Noah, Lot and the End of the World

Okay, that being said, today I'm going to talk about a topic that comes up a lot. You know, people in the world turn their calendars and they wonder what the next year is going to bring. Sometimes you hear people wondering, is this going to be the year that the world ends? So I want to talk today about the end of the world. The end of the world. It's a topic that fascinates everyone. I guess the topic has been going on and fascinating people all from before the time of Christ, certainly at the time of Christ, because you remember that his disciples asked the question when they sat down with him, what will be the signs of your coming? What will be the signs of the end of the age? And down through the course of the age and in the times that we've lived, how many things have we heard on the news? And how many rumors have there been out there about the end of the world? I remember back to the late 90s. Remember when we were about to change the calendar to a new millennium in 2000? Remember all the rumors about Y2K and what was going to happen with the computers? We'd become such a computer-dependent society. And when those computers clicked over to 2000, what was going to happen? And there were people prophesying that would be the end of the world. We'd go back into another age, if you will. And Y2K came January 1, 2000. What happened? Nothing. Nothing. It was kind of like business as usual. There was this man, Harold Camping.

Remember, he would come out, and somehow the news would pick up on him that the world was going to end. And I think this was just, what, three or four years ago? He had a series of, the world is going to end on this day. And then that day would come and pass, and nothing would come of it. Mr. Camping retired. Recently, the Mayan calendar was out there, and all that fascination with that. Did the Mayans really know at the end of the time of the end of the world what it would be? And that came and went, and nothing happened with that either. So people have always been fascinated.

What and when? What will the world be like? When will the world end? And the Bible certainly talks about that. It's full of the prophecy of Jesus Christ returning, setting up a new kingdom, the end of this age. And the disciples were very interested in that as well. And Paul, you know, back 1950 years ago, addressed this in his epistle to the Corinthians as well. Turn with me back to 1 Corinthians 10.

1 Corinthians 10. Corinth was a city much like the cities that we have in America today. Take away the Internet, take away the cars, take away all the modern technology that we have, and probably their morality and the way people live. Very much would look familiar to us today, maybe except for some of the pagan temples they had and things like that.

But as Paul is addressing a group of people that are in the church in 1 Corinthians 10 here in verse 11, he says this. He says, now all these things, and he's talking about all the things that happened in the Old Testament, all the scripture that we have, all those stories that we know so well that fascinate us, but that we should be learning lessons from as well.

He says, all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. And he wrote that almost, almost 2,000 years ago, if I can round it off a little bit. And he was writing that, seriously, the end of the ages have come upon us. He looked around Corinth and the cities that he traveled to, and he thought, a lot of the things that I see in the Old Testament that are prophesied to be like the time of the return of Jesus Christ, it looks like it. But he says, these things were written to us for our examples, because you and I, we haven't faced the end of the world before, have we? The whole time we've been in the Church, we've heard of Christ returning. We know that He's going to return. We know that this age is on a collision course with blowing itself up. By its choices and by the decisions that it makes and the courses it chooses, the world will come to an end. And if it wasn't for Jesus Christ who will return and save mankind from Himself, all of us would vanish. We would all be blown up, or whatever the case would be. But there are people in the Bible who face the end of their world. There are people in the Bible who were sitting in a position where really their world, as they knew it, came to an end. Let's look back at one of those in Christ's prophecy here in the Olivet Prophecy in Matthew 24. When Paul says we can learn something from these people, there are things we can learn. From the Old Testament that are very real lessons for us today and very, very real admonitions for us today. In Matthew 24, in verse 36, after Christ explains to him the wars and rumors of wars, the famines, the pestilences, the false prophets, the great tribulation, he says in verse 36, 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 will also 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 they didn't know, until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of man be.

Noah. One man, one family. On all the people on earth, however many there were. Millions, perhaps, on the earth at that time, maybe more than just mere millions. One man on all the earth who was living God's way of life. Only one. Now, we look around us here in the Orlando area, and we have a nice-sized congregation here, but small compared to the greater metropolitan area. Imagine if you were the only one in Orlando. You were the only one in this metropolitan area that was keeping God's way of life. Everyone else around you, everyone you worked with, you didn't know anyone else, it was just you. You keeping God's way of life. You standing up against the world, if you will. You standing for something that the rest of the world was telling you you don't need to do, and their lives look okay on a physical level. And Noah faced that. And we know something about Noah, and we'll talk about him a little bit here, but he was one man against the world, and he saw his world come to an end. He really did face the end of the world. When the flood came, everything he knew, those 600 years that he had lived, wiped out. It was gone. Every living thing, every city, every person gone. And when the flood waters receded, it was just him and his family to start the new age. We can learn something from Noah, because he faced the same thing that God's people are facing. That's one person. Let's go back to Luke 17. And in Luke's recording of the Olivet Prophecy, we find in verse 26 him echoing or writing the same words that we just read in Matthew 24. But in verse 28, he has more detail to what Christ said. Luke 17 verse 28. Likewise, as it was also in the days of Lot. They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built. They had a thriving society. Sodom was one of those cities that was wealthy, and it was a thriving commerce. It was, if you're looking at it purely physically, a good place to live. We'll see that a little bit. Lot liked living there. The people in Sodom liked living there. His wife liked living there so much that even when God told her don't look back, she couldn't resist. She liked it in Sodom. It was nice having all the conveniences of what this city could offer. And so, at that time, everything was going on as normal in the land of Sodom. But on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Immediately, pretty quick, the judgment on Sodom was. So Lot and his family saw their life, the life they had built in Sodom, end.

