Days of Noah

As a man

Always want to show you’re tough to your spouse

Never want to show weakness

Always to make sure she knows you can handle every situation

Well you ever heard the saying

Open mouth insert foot?

Yea so there I was telling my wife how brave I was

Telling her I can do anything I put my mind to

Well naturally the conversation happened upon

Sky diving

Of course I’m a man I can handle anything right!

Well my birthday roles around

Anyone ever heard of Groupon?

Well to my surprise

I open up face book

Wife had tagged me in a birthday post

The post was a groupon add for sky diving

The title “Happy Birthday”

I knew right off the bat I was in trouble

Tell the sky diving story

Well just like sky diving

I think I spoke a bit too soon before volunteering to preach on this passage today

To say the least this short section of scripture isn’t anything light

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit nervous.

So today we are going to go over

The importance of studying prophecy

The comparison to the days of Noah and our current times

The application to our current situation along with our responsibility

So please open up your bibles to

Matthew 24:36–44 NKJV

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 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, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Verse number 36

You know it is this verse

or this concept

or this misunderstanding

Has cause so much harm in the church today

I would argue

this is one of the primary reasons

Why we don’t study prophecy

So many people have been hurt

have been misled

Have been tricked

By false pastors

By lying ministries that tell you when Jesus is coming

David Hocking said it in a sermon I heard

He preached this sermon in the 90s

He specifically mentioned that if Christ doesn’t come by the year 2000

Then because of the damage of false prophets

The damage cause by irresponsible preachers

The damage caused by those that refuse to study

That prophecy will become a thing of the past

That Prophecy will become a topic shunned

A topic most pastors won’t even touch

Why?

They don’t want to be identified with those pastors

They don’t want to risk their entire career off of one sermon

You don’t want to be identified with the fringe nutjobs

Because once you dive into a topic such as this

You are now considered one of the extreme Christians

Now your view of Christianity has gone from lessons on how to live

To something real

To a systems of warnings

To something more dramatic

Something more extreme

But When you take away prophecy

You take away every piece of validation we have

What separates the Bible from the religions of the world?

Prophecy!

Isaiah 46:9–10 NLT

Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me. Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.

Prophecy is how we validate everything we believe in

In fact I’ve mentioned this before

Its 30 % of the Bible

Prophecy is how we validate the Bible to be true

Prophecy is how we validate the Bible to be the Word of God

Prophecy is how we identified the Messiah

Its how we know that Jesus was the Messiah

And its how we can know His return is coming soon.

But thats the catch isn’t it

Because if we can simply read prophecy and understand when he is coming

Then we have a gold mine,

I can effectively manipulate Scripture

I can effectively manipulate my sermon

to say anything I want it to say

and for my benefit,

am I wrong?

But here is why verse 36 is so important

Matthew 24:36 NKJV

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.

How many of you were here for my sermon

Parable of the ten virgins

Do you recall why The father is the only one that knows?

If you don’t I highly recommend you go back a few weeks

Maybe get with me offline

Because the significance of a Galilean wedding feast

Displays exactly why we do not know the day or the hour

I hate to beat a dead horse but like I said

We have been utterly destroyed as a faith

Because of this one issue

We do not know the day or the hour

Period

Stop trying to guess

Stop listening to others that say they know

It here in black and white,

Well red in my bible

But its in the customs

the culture

everything makes this clear

We don’t know

However

We are giving warnings about the signs of His coming

And thats where it begins to get interesting

Because if you read the entirety of the chapter

Especially starting at verse 4

You have

False prophets

Wars and rumors of wars

Nation will rise against nation

Kingdom against Kingdom

Famines

Pestilences or diseases, viruses, etc..

earthquakes in various places

Religious persecution

lawlessness

whats amazing is that every single one of those

You can compare it to today

You can match it up with current events

Every single one

But then we get into something even more intriguing

Jesus Christ

Our Lord and Savior

God Himself

Tells us in verse 37

Matthew 24:37–39 NKJV

But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 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, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Four points about this I want to quickly go over

And here is where the controversy comes in and I get a bit nervous

Because I am going to test you today

I am going to maybe cause you to question my sanity

Maybe even question my qualifications

But I want you to understand

Everything surrounding this passage

The points and the opinions I am going to make

Are held by some very prominent bible teachers

Men like Chuck Smith

David Hocking

Jacob Prasch

John Macarthur

Even the Creation Museum

So while some of this may appear outlandish

Perhaps its because you haven’t looked at the evidence

Maybe you’ve never heard this stuff before

And that’s ok

That’s my job

Bring you the stuff that causes controversy

To cause you to question things

Because if I do that,

Guess what you’re most likely doing

Studying the Bible on your own

Validating what I am saying

Because I don’t want to be the only one studying

You need to be as well

So do me a favor and quickly turn to Genesis 6

Look with me at verse number 1

Genesis 6:1 NKJV

Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them,

I want to focus on the multiply

Because if we are comparing

The days of Noah

To our time

Then perhaps there is a parrallel

Whats unique about this is that back in the day

I was doing some studying and I remember running across a sermon

The pastor mentioned that there was anywhere from 10-15 Billion people on the planet

At that time

I was shocked but I brushed it off.

Then I went to the creation museum

Museum in Kentucky, where they have the ark

This time I ran into a display that broke down this idea

What was unique

Depending on which model you went with

most believe 4-19 billion people

So then friday I was listening to a message

Chuck Smith

Same estimation

Then I looked up a few credible websites

Same theory

In fact the only one I found that was in the 10s of millions

Liberal website that didn’t make any sense.

