Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: If your heart is genuinely prepped by biblical change in your heart, repentance, and faith, you're going to cry out to God. That pledge of a good conscience now saves you. Get right with God. That's what saves you. It's that trust in the payment and the work of Christ. He's done the work, and what you need to do is get on board. It's all about making sure you're there.

Dave Druey: And welcome to Focal Point with author and pastor Mike Fabarez. I'm Dave Druey. Have you noticed that warning labels are on nearly everything today? There are just so many that we may not even pay attention anymore, or we don't believe the dangers are real.

But do we treat God's warning labels the same way? Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez says we can look to Noah as a good example of listening and acting on God's words of caution. He has a lot to teach us about having ambitious faith.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: I know you don't like to look at it this way, or several people don't, but if you really read the Bible from beginning to end, what you'll discover if you really give it an appraisal is that it starts to read like one big warning label. Have you noticed that? I mean, it really is about giving us the instructions to take precautions so that we can avoid an impending danger. That's really what the Bible is all about. There's danger ahead. There's a problem, and you need to take precautions so that you don't incur the damage and danger that is spelled out in the pages of Scripture.

If the gospel is a call to take precautions, then I think it makes sense that if we're going to do that, we're going to need to trust or have confidence in the one that is giving us the warning. We're going to have to believe that the warning is true. We're going to have to think that the impending danger is worth avoiding, and we're going to have to trust them enough to take the precautions that the one who's giving us the warning is instructing us to take.

As we study faith, and the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 11 tries to illustrate it for us, it is absolutely no surprise at all that this man that we encounter in verse number seven is on the list. As a matter of fact, if you know anything about this man, he really is the prototypical, he is the foundational example of what it means to heed the warning of God. His name is Noah.

If you have your Bible, I want you to look at it in Hebrews chapter 11 in verse number seven. This is a critical example for us, if for nothing else, to learn from Noah that it's a good idea when God gives us a warning to heed the warning and respond to it. Because Noah did, he not only saved himself but all of mankind as we know it.

Look at verse number seven of Hebrews chapter 11. It says, "By faith," and that's what it's going to take if you're going to heed a warning, you'd better believe it. You'd better trust the one who's giving you the warning. "By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen," they'd never seen a flood, let alone the destruction of the world. They hadn't experienced that. Life had just gone on since creation.

But because he heeded the warning and trusted the one that gave him the warning and believed the warning was true, "In holy fear," the Bible says, "He built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world, but because of his faith," look at this, "He became the heir of the righteousness that comes by faith."

That bridges for us the Old Testament account of Noah and the New Testament call of the gospel right there because it's really not about biological salvation. This right here makes it clear that really what it's about from a New Testament perspective for all of us is not just being biologically spared from some impending disaster. It's all about this righteousness that we need to stand before a holy God. That's the truth of the Bible.

Well, you know what? I just really know where we are right now. We're on the left side of the Bible, and that's Old Testament stuff. Great, I'm glad you said that. Second Peter, chapter three. Let's turn to the New Testament. Second Peter, chapter three. Verse three.

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come. They'll come scoffing and following their own evil desires. The reason people think there's no accountability for sin is that they don't want to think there's a future accountability for sin. They might like to think about the afterlife, which is a promise God made about the future, but they don't like to think about judgment in the afterlife. They don't like those promises. They like to pick and choose the promises.

So when it comes to you starting to preach about God and punishment and a hellfire and brimstone preaching, if you start rebelling against that, just know that those are symptoms of a problem. The problem according to verse three is we're probably following after our own evil desires. We don't want to believe in retribution or accountability because I'm kind of living my life my own way and I kind of like it like that. So can we forget about the judgment part?

They will say stuff like this, "Where is his coming? The day of judgment. Where is that he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." Because when he is silent, what happens? We start to think he's like us. They deliberately forget, and that's according to Romans. We have to force it. We have to suppress the truth in our unrighteousness. We deliberately forget that long ago by God's word, the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water, and by these waters also, the world of that time was deluged. What does that mean? Flooded. That's Genesis 6, 7, and 8, and destroyed.

By the same word, these present heavens, in other words, God by his authority and his power to do these things or withhold these things, by the same word, the present heavens and the present earth are reserved not for water but for what's the word? Fire. Here's the hellfire and brimstone I was worried about. Any church with Bible in the title is going to talk about hellfire. I understand you don't like it. I don't much care for it either. If I look like I'm enjoying this, I don't enjoy it.

