Charles Stanley - The Courage to Face Opposition
Would the people who know you best consider you courageous or cowardly? When they've watched you make decisions that were difficult, did they watch you run away from difficult situations? Or did they watch you courageously face them? When you made mistakes, were you courageous enough to admit it and to correct it? Or did you want to blame it on somebody else? Courage is an absolute essential quality in the life of a believer for the simple reason that when you and I are trusting the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and we are witnessing to other people, sometimes it takes courage because they don't want to hear it.
And you hear them talking about the Lord in a very disdainful way, and yet you feel compelled to talk to them about what Christ means to you. Do you have the courage to do it? How many people have you walked away from simply because you didn't have the courage to say, Do you know Christ as your Savior? Or even invite them to church. Courage is a vital element in the life of every person. It's very important in the life of our children. We should teach them very early in life to be courageous; don't be afraid; don't back up. Be courageous. Be bold. Step forth and be forthright. And I wonder how many parents take the time to teach their children what courage is.
What's the basis of that courage? And how to stand very strong when challenged. Well, our passage of scripture is one that you probably would think, Well now why, how did you get courage in this? But it's very important. So I want you to turn if you will to the sixth chapter of Genesis. And you'll know what this chapter's about pretty quickly soon as you turn there.
And beginning in the fifth verse of the sixth chapter of Genesis, "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness," I want you to listen to these words, "the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry," that is, He was regretful, "that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.'" Can you imagine how wicked and vile man must be for God to say that I'm sorry I made them?
"But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And these are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, 'The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it; the length of the ark three hundred cubits, Or about four hundred and forty feet, its breadth fifty cubits, About seventy-some feet, and its height thirty cubits. About fifty feet or thereabout. You shall make a window for the ark, finish it to a cubit with a top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under the heavens; everything that is on the earth shall perish. But I will establish My covenant with you and you shall enter the ark, and your sons and your wife, and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you and to keep them alive. As for you, take for yourself some of the food which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be, food for you and for them.' Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him to do, that, he did".
Then the scripture says, "Then the Lord said to Noah, 'Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time.'" And seven days later it started drizzling rain. Now, I want you to look at this passage of scripture for two reasons. Number one, the whole issue of courage, because Noah had to be a very courageous man or he would not have done what he did. And when you look at this passage and you see how God described the earth. They were immoral. They were depraved. They were wicked and everywhere you turned they were perverted, immorality, depravity, sexuality, man's depravity, that is, his sinfulness controlled every aspect of his life. He says the intention of his thoughts.
Everywhere, they were controlled by immorality, depravity, sensuality, wickedness, vileness, no place for God whatsoever. Every scheme in man's imagination was nothing but evil. And He says continually they were consumed by evil. They'd just given themselves over to it. The only thing that mattered was that they satisfied their flesh, that is, the lust of their hearts, the wickedness within them. He says, "Every intention of their heart". And so, that had to begin oftentimes in their family's very young because years and years and years went by. And now they're so corrupt it's the only thing they know.
So, how did God feel about it? He said, "Here's how I feel about it. I'm just sorry that I made it. I regret that I made the earth and all that's in it because of what's happened". And what He said He felt was, He felt stabbed in His heart. To feel grieved in his heart is to feel stabbed in His heart. This is the perfect heart of God feeling absolutely totally rejected by man whom He loved when He created him. Then of course, what did God intend to do about it? In other words, when God saw it and He felt what He felt, He said, Here's what I'm going to do. He says He's going to judge them by drowning them, man, animals, creeping things, everything. And God made this statement, think about this, "I'm sorry". "I'm regretful that I made man".
Now, when you look at all that, you say, Well, what's that got to do with courage? Well, it's interesting that nowhere in these verses is there anything about courage, not mentioned, but the truth is here. Because here's what God said to him. "And here's what I want you to do. I want you to build an ark". He said, "I'm going to save you with this". So if you can imagine, for example, in that vile society is all these words we've talked about, and here's one day Noah and his sons start cutting some wood. And they cut a lot of wood. And then they start arranging it. And I'm sure people went by and said, "What in the world are you doing? You're going to build you a house"?
