When the second rainbow flag went up on Main Street this year, I stopped walking my dog down that street. I know where that road leads. This Advent 1 sermon (“Wake Up, Woodbury! The Ark on Main Street”) is my plain-spoken plea to a town I have come to love: the same moral rot that brought the flood in Noah’s day is now flying proudly over two of our churches, and most of Woodbury is still asleep. Using Isaiah’s vision, Paul’s wake-up call in Romans 13, and Jesus’ chilling words in Matthew 24, I refuse to let us drift comfortably into another Christmas. I have to ask the one terrifying, loving question: when the Son of Man comes suddenly to separate the righteous from the wicked, which side of the ark door will you be on? Read or listen; you need to hear this.
Advent 1
Psalm 122; Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
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I.
A spirit of division hovers over this church and town. Specifically, it attacks me and my ministry.
By a “spirit of division” I mean the controversy that arises when someone speaks the truth. This is a deliberate attempt by the Enemy, Satan, to destroy the unity of the Church.
When I arrived in this town a little over a year ago, only one church flew a rainbow flag. Now, two fly this abomination. This, plus the appearance of the “Love Your Neighbor” yard signs, seems to me to be part of a coordinated campaign.
Now, every time I walk my dog down Main Street and see that second flag, my heart sinks. I know where this road ends, and I do not want a single soul in this town to walk it to the end.
People have blamed me for dividing a formerly peaceful town and church, but that is not correct. To call out a lie, publicly, from the pulpit, is not to sow division, even if it causes conflict.
The raising of a second rainbow flag by a church on our Main Street is a defiant response to our church, which is daring to speak the truth, to a complacent people in a degenerate age.
That is exactly what the pulpit — and churches — should do for the cities and towns they say they love.
First Church has not brought division to Woodbury. Rather, this church has done exactly what should be expected of a mother church: she has called out the extent of the rot that was already here.
As the first church in these parts, as the church which started the Town of Woodbury in 1659, we are — more specifically, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is — the only principle of unity this town has ever known.
The extent to which this town is divided, such that neighbor must be reminded to love neighbor, is measured by its residents’ distance from the Gospel.
As one woman told me the other day, one of the volunteers at our community Thanksgiving dinner, “There aren’t many Christians in Woodbury.”
What an indictment of the town whose founding settlers prayed that they would be “an upright and Godly people to the latest generations.”
II.
Today’s reading from Isaiah foretells a coming day that shall end this division and recall men and women to their rightful minds. It is a fitting reading with which to begin our Advent journey to Bethlehem to meet the Christ Child.
Isaiah tells us, “It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.”
This is a call to worship — the mountain of the Lord’s house is an allusion to the temple mount in Jerusalem — and also alludes to what the psalmist describes as an ascent, a going up, of being caught up in the heavenly worship of God.
Jesus’ words in today’s gospel reading from Matthew extend Isaiah’s prophecy. He says, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”
Furthermore, Jesus adds a note of judgment to His prophecy. He says that the last days of this present age will be just like the last days of the old age before the flood: “As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man.”
Specifically, Jesus says that men will grow complacent with the moral rot and the erosion of their public institutions: “For as in those days before the flood… they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man.”
Friends, let us linger over that sentence: “they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away.”
This could be the sudden car accident or heart attack, or it could be the institutionalized sin that calls down God’s wrath, a whole lifetime lived peacefully in the same town, swept away in an instant.
But not so for God’s chosen people, His elect, His Church. They will be secured in safety. “Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left.”
That Jesus is describing the sudden, visible separation of the righteous and the wicked at His coming is evident from his tying it to Noah’s physical salvation in the ark while the ungodly were swept away.
The plain meaning of the text is clear. Christ is able to save His people to the utmost, and when that day comes, the Church, like the ark during the flood, will be the only safe place to be.
Does this mean the physical building we call “the church”? No. It would be a mistake to reason that way. The Bible never describes the church as a building.
Rather, it is to Christ’s own body that we can expect to be mysteriously, miraculously joined.
In fact, that is what our baptisms already signify, and in this passage from Matthew, Jesus is saying that some physical manifestation of that spiritual reality will be accomplished in time and space, “in the last days.”
Very well, what should we do in the meantime? This is where Jesus’ words in today’s gospel ought to convict us, “As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.”
In other words, life went on, much as it always had, until it didn’t. And, once it didn’t, they found there was no room for them in the ark.
It hardly matters how long you’ve lived in a town or how many deep and cherished relationships you’ve developed when you — and everyone else — are drowning.
III.
It took Noah between 50 and 100 years to build the ark. All that time it was emerging as a visible sign of God’s salvation in the face of His growing wrath.
Five churches stand on Woodbury’s Main Street. How many of them offer a visible sign of God’s salvation in the face of His growing wrath?
Yet one church that explicitly does so is called divisive. To which I say: there were already five churches here. Ours was the first. We can’t be the cause.
