today in the word of God to the book of Genesis and the chapter number eight. The book of Genesis and the chapter number eight. We'll read from the 13th verse of this book. Genesis chapter eight and the verse number 13. Let's hear God's word. And it came to pass in the sixth hundred First year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. And in the second month, on the seventh and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried. And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth. And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife and his sons' wives with them, every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds went forth out of the ark. And Noah built an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelt a sweet savour. And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake. For the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I again smite any more every living thing, or every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, see time and harvest. and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." We'll end our reading at the end of the chapter. Again, let's unite in prayer. Father in heaven, we come, dear God, now to the central act of any worship service, that of the preaching of thy word. Pray that thou wilt give us hearts to understand, ears to hear, submissive wills, dear God, to yield, dear God, to that which thou dost say to thy church in these days. Draw near to us, we pray. Help, Lord, this preacher. Fill him again with thy Spirit, how I need thee. Blessed Spirit, come thou empty that thou shouldest fill me. Lord, come now and fill the vessel and give us, Lord, a meeting with God in this place. We pray these our petitions and through our Savior's precious and worthy name. Amen and amen. Now, none of us are sure when we will ever return to a kind of normality within our nation and our normality to our day-to-day living. Until then, we're just going to have to adapt to what has been termed the new normal. In this new normal, businesses and schools, governments and churches and families will have to do things differently. maintaining those health practices so familiar to us now that are in place for the well-being of us all. Now if you're anything like me I'm sure you just can't wait until the threat of COVID-19 no longer hangs over us as a nation. Over the last number of months we have been emerging from a lockdown situation and we pray that we'll not have to re-enter such a state of affairs, but that soon all restrictions will be lifted. I wonder what is on your to-do list What's on your to-do list whenever eventually every lockdown restriction has been removed? For some people, it is to do a little bit of retail therapy. Want to, as it were, refresh the wardrobe with regard to that which you wear. Others simply want to go out for a meal with family and friends without any numbers being restricted. Whilst for others, all they simply want to do is to hug a parent. or to hug a grandchild or even their own children. Today I want us to consider some Bible characters that emerged from lockdown situations. And I want us to see what their priorities were. What were their priorities whenever they personally emerged from a lockdown situation within their own lives? Because as we see what their priorities are, I believe that they ought to be our priorities as the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I simply want to preach a message today that I've entitled Life After Lockdown, Life After Lockdown. lockdown now the first person that we want to consider is the man that we read off here in genesis and the chapter 8 a man by the name of noah Now if I was to ask you the question, how long did Noah spend in lockdown? Someone might quickly answer 40 days and 40 nights. That would be incorrect. Whilst it did rain for 40 days and 40 nights, we find the biblical record telling us that Noah spent much longer in that particular lockdown situation. If you turn there to Genesis chapter 7 and the verse 11, we read when the flood commenced. It says, in the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, the 17th day of the month, the same day where all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened and the rain was upon the earth, 40 days and 40 nights. And so we have in Noah's 600th year in the second month on the 17th day of the month, we find that the floods started, the heavens opened, the fountains of the deep were broken up. But then look down there at chapter 8 and then the verse 13, because this tells us whenever the flood and whenever Noah exited the ark, it says, and it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month The first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth, and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. And in the second month, on the seventh and twentieth day of the month, the earth was dried, and God spake unto Noah, Go forth off the ark. And so by my calculations, we find that Noah spent a year and ten days inside the ark. a year and ten days inside the ark. What do we find him doing whenever he left the ark? Well, we see there in the verse 18 through to 20, and Noah went forth and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth after their kinds went forth out of the ark, and Noah built it an altar unto the Lord. took of every clean basin, of every clean fowl, and he offered burnt offerings on the altar. After experiencing a special deliverance from danger by God, we find that Noah's first act after this embarkation was not to build a home for his family. That is not what he did. Now I'm sure that Mrs. Noel, like any other wife and mother, I'm sure that was first and foremost in her mind as a mother and as a wife, where are we going to live? The house that we once occupied has been destroyed by the flood. Where am I going to live with my husband? I'm sure that would have been probably in the very forefront of her mind. Think of it, a year cooped up in an ark, with animals, elephants, with dinosaurs, with chickens and other types of farm animals, cows and donkeys and