But the promise of God is just like I punished the world with a universal flood and destroyed the people on the earth, I am going to come in judgment on the current earth, but it won't be water this time. It will be fire. That's what the Bible says. The present world as you know it, this whole world is reserved for God's judgment, and it won't be a flood. The Bible says it will be an act of God, and it will be fire.

Keep reading. It's being kept for the day of judgment and the destruction of ungodly men. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends, those of you that think that's never going to happen, that with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. I hate the fact that this has been used as some kind of code for unlocking the end times chart or timeline. This is not what this is. This is simply a statement for those that think it's been a long time since he promised, I don't think he's going to come.

Because for us, when we make a promise yesterday, it's a big deal. You made a promise last week, okay, still a big deal. Last month, it's starting to fade. Last year, ten years ago, you don't think much about promises you made thirty years ago. There are not many promises you still concern yourself with that you made thirty years ago. But with God, it's not that way. Because a thousand years is like a day, a day is like a thousand years. Time is not an issue for God.

God makes a promise, and he has perfect recall. It's like he made the promise yesterday. Jesus said that as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. The point is Jesus promised, "I'm coming back, and I'm coming in judgment. I'm coming with the holy angels in heaven to meet out judgment on the world." That's what Jesus promised. We're thinking it was a long time ago. He can't really still be thinking that. The Bible says thousand years like a day, day like a thousand years. None of this has escaped his notice. He hasn't forgotten about it.

As a matter of fact, here's the next line. He's not slow in keeping his promise, verse number nine, as some understand slowness. Instead, the reason he didn't destroy the world with fire in 300 AD or 1300 AD or last week is because he is patient with you. He's not wanting anyone to perish, but he'd like everyone, he wants everyone to come to repentance. Will that desire be fulfilled by the way? No. Everyone's not coming to repentance.

Jesus said the way is really narrow and the gate is really small that leads to life and few are those who find it. But the way is really broad and the gate is really wide that leads to destruction and many are those who enter by it. God's heart is broken, just like it was in Genesis 6. He does not want to see people judged, but unless they get in the ark, they're going to be. They will stand to give an account before their Creator. The Bible says that's why he's waiting. He doesn't want anybody to perish. He wants all to come to repentance.

Verse 10. But the Day of the Lord will come, and it's going to come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, and the elements, the very fabric of the universe, will be destroyed with fire. The earth and everything in it will be laid bare. He's going to split it right open.

Now, either that's just kind of fancy gobbledygook religious kind of persuasion manipulation trying to get you all to be faithful to your wives and your kids to stay off drugs and not have premarital sex, it's all about you trying to pay your taxes. If that's what it is, then fine. Let's just cut it out of the Bible.

But if it's true, then I've got to recognize that the entire world as we know it is one day, and I don't know what day it is. He hasn't revealed it to you, to me, to anyone. Nobody knows. But it's coming. One day he will judge the world with fire. If that's the case, I'd better in my heart accept that as the reality of the Scriptures. If it's a bunch of manipulation, let's quit. Let's play golf on Sundays. Let's have brunch like the rest of the world.

But if it's the truth, we'd better come and get connected with it in our minds and recognize this is the gospel truth. God will judge the world one day, and you and I will stand to account before a holy God. In keeping with his promise, verse 11, since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you be? I think we ought to be figuring out how to live holy and godly lives as we look forward to the day of God.

Now, why would we do that and speed its coming? Well, how would we do that? That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise, we are looking forward to, here's why we would look forward to it, a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. Where people's paths aren't corrupted, where there is not a world filled with violence. That sounds good. I would like to anticipate that and look forward to that.

So then, dear friends, since you're looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless and blameless and at peace with him. I don't want to be on God's bad side when he comes back because the Bible says it's the difference between life and death. Verse 15. Bear in mind that the Lord's patience means salvation.

We asked two questions up in verse 12. Why would I look forward to it? Well, because there's going to be a new world on the other side of it that's filled with righteousness. And then I said, how can I speed its coming? Here's the answer, middle of verse 15. His patience means salvation. That means there's an opportunity for not only us but others to come to repentance. So every day that the judgment of God does not come, I want to get serious about that.

He says just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him, he writes in the same way in all of his letters speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and the unstable people distort as they do the other Scriptures to their own destruction.

Here's the problem right now. We're looking at accepting both the bad news and the good news. You can go to churches all over America and find people where you can week after week never hear this kind of stuff. You want a place that doesn't have hellfire and brimstone preaching, you can find them. They're a dime a dozen. They will teach you about how to have inner peace and have financial success and how to get in touch with your inner child of the past. You can have all of that week after week, and never hear the bad news.