They faced the end of their world. Imagine if we were told tomorrow, get out of Orlando, get out of your house, get out of Florida. It's going to sink into the ocean. Take some faith, wouldn't it? But we would also see the end of our lives know it. They'd just know it was all going to be gone. Just disappear. And that's what Lot faced. We can learn something from Lot. We can learn something from how he handled it and what he did.

And we can learn something about what the world will be like at the time before Christ's return by seeing the situations that Noah and Lot lived in. So let's go back to Genesis, and we'll begin with Lot. Back in Genesis 19, we have a very familiar story. You are all familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Even people who aren't Christians know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. It's become kind of a controversial story in this day and age, as I'll talk about in a minute. But let me just read through the first 13 verses of Genesis 19 here. Just to refresh all our memories. Genesis 19, verse 1. Two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. Now, you'll remember from last week, we talked about Lot separating from Abraham and moving toward Sodom in order to be when they had to separate because of the number of flocks that they had. And God had prospered them so much that they needed to move Lot. Move toward Sodom, Abraham took what was left over. Now we find Lot sitting in Sodom. He actually has moved into the city. And he's prominent. He's sitting in the gate of the city. When Lot saw the two men come in, or the angels, he rose to meet them. And he bowed himself with his face toward the ground, and he said, They said, No, we'll spend the night in the open square. But he insisted strongly. So they turned into him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. Now, before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot and said to him, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally. So Lot went out to them through the doorway, shut the door behind him, and said, Please, my brethren, do not do so wickedly. See now, I have two daughters who haven't known a man. Please let me bring them out to you. And you may do to them as you wish, only do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they've come under the shadow of my roof. Now, they said, Stand back. Now, they said, Stand back. And they said, This one came in to stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge. Now we'll deal with us with you, then with them. So they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near to break down the door. But the men reached out their hands, pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. And they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they became weary trying to find the door. And the men said the Lot, Do you have anyone else here? Son-in-law, sons, daughters, whomever you have in the city, get them out of this place, for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Eternal, and he has sent us to destroy it.

Now, as you read through those words, is there any doubt in your mind what the sin of Sodom was? That was the outcry against them was so great. It's pretty evident in those scriptures, isn't it? It had become a thoroughly depraved society. Beyond sexually immoral, if you will, it had gone into the way that is hard for us to even imagine, a situation where we would be sitting in our house one night and have the men of the city come up and ask for our visitors to come out that they might abort with them. It's hard to even imagine, isn't it? But that's what Sodom was like. And yet the people enjoyed living there, a lot like living there. He lingered when God wanted to take him out. Lot's of wife looked back. She liked it so much.

There's people in the world, a lot of people, who look at this story and they take it and say, that's not what the Bible says. Remember, there was a movie that came out a couple of years ago, played on, I think, Discovery Channel, but I don't know, about the Bible. And when they came to this point in the story, they had absolutely nothing that resembled what was in Genesis 19 here. They had a very violent city, and that was what they depicted. That the real sin of Sodom was violence. The men didn't want what the Bible says that they wanted to do with these men. They just wanted to attack them. They just wanted to beat them up. And that Sodom was rife with violence. Go on the website, so some other churches just read through some of the things, and they will try to reason around this and say, no, no, no, God wasn't saying that about Sodom. He was saying that the people were just inhospitable. Look, they were trying to... they weren't being hospitable to those guys. That was the fault of Sodom. God wasn't saying what He's clearly saying here in Genesis 19 at all. Because the world has come to a place where the feelings in the world are becoming quite similar to what the feelings in Sodom were. That the gay lifestyle, that the homosexual lifestyle, that the same-sex lifestyle, whatever you want to call it, is acceptable, is okay, and that there's nothing wrong with it. And yet the Bible clearly says, this is an example of what we can go through many places where it is, but Sodom had become that way. You know, you look at our society today, and we might not have men knocking on our doors at night when we have visitors come in, but again, we have other things that we allow into our house that come knocking into our homes all the time, don't we? Any number of TV shows will promote this lifestyle. And we may sit back and we may laugh at it, it may seem funny to us, but Hollywood and the producers have been very good at bringing that, knocking on our doors all the time. And they've been very good at dulling the sense of the people of what is right and wrong. And so people today lean to, oh, there's nothing wrong with that lifestyle, to each his own. And of course they have to attack the Bible because the Bible's clear. We know what the reason that God created sex. We know that He created family. We know what it pictures. And so this sin, God calls an abomination. All sexual immorality is wrong. Don't get me wrong there. This is an abominable sin in God's sight. And Sodom, Sodom was known for this.