all of those types of animals. There she's cooped up inside the ark. I'm sure she just wanted her own space. as it were, to get her own head shared, as it were, to get a place where she could shut herself away from all of the things of the world. I'm sure that was in her mind, and yet I want you to notice that Noah postponed that building project, the building of a earthly house, and prioritized the building of an altar. That's the very first thing that he wanted to build. He built an altar. And he built it unto the Lord. And he took, did you note, he took every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and he offered burnt offerings on the altar. In other words, in light of the mercies that he had received and experienced from God's good and gracious hand, he came to God in an act of public worship. And he offered to God a sacrifice. The sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise for all that God had done for him and his family. That altar as it stood on the landscape declared Noah's priority post-lockdown. And what was it? It was the worship of his God. That was his priority. for my house and for my family, I'm going to make a statement here that my earthly home, my earthly residence comes to, as it were, lesser down the list of priorities than my worship of God. That which is paramount, that which is most important to me is the worship of my God, my priority. The thing that really matters to me is worshiping God. That's my priority. Now, we're all emerging from lockdown. We're very thankful to the Lord for that. But as we do so, I just question whether that is some people's priorities. Is that our priorities? You see, we'll send our children, or we may have already sent our children into public schools. But what about the place of public worship? What about the place of prayer? What about gathering together and assembling together as God permits and making that the priority within our homes and within our families? I believe that as we emerge from lockdown that Noah's priority ought to be our priority, that above all secondary matters, above all temporary matters that take up our time and the cares of this world, all of those things must be subservient, must take second place to my worship of God, my relationship with God, the fellowship with God, my communion with God. All of these other things can take a secondary position, but my priority is worshiping God. I believe that we should do what Noah did. Now, what I mean by that is, I do not mean that we are to go into our backyards and construct some kind of altar and then purchase some animal at a market and then sacrifice and make a sacrifice to God. That is not what I'm saying. But I believe that from the altar of our hearts, sacrifices, sacrifices of praise and of thanksgiving should descend to God an acknowledgement of his mercies and goodness to us who were in imminent danger that so surrounded us in recent months. Child of God, let me ask you, did you stop and thank God? Did you stop and thank God for His mercies that you've received in recent times? Have you thanked Him for enlightening your mind? Have you thanked Him for regenerating your heart? Have you thanked Him for saving your soul? Have you thanked Him for blotting out your transgressions? Have you thanked Him for justifying you? Have you thanked Him for adopting you into His family? Have you thanked Him for imputing to you the righteousness of Christ that makes you positively holy before God? Have you thanked God? And then have you thanked Him for preserving your life, the life of your loved ones during this pandemic. Have you thanked Him for the opportunity to gather again for public worship in the house of God? Or has the spirit of those nine lepers who feel to return to glorify God for their healing, has that spirit come to become our spirit? Have we become an unthankful people? Those who simply take all the blessings from God, but never acknowledge Him for whom they come from, never acknowledge Him. and thanksgiving. As in the case of Noah, when he emerged from lockdown, I believe that we should be taken up in the worship of our God. Is it not what you miss the most? Remember whenever you were restricted and you couldn't even leave your home? Was it not the thing that you missed the most? And now we're able to come and worship him. We're able to come and assemble together. And this should be our priority from this moment onwards, my relationship with God, the worship of God, my communion with my God and with my Redeemer and with my Savior. This is what is going to be my priority post-lockdown. And every other thing, work, education, family affairs, Everything else that we so get engrossed with and invest our time and our money and our energy in, all those things will take a secondary place and that the worship of our God becomes the most and the chiefest and the key part of our living. In Psalm 100 in verse 4, we sung the Psalm together. The worshiper of God is encouraged to enter into his gates with thanksgiving. and into his courts with praise, to be thankful unto him, to bless his name. And surely what Noah did here in Genesis 8, verse 20, agrees with that law of approach. He was entering God's presence with sacrifices. He was entering God's presence with thanksgiving and with praise. I want you to notice, as Noah approached God, what he gave to God. As Noah came to that altar, he didn't find some dead carcass that was still corrupting and decaying on the earth. And throw that onto the altar and say to the Lord, well, Lord, that'll do you. That'll be sufficient. Sure, it's good enough. And notice that he did not take off those beasts that were termed as unclean. Because unclean animals were taken, I believe in my reading of the scriptures, that they were taken on to the ark. But no, he takes the clean beast and the clean fowl, and he offered burnt offerings on the altar. The clean he offers, that which was holy. Now you think of it. From that ark, every other animal that would ever populate the earth would come from those very pairs that were brought onto the ark. There