So they probably jeered at him and so forth and he courageously continued to be obedient to God until he got it all built. Then the interesting thing is that all these animals headed his way. Somebody says, "Now wait a minute. I can't handle that because first of all, he couldn't... where did he find them"? Let me remind you of something. Those animals just did exactly what God had already planned for them to do. He planted within them this innate something that on a particular few days, or maybe a week, some months, however long it took them, they little by little came toward the ark. And they went in just exactly the like God had intended, two by two; male and female. Seven days went by.
People woke up one morning and it was drizzling rain. Then it began to rain a little harder. And then it rained a little harder. And before long it was pouring down rain and the creeks were filling up. Until it rained and rained and rained and rained. And rained and rained and rained. And courageous Noah and his small family, and all those animals were safe in the ark. So what I want you to see is this. How could this man build this awesome ark in the midst of all this opposition and criticism and all the rest? Hard work and labor for a year or more probably. How could he do that? He had the courage to obey God. What was the basis of his courage?
Now I'm going to give you a list. You should write them down because these should be the basis of our courage, whoever we are, should be based on the same things. And the first thing is this, his absolute assurance that he had heard from God, that was the first, first line of defense in his courage. He was absolutely sure that the God of the heavens had said to him, "Build this ark, enter this ark, the animals, and insects shall come. I will close the door, trust Me". His absolute assurance that he'd heard from God. I want to ask you this. When is the last time in your life that God spoke to you that you were absolutely assured, here's what God said to me? Listen carefully.
If you say this morning, I don't know that I've ever heard God speak to me. Then I would plead with you in Jesus's name to go home and get on your knees and tell God, "Lord, I want to hear from You. You created me. You gave me a purpose for my life. You said that the Holy Spirit would live within me. God, I need to hear from You". You say, "Well if I do that, will He speak to me"? Yes! Listen carefully. Will you hear Him the first time you pray? Maybe not and probably not. And if you only care to hear Him enough to pray one time, you don't care. Listen, you don't need anything today any more than you need to be able to hear from God. He was absolutely sure that God had spoken to him.
The second thing is this, the awareness of God's presence with him. My, my, my, when I think about what he was feeling in these days, the scripture says, "These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man," listen, "blameless in," listen, "blameless in his time; Noah walked with God". Assured of God's presence. Can you say that? Can you say today, I'm absolutely assured of God's presence in my life. I not only feel it, I know it. I anticipate Him revealing Himself to me anytime, any way He wants to, but I know that God is in my life. The basis of his courage, he knew that he had heard from God. And he knew that he understood what the presence of God was all about.
The third one was this, the clarity of God's instructions to him. God didn't say, I just want you to go build this big something. He said, I want you to build an ark; so long, so wide, so high, three decks, one door, one window. And He showed him step by step how to do it. He didn't have a degree in architecture. He didn't know, he wasn't a construction man. He was a listener to God. Another reason he was so courageous is this. And that is the experience of God's strength in him, build an ark four hundred and fifty-some feet long. All this timber; cut down all these gopher trees. And all this pitch and all the time. In other words, when you look at all that, he had to know that it couldn't happen without the strength of God.
Remember this. There's not a single thing God will call you to do that He'll not give you the strength to do it. And I think some people miss God's call to the mission field because they're afraid. They're afraid they can't do it. They're afraid of what'll, suppose this, suppose that, suppose the other. God's not going to call you to do something He's not going to help you do. Ready and, listen. How did Noah and his sons, or if he had any other help, how did they build an ark? You just think about how high that scaffolding had to be. Only by the strength of God.
Then of course, he had the warning of God, the warning of God's judgment coming. He said to him, "I want you to build this ark. I am going to destroy all life on the face of this earth except that which is within the ark". He believed God. If he hadn't of believed God the first place, he wouldn't have built the ark. He believed God, and listen. What he found out is every time God told him something and he did it, God blessed him. You know why He did that? Because he walked with God. And the Bible says he had the favor of God. And I love what it says here when it speaks of him. "Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord".
Let me ask you a question. Do you have the favor of God in your life? Do you feel like you have the favor of God? Are you one of those persons who thinks, I don't know where God is. I, you know, I pray. I don't see anything; I don't feel anything and I wonder where God is. Listen. God desires that you feel His favor. His favor comes with obedience and surrender and yieldedness to Him. He walked under the canopy of the awareness of the favor of God, that whatever he did, God was going to favor him in it, which meant he was going to be successful at everything that. What he didn't know how, God was going to show him how. What he couldn't lift, God'll help him lift it. In other words, he had the favor of God.