So then I heard an argument

Well according to science this is impossible

Only recently that we have this many people

History proves we this just couldn’t happen

No way population could have exploded like this

The catch is if you do the math

The length of time they survived

The idea they had 4-8 kids per

over a 600 year life span thats reasonable

Then you get numbers in the Billions

Not millions

Billions

But I wasn’t satisfied so I kept searching

Well chuck smiths sermon gave me exactly what I needed

How could we have a population explode like that

Time of noah to 1860 only 1 billion people

Well from 1867-1935 we added another Billion

Now we have 2 billion

Then from 1935-1960, we get the 3Billion

Then from 1965-1980 we get to 4 Billion

and if you go with current population

according to the internet

7.6 billion people on the planet

So then it is very possible that we have near or exactly the same

Amount of people on the earth

at the time of noah

that we have today

What did Jesus say?

Just as in the days of Noah

Thats one of the signs

Along with all the others we previously read

What about Moral deterioration?

Did you realize that the Porn industry

Nets 12 billion dollars a year?

This is one of those issues I deal with as a chaplain a lot

It destroys marriages

Destroys families

In fact I was studying the affects on the brain

Porn does the same as meth does

Its entirely addictive

Destroys the user

Destroys the marriage

What about adultery

American psychological association estimates that 20-40% of marriages

Ruined because of adultery

We have the complete acceptance of promiscuity

Something that is condemned

Not only in Christianity

But in

Judaism

Catholicism

Islam

Not saying we should compare our morality to other faiths

But we have moved to far from any faith

We have abandoned all moral standards

of all faiths

Look at Genesis 6:5

Genesis 6:5 NKJV

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

What do we have going on today

How many children have been rescued over the last year

from child sex trafficking rings?

We have politicians now pushing to make prostitution legal

Our divorce rate is climbing

Children being raised in single parent households?

Why

Because men are shirking their responsibilities

Whats even more amazing

The statistics of single parent households amazingly

coming from homes where the father

has abandoned their families

Today we have an epidemic of kids growing up

single parent households

resulting in a significant rise

violent crime

Patrick Fagan of The heritge foundation did a study

He states and I quote.

The scholarly evidence, in short, suggests that at the heart of the explosion of crime in America is the loss of the capacity of fathers and mothers to be responsible in caring for the children they bring into the world. This loss of love and guidance at the intimate levels of marriage and family has broad social consequences for children and for the wider community. The empirical evidence shows that too many young men and women from broken families tend to have a much weaker sense of connection with their neighborhood and are prone to exploit its members to satisfy their unmet needs or desires. This contributes to a loss of a sense of community and to the disintegration of neighborhoods into social chaos and violent crime. If policymakers are to deal with the root causes of crime, therefore, they must deal with the rapid rise of illegitimacy.

Folks

With the rise of sexuality

We have a break down of the family

Which in turn has led to a rise in violence

Thats exactly what was going on at the time of Noah,

Don’t believe me,

I know you didn’t forget about this past year

Maybe this past century

70 Million murdered by the chinese

20+ million by russia

Nazi’s

World wars

Genocide

Its even estimated that over 250,000 christians

Martyred for their faith every year

But then comes the oblivious nature of the wealthy

Look with me at

Matthew 24:38 NKJV

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,

They were living a life of luxory

Not a care in the world.

We live in a world where we pay men that throw a ball $100 million dollars

While 300+ million live in poverty in India

We live in a world where we name our cities

After the very thing that seperates us from God

And we laugh

and mock

and enjoy ourselves

We get drunk

and gamble

have sex

and live by the moto

what happens in vegas stays in vegas

But when it comes to dealing with our sin,

Its as if we have turned a blind eye

But what does the Bible say?

Matthew 24:39 NKJV

and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

If you recall my sermon about the ten brides maids

Are you awake

Are you ready

What is your faith in?

Is this just a system to keep you in line?

Is this just a faith of good behavior

Or is there something real here?

An actual warning about eternity?

Its almost as if Jesus is saying

When you see these things happening

Watch out, its close

Folks if you don’t see it

If you’re not making the connection

I don’t know what to tell you

All the signs are pointing to the fact that His return is close

that we are running out of time.

Look with me at the remainder of this passage

Matthew 24:42–44 NKJV

Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Are you ready for His return

These signs

These clues

were not put in the Bible by accident

They are like a road map

To understanding when He is near

I once heard a pastor tell me

When you really believe

When you really understand whats going on

Ministry becomes urgent

You don’t see people anymore

You see souls

on their way to an eternity with or without God

For those of us on our way to be with Him,

Let me give you a taste of what Isaiah says it will be like

I’m just going to read this to you

I want you to get the idea of

What we have to look forward to

Isaiah 11:1–10 NLT

Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot— yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He will delight in obeying the Lord. He will not judge by appearance nor make a decision based on hearsay. He will give justice to the poor and make fair decisions for the exploited. The earth will shake at the force of his word, and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked. He will wear righteousness like a belt and truth like an undergarment. In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all. The cow will graze near the bear. The cub and the calf will lie down together. The lion will eat hay like a cow. The baby will play safely near the hole of a cobra. Yes, a little child will put its hand in a nest of deadly snakes without harm. Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be filled with people who know the Lord. In that day the heir to David’s throne will be a banner of salvation to all the world. The nations will rally to him, and the land where he lives will be a glorious place.

Utter perfection.

We are close

so close i can feel it

I don’t know the exact date or the hour

But I can tell you this

Matthew 24:37 NLT

“When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day.

Open your eyes

Open your hearts

We are running out of time

I am speaking a mature audience

those of us that know what the great commission is

I am asking you today

Go and preach the word

Bring others to church

Go evangelize the world

Win others for Christ

We are simply running out of time.

Lets pray.