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Muskegon SDA Church

Jason Sliger

The Faces of the Wicked

Well, I invite you to bow your heads with me and we will start with a brief word of prayer and then we'll get into our study together today.

Father in heaven, we are grateful that we can come into your presence together as a church family.

There's no better place to be on a Sabbath morning than with the family of God.

But Lord, we don't assemble ourselves so much for the fellowship as we do because we want to hear a word from you.

And so, Father, we stand and we sit here in anxious anticipation, knowing that we are going to hear you speak to us through your word.

So take my dead words, Lord, and breathe life into them, I pray.

May we be drawn closer to Jesus, we ask in Jesus' name.

I invite you to turn with me to the book of Genesis, Genesis the sixth chapter.

We are going to add a little bit more detail into the study that we had together last week.

This morning's presentation is entitled, The Faces of the Wicked.

Last week, we looked at the face of the righteous, the righteous man, Noah.

This morning, we're going to do what maybe we haven't done before, and we're going to look into the face of those that were on the outside, those who chose not to listen to the man of God and the message that came from God.

Genesis 6, 5 and 6, there's a quick review here.

The Bible says, And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

The Bible tells us that when God looked upon the earth, it made him sorry that he had created man.

It had gone so bad, it had gotten so bad in the world, so wicked, that as the Lord looked upon the earth it made him Sorry in fact we're told in the spirit of prophecy that it delighted or that for the wicked people They delighted to put God out of their Minds that's how wicked it had become it had brought pleasure to them It made them joyful to take God and to put him out of their minds.

The thoughts of man, the Bible tells us, were only evil continually, And I think we are at that day and age right now.

And if we are living at that time, we ought to be living like the righteous man, Noah.

In our study together last week, we looked at a quick biography of this man.

And the Bible tells us that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord in verse 8.

And then in verse 9 it gives us a little character sketch there.

And we added some more details from other places in the Bible.

But we found that Noah was a righteous man or He was a just man.

He was perfect in his generation, not in any other generation, but in the most wicked generation.

He walked with God as his great-grandfather Enoch walked with God.

He was obedient to all of God's commands, not just some of them.

And the Bible tells us that Noah was a man of action.

He didn't just preach, he didn't just talk, but he did.

Noah was a great man of God that you and I would do well to emulate.

As I studied this out in the spirit of prophecy, looking for all of the different references on the flood and the life of Noah, I found it very interesting that there was passage or quote after quote after quote that described how the wicked people viewed Noah, how they looked at him.

And as I saw these different statements, I kind of gathered them together, kind of compiled them together, because a thought struck me that if this is the way the wicked people viewed Noah, that's the way the world is going to view me in the last days.

I'm just putting this together in a little collage, if you will.

The wicked people, they thought that Noah was insane.

They thought he thought more of himself than he should.

They thought his doctrine was fanatical and an illusion.

And ultimately, Noah became an object of contempt and derision.

That is an explanation of how the world is going to view you if you are faithful to God in the last days.

And in my mind, I say, bring it on because the Lord is going to be with his people.

We don't have anything to fear, but this is what's going to happen.

It's going to be a challenge, but God is going to strengthen us as we go through this.

You know, as I looked at that little lineup of all those different description of how they viewed Noah, it kind of reminded me of how they treated Jesus.

They treated Jesus in much the same fashion.

If they treated Noah that way, if they treated the Old Testament prophets that way, if they treated Jesus that way, is it gonna be any different for me?

But the Lord will sustain us as we go through those times.

In fact, notice our scripture reading again.

The Bible says, blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake.

And the Bible says that those who are righteous are going to be persecuted, right?

But the Bible says that those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, what's the first word in that Bible passage?

There's a blessing that comes to those who are persecuted for righteousness and sake.

Blessed are you when men shall revalue and persecute you.

And say, I'm sorry, let me finish verse 10.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

How easy is it to rejoice when you're being persecuted?

How easy is it to rejoice when you're being reviled?

How easy is it to rejoice when you're going through time of tribulation and difficulty?

How easy is it to rejoice when the whole world views you as a crazy person who is just lost their mind?

In heaven, for so persecuted they, the prophets, which were before you.

Rejoice when that time of persecution comes.

Remember, that's something that can only come from keeping your eyes on that which is above and not on this earth.

That's the only way that you can rejoice in being seething glad in a time of persecution.

If you just get caught up with what's going on and how people are treating you and what people are saying about you, calling you a fanatic, calling you crazy, if you get caught up in what's going on towards you, you will lose your faith in God.

The Faces of the Wicked

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