We can look at our news. You may not even watch the sitcoms and other shows that glorify it, but even in the news, you know, as someone comes out, they're almost applauded as a civil rights hero. You notice that? It's like, what a tremendous person, how courageous they are. Look how society is advancing forward. And that's just by watching the news, just trying to find out what's going on in the world. And there's this constant message, knocking on our heads, knocking on our doors, knocking on our homes, it's okay. It's okay. Don't worry about it. That's fine. To each his own. Do whatever you want. And at the end of the age, Christ said, the world will be like what lived in. It'll have this perversion element to it.

Sodom, the cry against it, it becomes so great at this point, God said, that's it. Get out of the city. Tomorrow it's going to be destroyed. But you know, if we look back just a few chapters here, if we remember from last week in Genesis 14, we talked about Abraham. And the fact that Sodom was attacked. If you remember that, Sodom was attacked by four or five kings. Lot was among those that was taken, and all the possessions of Sodom. Abraham and his 318 men went out, and they conquered those kings. They brought back the people they brought back.

They brought back the people they brought back the possessions. And Sodom was restored. Now, this was several years before this occurred in Genesis 19. But let's go back to Genesis 13 here, which occurs chronologically before Genesis 14, where God allows and sends Abraham out to rescue Sodom from these kings.

In Genesis 13, verse 13, when Lot is choosing to go toward Sodom and choose that as his pasture land, it says this, it says, The men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the LORD. Back in Genesis 13, God saw the sin of the city. He saw the sin of the men. The men of Sodom are wicked. They're exceedingly sinful. And yet in chapter 14, he allows Abraham to go out and rescue Sodom from the kings. And life continues until chapter 19, when God said, Enough is enough. The cry against Sodom has become so great, they have to be destroyed. And I don't know the exact years, but between chapter 13, when God said, The sin of Sodom is exceedingly great, and the time of chapter 19, we have 15 to 20 years at least.

At the time of chapter 14 here, when Abram went out, Ishmael hadn't been born. He was 13 or 14 years old when Isaac was born. And it's probably a few years before that. So let's just say 20 years before God destroyed Sodom and determined that it was fit to be destroyed, God said, This land is wicked. 20 years before that. And let's look at our society today.

Where were we 20 years ago? Here we are in 2015. 20 years ago was 1995. If we take this measure, this situation with Lot, the state of the world, Lot's world, at the time that God destroyed it, what was a miracle? What was our society like back in 1995? Let me read to you a few things that I came up, pulled off of the Internet, on some opinion polls that were done in, recently here at the end of 2014 and back in the 1990s.

Back 20 years ago, Bill Clinton was in office. You remember we had a scandal with him. Sexual immorality. The world was upset about that. But in 1995, while it had become commonplace for people to live together before marriage, for pre-parallel sex to just become commonplace and something you just do without thinking about, we had a society that was slouching toward Gomorrah, as one author put it.

But let's go into this lifestyle here that we see in Sodom and hone in on that and see where we were 20 years ago. This is what the Pew Research Center said. It says, since the 1990s, there's been an increase in the percentage of Americans saying that homosexuality should be accepted by society. In March 2011, 58% said that homosexuality should be accepted by society, while a third said it should be discouraged.

In 1994 and 1995, when the Pew Research Center first began asking about this topic. Pick that up? Before 1994 and 1995, it wasn't even a question that was asked. It wasn't anything that people was on their minds. It wasn't a huge societal issue. So the first time they even asked the question, should homosexuality be accepted as an American lifestyle? In 1994 and 1995, when the Pew Research Center first began asking about this topic, opinion was about evenly divided.

But by 2000, slightly more said homosexuality should be accepted by society than said it should be discouraged by 50 to 41%. Now, the question back then was, should it be accepted? As in, should we just let people do what they want? Back in 1994 and 1995, that's when the question even first started being pulled. There was not even a question about same-sex marriage. That wasn't even on anyone's mind. Any kind of legal union between people of the same sex. Today, that's the hot topic in the news, right? 1995, that wasn't even being talked about. But today, it's talked about all the time. 36 states in the union now, I guess Florida being the last, or at least one of the last, who have legalized it or at least had the constitutional bans against it wiped out, now it's become quite the topic.