weren't many. There weren't many that Noah could choose from. You know, Noah could have looked at those animals and say, you know, those animals are very precious. I can't really afford to present such an offering on to God. These are needed to replenish the earth. And if I give this to God, how will the earth ever be filled again with such animals?" That wasn't in the mind of Noah. No, no, Noah was willing to sacrifice that which was precious, that which he we would say need the most. He was willing to lay on God's altar. Here is a lavish act of generosity on the part of Noah. Noah's worship had a tremendous cost attached to it. As I've said, he could have very easily justified himself and held back those very animals and say, you know, Lord, I don't have a lot to give. And if I give you these, well then what will I have left? But that wasn't his thinking. You know, there are many believers and they think that if they gave to God, what would they have left? And so they hold. They hold back from giving to God. There is that tendency in us all to hold something back from God and we find ourselves justifying the act. If I give that, what will I have left? If I give you my future, where will I be? How will I live? How will we survive as a family if God would call us forth into his work and into his service? I could never do that, and so we find ourselves withholding from God. We hold on to the sacrifice. There is not this full and free and glad submission to the will of God. We don't throw ourselves and our lives and our futures on the altar for God, but rather we seem to justify holding back from God. Am I speaking to a child of God today? unwilling to do the will of God, and you find something to justify it. And in your own thinking it seems to be logical. I could never do such a thing. And yet God is calling you, and God is drawing you, and God is speaking to you, and yet there is an unwillingness on your part. This was not Noah. Noah left the rest to God. He left, as it were, the natural affairs of life for the remaining animals. God would take care of it. But I'll give God what is his due and what is his best. And yet there are many of us and we're unwilling to lay our lives on the altar. We're unwilling to do the will of God. And yet God would have our best, that which is clean, that which is holy. He would have us lay ourselves upon the altar for God, that we would give our best, our best years, our best gifts, our best talents, our best energies into the work of God. This is what Noah did post-lockdown. He worshipped God and in his worship he made a sacrifice. You see, his worship cost him something. Our worship ought to cost us something. And yet I cannot proceed without sending out a warning because, brethren and sisters, there is a sad postscript to Noah's life post-lockdown. Instead of staying near the altar, instead of staying close to his God, Instead of continuing that fellowship and communion with his God, instead of keeping the worship of God and the work of God to the very forefront of his life, Noah gravitated towards the vines that he planted, and he would end up a drunkard. We read of that in Genesis in the chapter number nine from the verse 20 onwards. In that act of intoxication, Noah lost his decency. He lost his dignity, intoxicated with wine, the very vines that he produced, and he implanted himself. What a sad postscript, post-lockdown. A man with zeal and energy, leaving the Ark, and yet never maintained it. And he fell into sin. How Noah's downfall reminds us of a few truths. His downfall reminds us, first of all, that the best of men are only men at best. You think of Noah, a man of whom it was said that he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and yet, and yet he ends up a drunkard. We can all feel We can all feel the Lord at some point in our Christian experience, we can all fall. Because the best of men are only men at best. We also learn that age does not make us immune from sin. Noah's 601 years of age. You would think of six centuries, you would think, with six centuries of living in this world, you would have thought that Those many years would have reminded Noah of what sin does. He had seen it. He had witnessed it in his generation. They ate and they drank and they married and they gave in marriage. And the thing is, he fell with the very sin that he preached against. Isn't that an amazing thing? He fell. with regard to the sins of the society before the flood came. He fell by that very sin. A preacher of righteousness. We thought about this on Wednesday night. The individual who thinks they stand, take heed lest they fall. We also thought about those who go away. You've thought six centuries. would have made Noah wise about sin. But no, at 601 years of age, with all of his living and his walk with God, Noah was as susceptible to sin as a teenager was. And sadly, he let down his guard. Thirdly, we learn that all of us can fall into great sin, no matter our past usefulness to God. No matter how strong our faith has been, no matter the extent of our obedience to God's will, has been in previous day, we can all fall. And so let's take heed to ourselves, as we are reminded to do in Scripture, and stay close to the altar, stay close to Christ. He is our altar. He is our altar. And may we never undo all that has been accomplished in our lives in the past. And so, Noah, his priority post-lockdown with regard to the worship of God. The second individual we want to consider today, and we need to go quickly, had a much shorter time in lockdown. While Snoah's lockdown lasted for a year and 10 days, this man's lockdown lasted three days and three nights. I'm sure you know who I'm speaking about by now. I'm speaking about Jonah, that prophet, that reluctant prophet, that reluctant preacher. We find him there in the Old Testament, and we consider what happened to him post-lockdown. I don't need to really rehearse the story. Jonah is told by God to go to Nineveh, but because of an ingrained sectarian prejudice, he does not want to go to the enemies of Israel to preach a message of