It's been a long time since we've been here. I remember the meetings that we had several years ago, sweet, sweet memories of that time. I send greetings from my wife this June 5th. My wife and I will be married and in ministry for 60 years. And there had been a lot of highs and a lot of lows. And right now, my wife, after her heart surgery at the end of January, never got her voice back. And so I'm going back again on Wednesday, and we're doing more scans to find out why. And in light of that, your bookstore manager wanted me to mention the book that we published last year on New Normal. What are you doing? The phone rings? Normal is no more. Death of a loved one. A bad physical report. Something happens when normal is no more. What happened? I wrote the book and the Lord has been greatly using that with hurting people. And very, very few people will get through life without somehow going through some very, very dark times. And so my wife does send greetings. I could not take her father or son retreat. I say, you don't pass the physical. But she also was just not able to travel. And I would appreciate you putting that on your prayer list. And in our 59 years of ministry, we've had to this point, I don't think we had one normal year where as go to work at eight and get home at five. And my wife has survived very well and living in the Airstream trailers and sleeping above garages and in people's basements and the pastor we were with last weekend said, how many nights did you sleep in your own bed last year? He said, I said about 30% of the time. So we invested a few years back in a sleep number bed so we can't wait to get home and get in that sleep number bed. Hebrews, I want us to turn to chapter 11 and I want to set my premise question. How do we live our Christian apologetic in a world going at a breakneck speed away from God's absolute truth? Let me restate that premise question. How do we as believers live our Christian apologetic in a world going at a breakneck speed away from God's absolute truth? And I think when we look back at the last kings of the southern kingdom, we come to Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim in his arrogance like so many political leaders today function in arrogance as though they were God as though God did not exist. We see that model in Pharaoh. We see that model in Nebuchadnezzar. God had to put him through two humbling circumstances and he didn't learn the first time. The next time God turned him into a hippie, at least the first time I've known a hippie on grass. And when he came out of that time, he said, all of the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does everything according to his will. None can stay his hand and say, what do we saw? And I believe we're going to see Nebuchadnezzar in heaven after his second round. I think he genuinely came to an acknowledgement of who God was. But now we find Jehoiakim. He heard the prophecy to Jeremiah. He told Jehoiakim his reader, bring that, those scrolls. Bring them to me and read them to me. So in his arrogance and his winter palace, he had his feet propped up at his fireplace hearth and Jehoiakim would read, he'd say hand me that and he took his knife and cut it and threw it in the fire. Went through each of those scrolls thinking that's the end of that. And God said, Jeremiah, write again, and he added some things. And the seed of Jehoiakim would never sit on the throne. And when you read the Matthew genealogy, you find Jechoniah in that genealogy and never again. But it was during that time that Habakkuk was prophesying, knowing that the Assyrians were going to overrun God's people. And he said, God, don't you know how wicked they are? You're going to use that nation more wicked than we are to judge us. And God said, yes, but Habakkuk, it's going to get worse. Because what did Habakkuk cry? How long, oh God, how long? And God says, Habakkuk, I will take care of the arrogant wicked in my time and in my way, but the just shall, what? Live by his faith. That's the answer to my premise. How do we live our Christian apologetic? It is by faith. And I want to take one example from Hebrews chapter 11. And it says, by faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became the heir of the righteousness, which is my faith. So first of all, let's look at this verse. My faith is the first two words, and by faith, the last two words in this verse. Like parenthesis locking the truth that is in this verse, by faith, Noah being warned of God. Number one, the word of God was the basis of Noah's faith. Because God spoke and Noah heard the word of God. New Testament says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. When we go all witnessing, we give a gospel track, we say, Sarah, I'd like to give you something to read or ma'am. And you say, Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. The most offensive verse in the Bible is John 14, 6. Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me. It's flying to New York sometime ago. I listened to a businessman, very gracious guy, he said, well, I'll tell you the way I see it. He said, I think there's one God and we're all eventually going to get to one place. And he said, we'll go different ways. For example, we're flying, some are going by boat, some are going by train, some are driving, but we'll all get to New York today. I said, what an excellent illustration. But I didn't ask, sir, if you die today, would you go to New York? Great illustration for New York, horrible illustration for going to heaven because Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life. So what is the basis of our witness and our testimony? It is the word of God. And when we go out soul-winning, when we go out talking to someone, when we talk to a person at work, they said, that's very narrow, say yes, but it's truth. So what is the basis of our Christian life? It's the word of God. Secondly, moved with fear. In that, I see the worship, which was the expression of Noah's faith. I think when God spoke to Noah, I don't think Noah hid himself from God out of human fear. I think the awe that he had of God, the fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom, I think he lifted his heart in awe and worship unto the Lord. And I think that he was so struck by the fact that God Almighty communicated a truth to him, moved with fear. I remember the discussion came up one time, a man who was working on his doctorate. I don't remember who it was, but he traveled the United States to Bible colleges and seminaries and a part of his assignment in his doctoral thesis was to interview Bible college and seminary presidents on the topic of worship. And his first question to me was, why is there so much controversy regarding the topic of worship? And I said, well, when you go back to the book of Ezekiel and look in chapter 14 and 28, I said, who was created with the pipes and tables? Who was filled with beauty, I believe, was in charge of the worship of heaven? I said, it was Lucifer. And I said, I think when he was cast out of heaven, he landed in the choir loft. Of course, I was being a little bit tongue-in-cheek. I said, but who would know better to take what God wants his people to do, to focus on him and uplift him and hold him in awe? Who would know better how to do that much to divert the attention from the person who is to be worshiped to the worshippers themselves and to the performers of those worship? I said, it makes sense to me that the one who came somewhere between end of Genesis 2 and the beginning of chapter 3, cast out of heaven, somewhere in there, he said, he had his goal to reverse everything that God had as original intent. And boy, don't we see that going in high gear in our nation today. Everything that God created, everything that he gave his orders in Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2, as his original intent, Satan came and said, hath God said, what was the goal to question the basis of our faith, which is the word of God? Then he said, you shall not surely die. Now he tells it outright, accusing God of being a liar. And why don't we see that? But Noah was expressing his awe of the Lord in number three, prepared. I took the verbs in this verse. And when I do my scripture memory, I always memorize the verbs in the passages first. Being warned, moved with fear, prepared. In that, I see work. And that's the activity of Noah's faith. Wouldn't it be great if all we had to do was worship? And we should worship buildings out of the air. I was in Moncton, New Brunswick, and I was preaching the dedication of the Grace Baptist church there in Moncton, and a couple of our graduates were there in a beautiful new facility. I said, how did this get here? Did you worship this down? I said, wouldn't it be nice if we just, hey, we need a new, we need property and we need a building. But let's get the property first though. Let's meet at the coffee shops. They're every 100 yards in Canada. I think they're sneaking into the United States now too. Tim Hortons. And I said, let's go to Tim Hortons then. I bet you prayed 530. God gave us property. Pray for an hour and then have your coffee. Get your van, go buy no property. Well, we need, well, how about praying for a building? Let's pray really hard. Let's strain our face a little bit tomorrow. And pray, worship a door, go back, no building. And I said, you know what it took? Work. I said, if we don't learn a work ethic, the earliest form of worship that God gave to Adam was work. Work was not a curse. Work was a form of worship God gave to Adam before sin, before the fall. And when we see work in that light, we see that we are glorifying God. We are magnifying and giving a proper image of our God by the work ethic. I used to tell freshmen coming into Northland, I'd meet with them. I said, some of you didn't know the sun came up slowly. Because it's always been way up there. You can't believe going to morning devos that, what is that big orange thing over there? Your RA said, that's the sun way over there. And I said, some of you are so lazy, you think manual labor is the president of Mexico. I said, you're going to have to learn a work ethic as you go through this, the activity of Noah's faith and thank the Lord for Christians who learn to work. And then it says, to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world. How could Noah condemn the world? He preached righteousness and judgment. Noah could not condemn the world, but the truth of the word that he proclaimed, put the world into condemnation