04 - A World Caught By Surprise By Pastor Jeff Wickwire Notes

We saw that a confederacy of nations led by Russia will one day descend upon the land of Israel to utterly destroy her. We also saw that God Himself will intervene on her behalf, wiping out the enemy completely.

Now, with everything leading toward a planet on fire with war and deception, what will be the mental and spiritual dispositions of humanity? Will our world be living on pins and needles before the coming of Christ?

Will people be crying out for help and salvation? Will there be a great move or repentance and a crying out for mercy? No. the Bible says that at the time of all this approaching trouble, the hue and cry of government officials all the way down to the common man will be, "Peace, Peace!"

Listen to the Apostle Paul's sobering words. 1 Thes 5:1-3 "But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

3 For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. 5 You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. 6 Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.

The Message Bible puts it this way: "I don’t think, friends, that I need to deal with the question of when all this is going to happen. You know as well as I that the day of the Master’s coming can’t be posted on our calendars. He won’t call ahead and make an appointment any more than a burglar would."

"About the time everybody’s walking around complacently, congratulating each other—“We’ve sure got it made! Now we can take it easy!”—suddenly everything will fall apart. It’s going to come as suddenly and inescapably as birth pangs to a pregnant woman."

So it's not that the end time world will be crying out for a peace they don't have. They will be heralding a false peace they believe they do have. In other words, they will be deceived into believing all is well---that there is no approaching judgment, no danger, no consequences for their rejection of God's love through Christ.

Let's always remember that there is indeed a fierce judgment coming upon the world at the return on Christ. Again, Paul the Apostle writes to the Thessalonians in his second letter of this judgment.

2 Thes. 1:6-10 "...since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, 7 and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."

9 "These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, 10 when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed."

The message of the Bible over and over again is that when Christ returns to gather His people and execute judgment on the world, the world will be asleep. The world will be caught completely off guard. They will have been lulled into a false sense of security that will be thoroughly shattered at Christ's return.

Paul wrote that Jesus will come unannounced and unexpected "like a thief in the night." Jesus Himself continuously taught in His parables of the need to be ready for His return.

In fact, when He was finished answering the disciple's three part question of when the Temple would be destroyed and what would be the signs of His coming, Jesus continued His discourse with the parable of the householder, the parable of the Ten Virgins, and the parable of the Talents--each of which warns of the need to be ready for His return.

He said in the Parable of the householder, "the master of that servant (Jesus) will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of" (Matt. 24:50).

In the parable of the Ten Virgins, Jesus finished by saying "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming" (vs.13).

And in the parable of the Talents He closed by saying, "After a long time The Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them." And the servant who had not invested his talent in kingdom work was caught off guard and unprepared.

And there is the well-known description Jesus made of two men in the field working, one was taken and the other left. And the two women grinding at the mill, one is taken and the other left. The idea with both of them being the one left behind was caught off guard.

Now, I believe the two greatest descriptions of what our world will look like just prior to Jesus' return to judge the world are found in His allusion to Noah and Lot. Let's look at Noah's day first.

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. 37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be" (Matt. 24:36-39).

We know from Genesis 6 that the days of Noah were marked by widespread violence, a total breakdown in morality, and a descent into wickedness so great that Genesis describes it this way:

"The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and...every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5). Think about that! Every one of man's thoughts were only wicked 24 hours a day! "The earth also was corrupt before God....all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth" (vs.11).

Mankind was at the end. The cup of God's wrath was full and His patience was exhausted. "The end of all flesh has come before Me," he finally decided.

Now what is so interesting here is that Jesus describes Noah's time very differently. "For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark...."

I used to read that and say, "So what! What's wrong with that? What's the big deal." Then I began to realize what Jesus was driving at. His point is that, in the midst of total moral breakdown, widespread and devastating violence, and universal corruption, Noah's generation was utterly unmoved, un-convicted, and unconcerned with their condition!

We know from 2 Peter 2:5 that Noah preached to them for 120 years without a single convert to show for it. All the while he swung that hammer and cut those boards, the spectacle of his giant ark growing and looming before their eyes, in spite of all his warnings about coming judgment---Noah's generation yawned, turned away from his words, and gave themselves over to a life of serving the flesh.

They married, ate and drank, utterly apathetic and blind to their plight. They had totally accepted the depraved and fallen condition they were in. Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when I return..."

And they were utterly caught by surprise when the first rain drops began to fall. Jesus said, "...and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be" (vs. 39).

Now to Lot, who lived in the infamous city of Sodom. Luke adds Jesus' reference to Lot while Matthew did not. "Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, the bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

We know from Genesis and from the Prophet Ezekiel what Lot's generation was like. Ezekiel says, "Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy" (Ezekiel 16: 49).

Now, those who try to say that Sodom's judgment did not come because of widespread homosexuality and sexual perversion like to refer to this passage. But...Ezekiel's not done. He goes on to say in verse 50, "And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit."

What was the abomination they committed? God's word could not be more clear. Genesis describes to us a city utterly in the grip of socially accepted, socially sanctioned sexual perversion. Both "young and old, from every quarter of the city" sought to have sexual relations with the angels visiting the city.

Almost two entire chapters are dedicated to describing these things. And Peter tells us it was so bad that Lot "...was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day" (2 Pet. 2:8).

What did Jesus say about their state of mind leading up to Sodom's destruction? "They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all."

In other words, they were just like Noah's generation---unmoved, un-convicted, and unconcerned with their condition. And don't forget they had received a visit from the most godly man on earth at that time--Abraham. Abraham along with his own servants had literally delivered them from captivity to a foreign king. Yet they only grew worse in their perversion.

For me the lesson here is one of the sobering, seductive power of unchecked sin to blind, deceive, and corrupt a society to the point that it no longer experiences conviction. In both of these examples, an entire generation had become so numbed to violence and perversion they no longer saw it as wrong.

This condition is the final stage in a culture ripe for judgment. Hence Paul's final words in chapter one of Romans, "They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too" (vs.32).

Let's pray for America and the rest of the world, that God will move in mercy and deliver many from this fate and send revival once again!

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