repentance. No, he would rather see them destroyed, wiped off the face, off the planet. Those were Israel's enemies. And so we find him going in the opposite direction, right to Joppa, headed on a ship that was headed for Tarsus. But yet he finds himself in a ferocious storm. Aware that the storm had been sent by God as judgment for his disobedience, Jonah explains to the martyrs that the only way by which the storm can be stilled is that he is thrown overboard. This they do, and Jonah finds himself falling into the Mediterranean Sea. But God is the God of the second chance. And he prepares a great fish And that fish swallows him up, and Jonah's in lockdown. Between the ribs of the great fish, or as Christ spoke, off the wheel, there Jonah is, locked down. What is he going to do? What is he going to do in lockdown, and what is he going to do post-lockdown? Will this be the making of the man, or will this be the breaking of the man? Will he go forward and onward in his relationship with God, or will he backslide and go back? Because folks, that is what has happened with some people during lockdown. They've went back. They've grown cold. They've entered into a state of backsliding. What's going to happen, Jonah? Well, Jonah does not waste his time in lockdown. Rather, he uses the time wisely to put a few things that needed to be put right within his life. In the first instance, I want you to see that Jonah got his prayer life right. He got his prayer life. Look there at Jonah chapter two in the verse number one. It says, then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly. Now we don't find him praying when God revealed his will to him. He doesn't pray about that. We don't find him praying with respect to the direction that he goes with regard to Joppa and then to Tarsus. He doesn't pray about that. You can read through chapter one. We don't find him praying whenever he's found in the midst of the storm. No, no, no. He doesn't start praying until he's found in the belly of the fish. Then, then Jonah prayed. He would have been far better praying at the start. Saved himself a lot of heartache. Saved himself a lot of trouble. Saved himself a lot of money. Remember, he paid the fare. If only he had prayed about God's will for his life. And only if he not only had prayed about it, but he had done the will of God for his life. And so we find him praying. God brought him to a low place in order to start him praying again. And that's what sometimes God does. He brings us low, low in spirit. low in heart, low in health, in order that prayer might return to the soul. Jonah acknowledged it took this in his own life for prayer to return. So look there at the verse six and seven of chapter two of Jonah. He says, I went down, I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever, yet has I brought up my life from corruption. Oh Lord, my soul, when my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came in onto thee, into thy holy temple, when he was low, he prayed. And so in lockdown he got his prayer life right. I wonder, did you use lockdown days to reconnect with your God in prayer? Were your days of isolation days of supplication? And have they continued to be so since lockdown? Oh, may that old blight of prayerlessness be eradicated from every life. May we be in fellowship with our God. Not only that, did he get his prayer life right, but Jonah got his focus right. He got his focus right in lockdown. Note the words there, Jonah 2 and the verse number 4. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again. toward thy holy temple. I'll look again. The words suggest to me that he wasn't looking at the temple. No, no, his eyes were looking elsewhere. They were looking to Tarsus, looking to somewhere else. Here's a man and he's going to get his focus right. I'm going to put my eyes on the temple. What was at the temple? The altar, what was on the altar, but the Lamb. The Lamb slain morning and evening. He's looking towards the place of sacrifice. He's looking towards the place where the Lamb is slain. He's looking forward to the cross. Because that's His focus. That's His focus. the Lamb, Calvary, the cross. That's my focus. That's my priority. That's what I desire my vision to be taken up with. That's what I want my heart to burn with as I gaze upon the sacrifice. Maybe your focus isn't on that. Maybe your focus has been shifted to other things. But Jonah got his focus right. How quickly we can become distracted by the cares of this life and the happenings in our world. Our focus can be moved onto trivial things, onto the temporal affairs of this life. And all of our time we need our eyes to be focused on that which is eternal. Oh, for a focus that is right in these days. Jonah got something else right, he got his consecration right. Jonah 2 verse 9. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving, I will pay that which I have vowed. His consecration. He rededicates his life to the will of God. He rededicates his life. to doing the will of God. Those vows that he had made, he's going to now pay. He's getting his consecration right. And I asked you, have you made vows? Lord, preserve me and my family through this pandemic, and I will do this, and I will do that. And where are the vows? Have they been paid? Ecclesiastes 5 verse 5, better it is that thou shouldst not vow than that thou shouldst vow and not pay. I asked you today, do you know anything about an absolute, a complete, an honest surrender to God and his will for your life? Do you know anything about it? It took lockdown for Jonah to get his consecration right. Something else. In the fourth place, during Jonah's days of lockdown, he got his theology right. Jonah 2 verse 9, the last words. Salvation is off the Lord. He understood that from beginning to end, salvation was a work of God. He got his theology right. He got it straightened out. In the school of God, he got it. He got it right. What is concerning, I'm sure not only to this minister, but to other ministers, is that there are some individuals, and they have failed during days of lockdown to