for those who heard and would not believe. And in that I see witness by which he condemned the world, which is the evidence of Noah's faith. He proclaimed the truth of God's word. And we have the responsibility, not only of magnifying the word, expressing our hearts and worship and putting to work in obedience to what God has told us to do, but also to be a witness to evidence our faith. Do we say with boldness the gospel of Christ? I was coming from Dominican Republic sometime back and connected through Miami. I flew out of Detroit into Miami to Dominican. And on the way back, I was on the plane and I was in two C. There was A, B, C, D, and I was in two C. And the stewardess said, she saw my Bible. She said, I want to talk to you later when we get up in the air. And then a guy got on the plane and he was huge. He filled, you know, how they come in and they filled the entrance. I thought, that guy is huge. And I said, he's professional, something. And he sat in one C right ahead of me. His shoulders, his neck. I thought, this guy is huge. And we got, I thought, when we get airborne, I'm going to try to engage him in conversation. So we got up and leveled off. And this big guy began witnessing to the guy in 1D. He was a Christian, began giving the gospel to the man in 1D. The man in 1D got out of his seat, went by the bulkhead, opened the bin, pulled his briefcase out, packed that down. I was watching through the, the crack in the seat. When he opened his briefcase, it was packed with material on Islam. And he took that Christian on tooth and toenail. You Christians don't know the Bible. You're not bold to talk about it. We know the Quran. We know, and he said, on and on and on. And this guy, I thought he's big enough. He could have just grabbed that guy's head and squeezed it. But he just very gracious. You know what he did? He was putting that man in the wrong. When we witness the truth of God's word and they don't believe, they are being put in the wrong. And we see the condemning of the world by the word of God. And I thought to myself, when we land in Detroit, I'm going to thank him. I'm going to thank him. I'm going to thank him. I'm going to thank him. I'm going to thank him for being so diligent in his witness. You could look up his name, James Henderson. You could Google his name. He was on record at that time as the strongest man in the world. James Henderson, you could still Google him and see, and you'll say, man, he is huge. And I got off the plane in the terminal in Detroit. I said, sir, thank you for being so diligent to witness. He said, I'm mad. I was looking up at him and he said, how many Christians in our churches across America who claim to believe the Bible would be as bold to give their witness as bold as that Muslim was to attempt to convert me, who holds on to the error and falsehood. He said, I'm going to Kentucky. I'm preaching in churches. I'm doing public demonstrations in public high schools, and I'm giving the gospel. He said, we better wake up as churches. And I thought, boy, sir, you are so right. And he was, I think bench pressing, I think 700-something pounds. He would take these big, long steel rods and bend them. Back then, you young people won't understand what I'm saying, but he used to tear these city phone books. Like a phone book is, it was paper with many pages, and then like I wanted to look up Harry Smith, I would go H or S. And well, your grandpa can explain that to you. But he takes his big six city phone books and he tear them. I did Dunbar's five pages. I'd need eight of them to get my fireplace going. That was no power move on my part. But this guy, you know what he was doing, a millionaire? You know what he was doing with his time going to the world and giving the gospel in public high schools, challenging churches to wake up. I thought, you know what, he could be living the life. But you know what he was doing? Putting the world in the wrong unless they came to repentance. And then he says, by the witch, he condemned the world and saved his household and became the heir of righteousness, which is the wages in this text. That was the reward of Noah's faith. You know what he did? He obeyed God 120 years. And you think, man, you can picture being his boys in high school. You're going to play soccer this year. No, dad wants to help him with the Ark. Ten year reunion comes. Boy, you guys looking healthy. What have you been doing? I've been helping dad there with the Ark. 50 year reunion comes. Ham, man, you look good. What have you been doing? I've been pitching in there helping dad with the Ark. 100 year reunion comes. The survivors wobble in. Shem, man, what have you been up to? I've been helping dad with the Ark. Your dad was on that kick in high school. Remember, you guys couldn't play sports. He's still doing that. Yep. And then one day, God says, Noah, enter you and your family into the Ark. Can you imagine the crowds? Can you imagine what was going on? And all of a sudden, Noah gets, he, his kids, his wife, they go up into the Ark. Seven days of silence, seven days of silence. God was giving one more week added to the 120 years. One more chance. And I'm sure there were mockers. When I was in the logging business, stopping trees, there were mockers. I