The problem is that's not the message of the Bible. As long as you feed on that stuff, you've got to know that right here the Bible says you will distort the truth and you will do it to your own destruction. You'll never hear the warnings. Not everybody likes this stuff. Matter of fact, it's all about Noah. We just read 2 Peter 3, basically the entire chapter. That's what we read. Go home and read it and try and figure this out without that message that we just underscored.

There's some bad news here coming on the world. The whole message for you and I is to recognize that the warning of Scripture, and that's what it says, by faith Noah, when warned about things unseen. Have you ever seen the world completely burned and the elements of the world burned up and everything in this world destroyed? I haven't seen that, have you? It's going to take some faith, and that means we're going to have to believe the God of the Bible who did it once, that he promised he's going to do it again.

I think it's going to lead us to what Noah was led to. Hebrews 11:7. By faith Noah, when warned about things not seen, in holy fear, and that's an uncomfortable feeling, I recognize that. Look what he did. He built an ark. Let's just work on those three words right there. He built an ark. Ark means box, and it's a big barge. It's a place for animals. Big ark. That's what he did. He wanted to respond to the warning.

It takes faith to believe the one who's warning us that the world's going to end with fire and the judgment and accountability that God brings. It's going to take ambitious faith to say, "I need to respond to that." For Noah, because it's biological in his day, right there the pressing urgent concern was the world's going to be biologically destroyed. He here is concerned about building an ark.

Well, what am I supposed to do, go build an ark? Let me show you. We were in 2 Peter 3. Let's turn to 1 Peter 3. What am I supposed to do? How do I get ready? You and I need to make sure we're prepared. If the real issue for us is not building some kind of bomb shelter or some fallout shelter, that's a different church, you realize, right? That's not what we're saying. Preparing for the end is not getting all your evaporated milk or whatever it is that they do in their bomb shelters and batteries and the crank up little radio. Got to get ready for the end of the world. That's not what we're talking about.

What we're trying to do is to make sure that on the day of God's judgment, I'm not going to receive any. That's what we need to be ready for. How do we do that? I'm glad you asked. First Peter chapter three. Look at verse number 18. Christ died for sins once for all. Now wait a minute, he's going to judge sins. That's right, but he also died for sins.

Now wait a minute, I thought that was the whole point of the judgment of God. It is. Your sins and mine are going to bring the judgment of God. But the Bible says he came and poured out his judgment on his own Son. That's what the death of Christ was all about. He died for sins. This is 1 Peter 3:18. Are you with me? Once for all. The righteous for the unrighteous. I thought no one was righteous. You're right. There is no human being that is righteous except for God when he took on human form. The God-man lived a righteous life.

He not only lived a righteous life, he died the death of the wicked. He died the death of the compromiser, the sinner, the adulterer. He died that death. Now how does this work? The problem that I have before God is the same problem that Noah ultimately had, and it wasn't just getting pitch on the ark so he didn't sink. It was all about him acquiring the righteousness of God. Because if you read the rest of the story of Noah, you found out he's not a stellar righteous guy. Right? Do you know the story of Noah? I mean, he's got some problems.

One day at the end of his long life, he's going to have to stand before a holy God. What does he need? He needs his sins atoned for, and he needs righteousness that's alien to him, that's external to him, applied to his account. He's got the same need that I've got. The way he's going to get ready for the ultimate judgment of God is the same way I need to get ready for the ultimate judgment of God. I need to put my trust in the transaction of Christ dying for my sins and his righteous life being applied to me.

Why was all this done? Here's a great phrase. To bring us to God. That was the goal. We have to be ready to say, my sin on his cross and his righteous life on my bad resume. We exchange his life for mine. The righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.

He's put to death in the body, made alive in the spirit, through whom he also went and preached to the spirits in prison. Apparently there was, we don't have a lot of information in the Bible about this, some kind of proclamation that Jesus the victor brought to those who were in a holding tank ready to go to ultimate judgment. At the Great White Throne, they will go into a place of ultimate retribution, but for now they're in prison, so to speak.

Jesus after his death goes and proclaims to them that he's won. He heralds the message that sin has been paid for. This is not a second chance after death. This is a proclamation of victory. He does this to the spirits in prison, and that brings the Holy Spirit in Peter's mind to those who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

It took a long, long time to build that big box. As they were building it, it was nothing but a call for them to get on the ark. Those who refused it was nothing more than a reminder of their condemnation. In those days, as God waited patiently with the sin of mankind, those spirits that are now in prison, Jesus went and proclaimed his victory to them.

