As In The Days Of Noah!

“Take heed lest any man deceive you.” (Mk. 13:5)

When we read the account set forth in Gen. 6 we read that mankind had become so wicked and corrupt that God chose to do away with all that was corrupted, save Noah and his family. Since we also read in Gen. 5:1 that this is the Book of the generations of Adam, namely the Bible, we can safely assume that the Antediluvian Civilization that God chose to destroy with the Flood were the descendants of Adam. Prior to the Flood these descendants were all inclusive, whereas after the Flood the line of descent concentrates solely on the progeny of Shem to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-Israel and finally culminating in the Lord Jesus Christ. One man’s family, exclusive of all others except for the odd times where others are interacting with these people that became known as Israelites.

The Bible narrative in Genesis does not give specifics as to the nature of the violence and corruption of those early Adamic peoples with the exception of Gen. 6:2 and 4, where these verses indicate mixing. “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all whom they chose.” (Gen. 6:2). In Verse 3 following, we can see God’s reaction when He exclaims, “And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” (Gen. 6:3). So, you can see that after the longevity of Adam and his offspring up until the Flood, God is cutting men’s lives shorter thereafter as a warning. “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” (Gen. 6:4).

Again let’s look at the following verses and see what God’s reaction is. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth and it grieved him in his heart.” (Gen. 6:5,6). Thus in both these instances it seems that God’s reaction is closely related to the sons of God marrying and having relations with the daughters of men.

There are two trains of thought as to the sons of God. The one holds that they are the fallen angels that left their first estate (Jude 6), while the other line of thought holds that they, the sons of God, were the descendants of Seth that intermixed with the ungodly descendants of Cain. This writer tends to hold to the latter thought, mainly because we read that at the end of Christ’s genealogy as recorded in Lk. 3:38, Adam is identified as being the son of God, but that is a whole different issue that we will not go into at this time. Our focus in this essay is the depravity of man. If we follow the genealogy from Adam to Noah and the flood we can determine that it only took 1663 years for Adam-kind to corrupt itself to the point that God saw it needful to destroy His Adamic creation and to start anew with Noah and his sons, and the Bible from this point forward focuses itself primarily with the descendants of Shem.

Moses recorded these facts around 1445 BC, some nine hundred years after the flood, and thus the event was known to the Israelites, yet they took no notice of the fact that mankind can only push and ignore God so far until He, God, again says enough is enough. So, even though God had promised a Redeemer as far back as Gen. 3:15, He finally divorced and banished His people from their land for their idolatry and corruption, to become lost until this day and to a large extent even unto themselves. God in His mercy, however, promised to restore His people unto Himself through most of the prophets, most noticeably Hos. 2:23 and Hos. 3:4&5. The fact remains that His people, Israel, are and always were a stiff-necked and stubborn lot, who did not often learn anything from their past mistakes and follies. Not much has changed unto this present time.

Enter Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of His people Israel, the One promised from the beginning, the light of the world, our Rock! He came preaching and teaching the message of the Kingdom of God. He healed the sick and broken hearted, He showed us the way, and bled on the cruel cross of Calvary in order to pay the price for our iniquity so that we could have life in Him, instead of death for our sins. According to the Gospel of Matthew, it was during the Olivet Discourse, chapters 24 and 25, where Jesus was explaining to His disciples the events preceding His second coming that Jesus warns us about the similarities in the last days to the conditions that prevailed just prior to the flood. The pre-flood civilization had no outward guidance other than the Edenic Covenant, which most seemed to have ignored. The post-flood civilization up until the time of Christ soon had the written word by way of Moses and the prophets and by and large ignored that Divine guidance.

And now we are in the latter days of the Church age. We have Moses and the prophets, we have the teaching of Christ Himself, we have the Gospels and the teachings of the Epistles and still we as a whole don’t get it. Christ said, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” (Mt. 24:4) and He went on to say, “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold.” (Mt. 24:11,12). We are living in the Laodicean Church period. The Lord states that since we are neither hot nor cold He will spew us out of His mouth. In other words, He will reject us the way we are. (Rev. 3:15,16). Churchdem abounds with false prophets. The Word of God is being distorted in such way that most of the time the true teachings of Scripture are unrecognizable. The church has become a social club in a feel-good society. Most Christians think that they have it all and are rich, whereas in fact they are poor and naked. (Rev. 3:17). “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the Ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” (Matt. 24:37-39).

Yes! Just like then the Christian world is living just for today. We eat and drink and we indulge ourselves in material things. We have our fun and we have our sports, so what else do we need? We pay scant attention to Biblical matters, for they only put restrictions on our happy go lucky lifestyle. The Biblical mandate of kind after kind (Gen. 1) is being completely ignored. Perversion has become an accepted lifestyles and is being embraced in most denominational churches today.  Yet, to God it is an abomination.  Don’t accept it either! If your preacher does not teach sound Bible truths, search them out for yourselves, for you are ultimately responsible for your own destiny. You have the most complete roadmap and manual available to man, namely your Holy Bible. Study it and learn from it, so that you will find yourselves ready and approved. As in the days of Noah, when the flood came, only a few souls were saved, so according to Christ’s admonition it will also be the case when He returns. Return unto your God and Saviour, O, Christians. Return, O you stubborn and stiff-necked Israelites, for your time is short.

When the Ark of Salvation arrives be sure you have a boarding pass, lest you be left standing on the shores of oblivion.