was a very young immature Christian, but they would mock. You think you're going to be in a, on a cloud with a harp, you know, give us a break because you wouldn't live their lifestyle. And I'm sure during that time, there were still some of these bold mockers when Noah was on the Ark. Ever noticed when somebody mocks, they sound like they're gargling? Then from above wetness, from below rumble. And I'm not sure, I know many of you are way more educated than I am, but the Hebrew word here, I think is, uh-oh. That nut was right. Too late. But the reward of Noah's faith, he saved his household and became the heir of righteousness, which is by faith. Aren't you glad that you know Christ the Savior? Aren't you glad that you took the gift of eternal life that Jesus provided for us by bearing the full wrath of the Father on Calvary? That three hours of darkness, the full wrath of God poured out on the sun. Every single sin. Why? It's called propitiation to satisfy the holy demand of a holy God. And you know what? When you accept Christ the Savior, you will never face the wrath of God. Because He bore it all. And that's enough to make a Presbyterian take a running fit when you actually think about that. Because when you stopped to think, the wrath that was on me in that three hours of darkness, when the light of the world was out and the wrath of God was pouring and the holiness of God was being satisfied. Then when it ended, Jesus cried. It is finished. Aren't you glad? It's done. What a message to tell. Are we just hanging on to it like that? Or are we saying, you know, what a job we have to be a witness to this world? Ever get tired? Ever get worn out? I remember the 04 Summer Olympics. I run in him. Van der Lea de Lima was running a marathon in its original course in Athens. And I remember when I turned the Olympic Games on, they were commenting that Van der Lea de Lima was running. He was so far ahead. The commentators were saying that that he already has his gold, even though he had, I think, maybe four or five more miles to go. He is so far ahead that he already has his gold one. And then many of you will remember watching that replay over and over and over again where a crazy man from Europe jumped onto that racetrack and tackled Van der Lea de Lima, tried to drag him off the racetrack. And some of the crowd that was scattered along that 26.2 miles grabbed the guy, tried to get him back off de Lima, got him free, de Lima got back in. Baldini from Italy passed him, got the gold. Another running from another country passed him. He got silver. And de Lima got back in the race and finished third. He was the most famous ever bronze medal winner in that Olympic race. I was given that illustration to a men's conference in Pennsylvania. And a man came up and said, you know, real or less, you look up Van der Lea de Lima and the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, gave him the highest award that can be given to an Olympian. And it's above the gold, rarely given. But Van der Lea de Lima had that award given to him. And the reason was he got blindsided and didn't quit. You know, there are times when we go through life and we get blindsided. It might be a coworker. Might be some of you work but then every day you go in there, they're kind of mocking and wondering. Or it might be a blast that you didn't see coming. Are we going to throw in the tall? And Noah received the reward. My wife and I were coming out of Brazil 2016 coming from South America through Brazil. The 2016 Olympics were held in Rio. And Van der Lea de Lima, that Brazilian runner was selected as the man to carry the last torch to light the Olympic flame. How many years later was he still getting recognized for being a broad-medal winner? Who because he didn't quit got the highest honor that the IOC could ever give. And isn't that a lesson for us? You as a believer, you get up, you have to go to work, you think, oh my, but then you think, God, what a privilege to be your child. And what a privilege to be able to say, may I live this day for your glory. When Charlene and I pray in the morning after we do our stair cup of coffee, we have a stair cup, we call it. No talk, no praying, nothing. 15 minutes, you sit, sip, and start. And during that 15 minutes, decide should we go into the day or just hang it. Then that's where we decide, well, we might as well go after it. And then we pray. And we acknowledge we're dead people on furlough. We're going to live this 24 hour furlough in one hour blocks, for God's glory, for others good. With Bhima, accountability in mind, how many of us live in light of the judgment seat of Christ as Christians. The Bhima, we should ever be careful and be looking, not a sin judgment, but a judgment of works. What will abide? And may we have the reward of faith as no one did. Father, I pray that you will stir us as believers, to walk in complete obedience. God, may we saturate ourselves with your truth. May we grow in our awe and adoration in worship of you. And then give us the grace and strength to work, to witness that ultimately, as your word commands, don't be weary and well-doing for in due season, we shall reap if we faint not. God, may you empower us for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.