"BUSINESS AS USUAL"
(The Days of Noah)
"As it was in
the Days of Noah, so shall it also be in the days of the Son of man. They did
eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day
that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them
all." (Luke 17:26)
It was 'Business as Usual' in the days of
Noah. Everything went on normally, as
though nothing unusual was about to happen, even though Noah, a 'preacher of righteousness' (II Peter3:5),
'a just man and perfect in his generations [who] walked with God' (Genesis 6:9),
warned the ungodly generation of that day.
The hearts of men revealing their
'Business as Usual' attitude described by the Lord Jesus, is what it will be
like 'in the days of the Son of man',
referring to those days just before the Lord comes to rapture His church and
begin the judgment described in the book of the Revelation! The religious
unbelievers of that day will scoff and say: 'Where
is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things
continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they
willingly are ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and
the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that
then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth,
which are now, by the same Word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against
the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.'
(II Peter 3:4-7)
These ungodly scoffers displaying their
'Business as Usual' attitude will question whether the Lord really is going to
return and point out that there have been no changes since the beginning of
time displaying their arrogant, dark-minded denial of God's Word and His working
in the past. Peter's response uncovers
their ignorance and outlines the supernatural judgment of God in the past
through the universal flood, and His plan for the future Day of the Lord
judgment of the world.
Yes, God's response to the ungodly scoffers
and the wickedness of man will be the same as it was in the days of Noah,
because He will judge the world for it's wickedness through His fiery, devastating
and destructive Day of the Lord judgments the same day He rescues His church by
rapture! The only difference is He used the flood in Noah's day, and He will
use fire during the Day of the Lord!
Genesis chapters 4-6 provide us with a
clear picture of what the world was like in Noah's day detailing various
prevailing conditions of that time: The
first and one of the most crucial conditions was Religious Apostasy. In (4:3)
Cain becomes what many preachers call the first modernist.
His obvious departure from offering what
was required by God could also be described as the actions of one who
subscribes to neo-orthodoxy. Whatever we call it, it is clear God did not
accept Cain's new idea of offering 'the fruit of the ground' which
was rejected by the Lord.
We must assume that Cain knew what was
acceptable in the eyes of God and instead of bringing the acceptable blood
sacrifice like his brother Abel. He decided to offer the result of his own
works described as the 'way of Cain'
(Jude 11). Every other false 'religion' tries to make its mistaken approach
to God through works.
But,
there is one, and only one, 'true
religion', and that is the one of faith in the shed Blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ on the Cross of Calvary!
Religious Apostasy was openly evident in the 'days of Noah' and it is openly evident in our own day, which could
well be described as the 'days of the Son
of man' for it is clearly evident that we are living in the last days.
The second condition prevalent in Noah's
day was the gathering together of population through City Building. (Genesis 4:17) Population centers in our day are multiplying
and growing at a phenomenal pace and for the most part are the sin/and crime
capitals of our time. In the USA
85% of the population lived on farms during the year 1850.
This number has drastically been reduced as
cities, crime and corruption have skyrocketed. One man rightly said 'God made
the country, and man made the city' referring to the man created corruption and
ungodliness that gathers in the city. Although city building in itself is not
ungodly, it certainly was a common occurrence in both the days of Noah and in
the present day.
Polygamy was practiced in the days of Noah
as illustrated in (Genesis 4:19).
Although God allowed this to go on it was not His will as He created
only one Eve for Adam with no apparent spare(s) in sight! The words of the Lord Jesus Christ: 'For this cause shall a man leave father
and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain (duo) shall be one
flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain (duo) but one flesh.' (Matthew 19:5, 6)
are clear, and He certainly did not intend for us to have more that one wife/husband.
Although our age is not plagued with the sin of polygamy, the multiple
wives/husbands taken by many people today is certainly very similar to and as
damaging to our social structure as polygamy was in Noah's day.
Genesis 4:21 records the first mention of
Musical Instruments which occurred seven generations from Adam. While the type
of music is not known, the descendants of Cain were responsible for creating
these instruments, who are considered to be the ungodly line and therefore the
music composed by these people could well have been ungodly in its effect
similar to the scourge we are witnessing in our present day from rock and roll
and its multiple offshoots. What we do know is that this generation in Noah's
day did not 'call upon the name of the
Lord' (Genesis 4:26) as did the line of Seth, Adam and Eve's third son.
Metalworking and the science of metallurgy
was also practiced in these early stages of the history of man, when 'Tubal-cain, an instructor of every
artificer (forger of cutting instruments) in brass and iron' (Genesis 4:22)
practiced his profession. A 'mere' 7,000 years have passed and man is
continuing to mine the earth, working metals to serve his purposes of advancing
civilization.
The civilization of Noah's day was much
further advanced than usually thought, proving that the industrial
characteristics of then and now were similar. Although metalworking in itself
is not considered a negative, the point being demonstrated is the similarity of
Noah's day and our present day.
The final and maybe the most obvious of
all conditions in Noah's day was the great Wickedness of Man.
"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 at His heart. And the Lord
said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the
earth"(Genesis 6:5).
This statement by the Lord reveals His
heart, His intention, and also His purpose for the judgment He brought upon the
world through the universal flood! This great Wickedness of Man is extremely
prevalent in our day and when it reaches God's limit it will bring His final
judgment which will completely purge the heavens and the earth by fire.
The slaughter of the unborn, the practice
and acceptance of homosexuality as an alternate lifestyle and the resulting
epidemic of AIDS, the degrees of open nakedness/nudity exhibited by the
multitudes, and the widespread acceptance of the sex sins of those in high
places of authority demonstrate the present-day Wickedness of Man and the
nearness of God's wrath which is His Day
of the Lord judgment ‘For the
great day of His wrath is [about to] come’ (Revelation
6:17).
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