listen to sound doctrinal preaching. They have went after teachers, having itching ears, that which is much lighter, that which is more appealing to the flesh. You know, theology is important. It is important. What we believe determines how we behave. What we believe determines how we behave. And so wrong theology leads to wrong behavior. And so if you ever hear a preacher saying that doctrine doesn't matter and theology doesn't matter, you need to reject that individual because it most certainly does. It is only those who are grounded in the truth and who know the truth who will stand firm when the winds of doctrinal change sweeps across a nation and across a land. And so what does Jonah do with all these things now put right? His prayer life, his focus now right? Yes, his consecration right? His theology right? What does he do? Jonah's priority post-lockdown was not the worship of God, although that played a part in it, it was the will of God. The will of God. That's my priority. What is God's will? Now we all know God's will for Jonah was to go to Nineveh. And so we read, In Jonah chapter 3, in the verse 2, that God says, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose and went on to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. He did the will of God. Is that your priority? Is it mine to do the will of God? You see, doing the will of God is a byproduct of our worship of God. When we understand who our God is and what our God has done for us, the fruit of that, the outworking of that is then doing the will of God. Finding it and then doing it. And this is what he did post-lockdown. I have a third group of individuals that emerged from a lockdown situation. They are none other than the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll remember whenever Christ ascended back to heaven that they were commanded by the Savior to wait for the promise of the Father. And so in Acts chapter one, we read that they assembled together in the upper room along with Mary and the brethren of Christ and with multiplicity of other disciples, 120. They gathered together there in Acts chapter one. And it tells us that when all things were fulfilled and when 10 days had elapsed, after 10 days, The day of Pentecost was fully come. They were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them clothed in tongues like those of fire, and it sat on each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Noah's priority was to do or was the worship of God. Jonah's priority was the will of God. These disciples, their priority was the work of God, the work of God. And what is his work for the church? It is to go into all the world and to preach the gospel. That's the work. That's the task. preached the gospel to go into all the world and to declare Christ to the nations. They went into the city, the city that had crucified the Savior, the city who had hung the Christ on the tree. They went into that city and they preached the glorious gospel. Their priority was the propagation of the gospel. That's it. That's what God has given us to do. And that's what we're going to do. Evangelize or fossilize. That's the stark reality for the Church of Jesus Christ as we emerge from lockdown. Now how we do that is not easy in such days of restrictions. And yet it must ever be our goal to carry on the task that Christ entrusted to his church of making him known to the lost. And so as we emerge from lockdown, is that our priority? To do and to be involved in the work of God? These men found niches into which they found themselves employed in the service of God. Some became leaders in the Jerusalem church, others became Gentile evangelists, or evangelists to the Gentiles. These individuals found a place in the work of God, and they got to it. And they did so with a heart burning in love for God. You see, they had worshipped God, they had found the will of God, and now they work for God. And that's it, brethren and sisters, that's Christian living. Worship God, find and do the will of God, and then work for God. That's it. And so I asked you over lockdown, did you think? With all of the ministries shut down, did you think to yourself, I should have been involved in the children's work. I shouldn't be involved in the youth fellowship. I should have been involved in the open air team. And now it's all taken from me. Well, brethren and sisters, in the will of God, we'll reach a stage, I don't know when that'll be, but we'll reach a stage when all of those ministries will start up again. We'll thank God for that. But will you then be involved? Or will you just be simply the same as you were in lockdown? Oh, that God would put into all of our souls a burning passion for the lost, and that we would leave lockdown equipped as men and women who have a burning passion to make Christ known. That's what our world needs, Christ and the gospel. What is your life like post-lockdown? Is it as it was before? Or have you emerged a different Christian, a better Christian, a spirit-filled Christian? ready to do God's will. I pray that it is the latter and the examples that we have in Scripture might become the blueprint for us as we move into a new term of God's work. May God be pleased to help us in these days for Christ's sake. Amen. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our loving Father, we commit the meeting and the message to Thee. We pray that we may learn from these individuals. Grant, dear God, the worship of God to be our priority. May we all find and do the will of God, and then let us do the work of God. To the abilities that God has given to us, Whether that be in the place of prayer, or whether that be in the forefront of some ministry, may we all find a place on the wall. And may we be found building the wall again. We look to Thee, bless our congregation, keep us safe as we do gather for worship. And as we go about our daily business, may Thy hand be upon us. Bless us now as we part from this place. We offer prayer in and through our Savior's precious name. Amen and amen. May the Lord bless you on your homeward journey. Thank you.