Think about this. God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, a God of absolute total unquestionable and immeasurable love. Just think about having His favor. The favor of God covers you. That wherever you are, you have the absolute awesome indescribable favor of God shrouding you. You say, Well, I don't think I've ever felt that. You know why? Number one, you didn't expect it. Number two, you look at your life and think, "No wonder God hasn't favored me".
When God, listen, when God favors you, He begins to work in your life in ways you can't even describe. When I think about that I think about what the Bible says, that he walked with God which meant, if you walk with God that means you have an intimate relationship with Him. There's not a single person in here who cannot have an intimate relationship with God if you want one. That is, let's say that you're very, very, very happily married. Wouldn't you like to have the same kind; and even more intimate relationship with God, the Heavenly Father, than somebody else? The other person can only be so intimate with you.
Almighty God has this capacity to be within us, express Himself in us, fill us up, overflow us, that no one else can do. And what was the basis of his courage? The basis of his courage was his intimate relationship with God. When he got tired, he didn't quit because the Father, favoring him, overshadowing him. This intimate relationship, he knew he was obeying God. And then of course I think there was one other thing that motivated him to be courageous. And that is, the promise that God had made to him of his future. Here's what He said. "I'm going to destroy every person on the face of this earth except you".
Can you imagine what he must have felt? When I even think about that, I just want to get on my face before God and say, Lord, just give me a glimpse of what He must have felt. "I'm destroying every single person that I've created on the face of this earth; every single person; all of the animals, insects, you name it, except the ones in the ark. I'm destroying them all except you". So, when I look at Noah and I think, "Well Lord, thank You for this wonderful example". Because you see, it takes courage to obey God. God has certainly required things of me that I just had to back and say, "Oh, God, I've got to be sure I'm hearing from You".
It takes courage to obey God. It takes courage to do what God called you to do, to walk away from what He wants you to walk away from; to give what He wants you to give; to yield what He wants you to yield; surrender what He wants you to surrender. To obey Him, to follow His commands, it takes courage to do that.
Now we'll call it a lot of other things, but the truth is it's cowardice. You say, Well I haven't heard from God yet. Deep down inside you heard from Him. You are just a coward. You won't do it. And I'm not being critical; I'm just saying if I'm unwilling to be obedient to God, I'm a coward, because He will give us the courage to be obedient no matter what. Listen carefully, you cannot, no matter how you've lived your life in the past; no matter what's going on in your life; no matter where you are, you absolutely cannot lose if you will obey God. He'll do the same thing in your circumstances that He did in Noah's circumstances. For him it was an ark. For you, it's something else.
And that's my plea to you, that you'd be wise enough, sensible enough, courageous enough to obey a God who loves you absolutely, completely, unquestionably, infinitely, immeasurably. He loves you. Will you trust Him? If you've never trusted Him as your Savior, you're just treading water. One of these days you're going to sink. It's going to all be over. If you ask the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins no matter how bad you think you've been, and recognize that the reason He's going to forgive you is not because you deserve it. But because Jesus, the Son of God, went to the cross, laid down His life voluntarily.
It was a substitutionary, voluntary, atoning death, paying your sins and mine at the cross; asking Him to forgive you on the basis of that. And the Father will forgive you of your sin because His Son paid your sin debt in full. Surrender your life to Him, everything is going to change. And all of a sudden you're going to realize what life's like, and what you've missed. And no matter what you've had, it won't compare with the joy and assurance and the confidence and the love and all the things that God works into a person's life, nothing to compare with that. Would you do that? Would you ask Him to forgive you of your sins? Would you surrender your life to Him? Do you have the courage to surrender your life to Him, to be baptized so the people will know you are a follower of Jesus Christ. It's the wisest thing you can do.
And Father, we thank You that nothing is beyond Your power, no one beyond Your reach. And I pray that every person who hears this message will be wise enough to respond appropriately, surrendering their life to Christ or joining a godly church somewhere; opening the Word of God and begin to feast upon Your awesome Word, is my prayer, in Jesus's name, amen.