the Lord was in accordance with God’s revealed will.

He was a man mature in his walk with the Lord:  he was morally blameless, not lacking moral quality.

He walked with God.

He dwelled with God and God dwelled with him.

He pleased God and God was pleased with him.

Noah, in his perfect and blameless walking with the Lord, would carry on building the ark.

The people would see the progress on the ark, they would keep on asking “the silly old man” what he was doing, but they would not take heed.

Life is too precious to waste your time on fabrications of an old man of nearly 6OO hundred years old.

Matthew 24:38 tells us that:

For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark.

(Matthew 24:38)

 There is nothing sinful about eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.

However, the people do these things without any thought of God or the coming judgment.

The expression here in verse 38 refers to a lifestyle of hedonism and worldly enjoyment, without bringing into consideration the source from which eating and drinking and marriage come from.

It tells of a world living in total ignorance of God and rebellion against Him.

Indeed the very next verse speaks about it: 

“... they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.

That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

(Matthew 24:39)

!!!! ·         A corrupt people

Those to whom Noah preached were corrupt.

They were depraved and perverse.

They were in a state of ruin and destruction.

They deserved God’s punishment.

They knew nothing?

After all those years of preaching of Noah?  No, they did want to know.

They were too busy paying attention to their own affairs, pushing God out on the back burner of everyday life.

That’s why they were taken by surprise.

Are we any better in our present day western civilisation than the people in the time of Noah?  Can we be less godless and worldly?

Rev David Palmer, our church’s Convener of the Church and Nation Committee recently put forward the Bible’s position on abortion on a discussion webpage.

The attack was severe:

David, no-one is asking you to have an abortion.

Kindly mind you own damned business and get your nose out of other peoples.

Someone writes:

David seems determined to mind everyone's business as well as his own, and further, to enforce his morals on everyone else.

You may well deny it, David, but you are an unfeeling, bigoted, bully who has decided what is right for the world, and everyone else can go to ….”

Another replied:     

David does appear to be a busybody.

How much of each woman's stress is due, if she decides an abortion is the best choice for her, to the ridiculous indoctrination during her childhood that we are all sinners and that what she has chosen is a sin.

It should be her choice which of those should produce a child, if any, particularly on an overcrowded planet.

As defined in John Ralston Saul's book, The Doubter's Companion, "Moral crusades are public activities undertaken by middle aged men who are cheating on their wives or didling little boys.

Moral crusades are particularly popular among those seeking power for their own pleasure, politicians who can't think of anything useful to do with their mandates and religious professional suffering from a personal inability to communicate with their god."

Question is, what then can be said about those who are part of the so-called majority who cannot care a hoot about morality?

Noah was one, add to that his family of 7; the rest was the majority – and the majority was not right!

They probably did not think anything of it when it started raining as the Lord had announced.

They could not make the link between their rebellion and moral corruptness and the flooding that occurred.

Then there were the earthquakes and on one day God commanded the springs of the great deep to burst forth, together with the floodgates of the heavens which also were opened in the same time.

It was probably not before thousands drowned before someone thought about the righteousness of Noah and his family.