Like the Days of Noah

Traditional thought among most people is that we cannot date the tribulation or know when Jesus Christ will return to earth to establish a literal Kingdom of God. Most Christians base that doctrine upon Jesus' own words, words he spoke nearly two thousand years ago which effectively state that no one knows the day or hour of end time events except his Father. That was then; this is now. Jesus also taught us signs by which we could know the time of his return, and those signs reveal that time is NOW.

One great warning Jesus gave is that the days of great tribulation and his return would be as "the days of Noah." What were those days like? That was a day when "the thoughts of men's hearts were evil continually" according to the Book of Genesis. It was a day when "God repented that he had made man." It was a day in which God determined he must judge men for their continually evil sins.

Certainly this describes today, April 12, 2008. Read any newspaper, look at the headlines on Drudge, World Net Daily, or sundry other online news sources. The evil is so rampant and so pervasive that anyone as old as I am remembers a time when the crimes and thoughts represented by this evil did not even exist in the collective consciousness of mankind. Now they are so common that most people do not even recognize this as a particularly evil time. This, my friends, is another sign of the times, gross deception of the peoples.

Let me give you another clear proof of the times. Today men manipulate the genes of plants and animals in an unlawful manner, unlawful in terms of God's Law. We do not even know which foods we eat that have been genetically modified and we certainly do not know their long-term effects upon our health. Last week we read of an experiment in Britain where the genes of a human and a cow were mixed in an embryo that lived for several days. This is the day of the chimera, the genetic monsters of a science which despises God. Such experiments did not even exist until the last few years. This alone proves we live in days like Noah's for consider the words from a very old book, The Book of Jasher. This book was translated into English from the Hebrew in the year 1840, before men understood genetic manipulation of life. The book is referenced in the beginning books of the Bible which were written over three thousand years ago. Jasher says, "the sons of men in those days [the days of Noah are being described] took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the field and fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order to provoke the Lord; and God saw the whole earth and it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon earth, all men and all animals." (The Book of Jasher, Chapter IV, verse 18)

Clearly we live in days like Noah's. Clearly all flesh is provoking God and flaunting their sin in his very face. But, God is a merciful God. Let us pray that the devastation of flesh seen in the Book of Revelation is not the devastation of an iron sword and literal war. Let us hope it is the devastation of the flesh that comes through the sword of the Spirit and is evidenced by repentance and faith. Let us pray that God pours forth his Spirit upon all flesh and brings an end to this age of perversion.