Others brought division, not us. We have no more caused division by preaching the truth than Noah caused the destruction of the old world by building the ark.
Yet there are many today — the majority — just as in Noah’s day, who ignore the ark we are building in their midst. This church is the very ark that could save them, and be the visible means of their salvation, if they would but just wake up.
But their complacency in the face of a clear call to worship is enough to damn them.
In our psalm for today we sang, “With joy I heard my friends exclaim, Come, let us in God’s temple meet,” yet so few of our friends are here.
Perhaps, if the preacher weren’t so judgmental, more would come. If he were not a “preacher of hate” they would come into the ark.
But was any such invitation made to the men of the old world? Absolutely not.
St. Peter writes in 2 Peter 2:5, 9, “[God] did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven other persons, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” This is the judgment, “that day and hour no one knows,” of which Jesus speaks.
But there is hope. Peter continues: “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.”
Two churches in this town now fly the flag of “defiling passion,” thereby showing that they despise God’s authority.
Two churches in this town now fly the flag of “defiling passion,” thereby showing that they despise God’s authority.
I need to be crystal-clear why I call that flag an abomination.
That flag does not say “we’re nice to gay people.” Instead, it publicly declares three things God hates:
First, it celebrates sexual activity that both Testaments call defiling passion —Leviticus 18, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6.
Some will say, “Jesus never mentioned it. But John 1:1–3 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Jesus is the eternal Word who spoke every letter of this Book. To say He is silent on this subject is to forget who He actually is.
Second, that flag now stands for the trafficking of children. When two men want a baby, someone has to sell them one. A woman is paid to be impregnated, to carry a child she will never raise, and then to hand that child over for money. That is slavery with extra steps — made possible by IVF and surrogacy contracts.
And yes, to our shame, the Trump administration championed taxpayer-funded IVF, opening the floodgates even wider for this wickedness. The same churches flying that flag will bless the new “family” and call it love.
Third, it is open rebellion against Genesis 1:27—“male and female he created them.” When that rebellion is forced on confused children with blockers, hormones, and knives, it is child sacrifice, one piece at a time.
Why is it that we keep reverting to these two things: child sacrifice and slavery?
So when I say that flag is an abomination, I am not being harsh for the sake of being harsh. I am sad — and angered — that two churches on our Main Street have chosen to wave a banner that celebrates slavery, child-trafficking, and the mutilation of God’s image — all while still daring to call themselves Christian.
Despite my pleas, the Woodbury establishment seems not to care. The same holds true for Connecticut and our country. This is the cause of our division, not biblical preaching.
But God knows how to rescue the godly from trial: “two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left.”
To Woodbury, the State of Connecticut, and the United States of America I ask: what will be left of you when that day comes? Will you be left behind? It seems that you will.
I say that with sadness, because I do not want you to be swept away. I am trying to prepare you for the thief when he comes in the night.
Advent is the month-long preparation for that dark night when the thief is born who will steal us from sin.
IV.
No invitation was made to the men of the old world to come into the ark, but the men and women of our day have a choice: they can come into the Church or they can stand outside and stubbornly refuse.
That refusal goes by many names: freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of choice. We dress it up in the First Amendment and call it “separation of Church and State.”
But the state that is based on a lie is doomed. There is only one true religion: the faith once for all delivered to the saints, the biblical, apostolic gospel this church was planted in the wilderness to guard and proclaim.
That is the principle of unity. Christ Himself established that unity in His blood, shed for us on the cross. Everything else is cause for division.
Because of this unity you can come into the church. Unlike the ark, which was only for Noah and those united by blood and marriage to his family, the Church is open to all for whom Christ’s blood was shed. His blood has the power to save the whole world but it is only His elect who will avail themselves of this salvation.
V.
Do you want to be part of this chosen race? Will you make yourselves ready? Do you know how late the hour is? Then, wake up! Salvation is nearer than when you first believed.
Moreover, make the effort to rouse your slumbering husbands and wives, your children, your neighbors and selectmen, the Chamber of Commerce, and yes, even the wayward pastors.
Advent is the season to cry aloud. It has nothing to do with Santa Claus and Rudolph, and very little to even with candles and wreaths.
I am not saying, “Don’t enjoy some good Christmas parties.”
I am saying speak your mind at them and to the selectmen of Woodbury — complain about the false gospel being preached in this town. (Trust me, the other side is complaining to them about us.)
I know the selectmen have no power to close a wayward church — the Attorney General of Connecticut does, but he won’t.
But at least you can bear faithful witness in the public square and refuse to let lies about Christ and his Word go unanswered. Why should the scoffers have the last word? Only because the people of God stay silent.
If you tell me you don’t want to fight then I ask you: why do you say you follow a king? Christ is King, and kings command armies. Like it or not, we are all foot soldiers, every last man, woman, and child. There are no conscripts in the Lord’s army. We all volunteered.
Preached on November 30, 2025, at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut (https://www.firstchurchwoodbury.org).