Then he starts to talk about the whole ark scene. Middle of verse 20. In it, that is the ark, only a few people, eight in all, you got Noah, his wife, his three sons, and his daughters-in-law, eight in all, they were saved through water. And then he says, this water symbolizes baptism, which now saves you.

Inevitably, you know someone who believes that all you got to do to get right with God is to get dunked in some pool of water by some guy who's been to seminary, and then you're saved. That's not what this passage is teaching. It has nothing to do with going into a pool and having the gunk washed off your body, which he says next. Don't miss the next phrase.

I'm not talking about the removal of dirt from the body. That's what happens when you get dunked in water in front of a congregation of people. What he's talking about is the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It's that conscience that cries out to God in sincerity, that clear and honest calling out to God and saying, "God, I need you. God, I'm committed to follow you. God, I want to get on the ark."

Now I know we have a problem as modern Christians. We like to turn the gospel into some kind of formulaic onramp into Christianity. We love to do that. We like the little sinner's prayer or asking Jesus into our heart. That's not the way it's presented in Scripture. As a matter of fact, God likes to always present this in the Scripture to us with different phrases and different words. There are some key elements to it, repentance and faith, that's clear.

But oftentimes he talks about calling on the name of the Lord. Sometimes he talks about like in this passage, the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It's that kind of crying out to God, that kind of throwing ourselves on the mercy of God. You don't need a list of instructions or words to repeat after if God has brought you to the place of recognizing you deserve his wrath and you want to get on the ark. You don't need anybody to coach you through that. God is doing that work in your heart, and all we've got to say to you is get on the ark.

I mean, if those are the words you say to God, I guarantee you, if your heart is genuinely prepped by biblical change in your heart, repentance, and faith, you're going to cry out to God and that pledge of a good conscience now saves you. It's that getting onto the ark. Get right with God.

He says it saves you not because he's just looking for people that are sincere. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's what saves you. It's that trust in the payment and the work of Christ who's gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him. He's done the work, and what you need to do is get on board.

Number two is all about you making sure you're ready. Are you prepared? There's no bunker to build, there's no ark to get on. What it is is a spiritual connection with God. You've got to make sure that you're there, and it's all about making sure you're there.

The Bible says the problem is that people don't have enough faith to heed the warning. Because they don't, they kind of play around with it. Or as we've already seen, they twist the gospel so they say, "I kind of got God, but he's kind of the God of my own making, and he's not a mean and nasty God like that God at that church."

And so I kind of have my own view of spirituality, and I kind of like it the way I'm doing it. It's not about that. It's about coming to the acknowledgment that the world is going to end with God's judgment, and you need to get out of that perilous place by putting your trust in Christ.

Have you done it really? Are you sure? Are you really banking on walking an aisle as a kid? Is that what you're putting your trust in? Is it really all about a pine cone at the fire when you cried singing Kumbaya? Are you putting your trust in some teenage experience, or are you absolutely positively sure that you are seated on the ark with Christ? Are you positive? If you're not, today's the day to figure that out. Don't you dare get behind the wheel of a car and go risk your life in traffic today unless you're absolutely sure that you've been placed on the ark. Make sure you get a seat.

Dave Druey: The story of Noah reminds us to pay attention to God's warning while there's still time. And while it may not be popular, we should share this warning with others as well. You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez and a message titled, "Believing All of God's Promises About the Future." We'll continue tomorrow.

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This month's resource fits right alongside what we've been working through: what it looks like when faith is more than a word. It's *The Journals of Jim Elliot*, edited by Elisabeth Elliot, a ground-level account of a man whose convictions ran all the way down, right up to the moment he gave everything on the mission field. These journals put you inside that conviction as it was being formed, page by page, straight from the heart. Ask for *The Journals of Jim Elliot* when you send a gift to Focal Point today. Call our team at 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org.

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And if today's the first time you're reaching out to us, ask for Pastor Mike's booklet, *Offering Our Best*, a straight-talking, grounded look at what it costs to genuinely bring God your best. No charge, it's yours just for getting in touch. Call 888-320-5885 or go online to focalpointradio.org.

Well, I'm Dave Druey, and we'll see you next time for the conclusion of our lesson titled, "Believing All of God's Promises About the Future." That's Thursday on Focal Point with Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hi, Pastor Mike here. God's word promises it'll never return void. So I wonder how is God's word moving in your heart right now? Drop us a line, let us know. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to be praying for you here. Just go to focalpointradio.org. And then be sure to join us again tomorrow right here as we continue to explore the depths of Scripture. We'll see you then.