October 2014, poll shows 56% favor gay marriage, only 38% are opposed. Now, that number has increased quite a bit in just the last four or five years. Four or five years ago, it was tilted the other way, more opposed than favor, but in the last four or five years, the trend is it seems to be escalating 56 to 38 in 20 years. Totally different environment today than what was there in 1995. 20 years makes a difference.

20 years made a difference in Sodom. God saw Sodom 20 years before it was destroyed and said there are wicked and evil people. But He let it go on. He even rescued it. He even sent Abraham to bring back the goods and bring the pack of people to Sodom.

Because their sin continued to progress. They didn't listen to what Lot must have been telling them, because you remember in the verses we read, they looked at Lot and they said, this one's always judging us. You know, he's always telling us that what we're doing is wrong. And they said, now we're going to make life more miserable for you than for them. Though He was telling them, but somewhere along the line maybe His voice wasn't as strong as it should be.

Genesis 15, verse 16. We see a concept here. In Genesis 15, God is showing Abraham what His descendants will be like, and He's giving them the vision of how they will have to go through, you know, be 400 years in captivity before He brings them into the promised land. In verse 16 of chapter 15, He says, But in the fourth generation they wilt shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. They were a wicked people too.

But God wasn't ready to displace them from their land at that time. Four generations from then, 400 years from then, their iniquity would be complete. Sin upon sin, adding to it, adding to it. And finally God would look at the people and say, There is no chance that they're going to repent. Their minds are dead set against Me. They will not turn. They will not come back to Me, and He will end the Amorite civilization and give it to Israel at that point.

The same thing happens with every society. God wants everyone to repent. And as long as there's a chance that they will turn back to Him, turn from the way they do things, turn back to Him, He will give them the time. But there comes a time that He says their iniquity is complete.

Sodom was well on the road in chapter 13. In chapter 19, the iniquity was complete. God said, Get out of here. The city is going to be destroyed. Only God knows when He will look at a society, when He will look at the age we live in and say, Enough is enough. The heart of the people is turned against Me. They will not turn back. This civilization will end.

Only God knows that time.

For Lot, it was a pretty immediate end to that society.

So one of the things that we can learn from Lot, whose society came to an end, that Christ uses an example of that, at the time before His coming, the society will be marked by something similar to Lot.

It will be prosperous. It will be thriving. It will be a comfortable place to live, a convenient place to live.

But as in the days of Lot, it will be a perverse society, given to these type activities and lifestyles that were common inside them.

And there will come a point when God will say, Enough. Enough.

The other part of the prophecies, Paul says, all these things were written as examples to us, is what did the people do with it? How did they respond to God saying, Your society is over?

What did they do? We can see the signs of what happened and why God led to the pronouncement of, Sodom is done. But how did the people respond? Let's go back to Genesis 19 and see how Lot responded to this proclamation that they needed to get out of Sodom.

We were in verse 13. Let's look at verse 14, chapter 19.

God has just said, Do you have any other people in this place? Go to them. Get out of here. Verse 14, So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, Get up. Get out of this place, where the Lord will destroy the city.

But to his sons-in-law, he seemed to be joking.

Lot, have you lost your mind? Come on! Sodom is a great place. I've got a great job. There's food on every table. There's cars in every garage. You can't get much better than this. It's a comfortable place to live. Why would... Look at the walls. Look at the walls and the protection of the city. Come on. Get out of this place, when everything looks so good and commerce is going so well. My life is going too well. There's no way. Lot, you have to be joking. That God's going to destroy this place? They might have even said, God rescued this place. 15, 20 years ago, we had a problem. And it came back. If we can survive that, we can survive anything. We don't have to get out of this place, Lot. You're crazy.

You're crazy. Sodom can't be penetrated. Sodom can't be brought down at all. So they seem to be joking. Today, people may think when it's said, the world is coming to an end, and they look around and they say, America? America, come on. How many bullets have we dodged?

How many times have we come up from when people said they're down and out? We survived 2000...9-11, was that 2001? We survived the recession of 2008. Come on, we've got the greatest military, we've got the greatest economy in the world. There's no way America can be brought down. There's no one that can stand against us. And look how good life is here.

If you listen to the news and the world end, the world end, no, the year end, the year end statistics on how the stock market has increased, you'd think this was the greatest time to live in history. And you know, every time I hear about how wonderful things are, how the economy has turned the edge, how people should be thrilled, I just feel a little cringe because I know.

I know what the Bible says, and I know when people say peace and safety, and everything looks great, when all the other signs are there. What may, what may lay around the corner whenever God determines. And that's the way it was in Sodom and Lot. He went out, he said, get out. His family wasn't going to listen to him. Verse 15, when the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, arise, take your wife, your two daughters, who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.

Now while he lingered, see that? It's like, ah, I don't want to leave it. This was a good life here. We had everything we needed. While he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand, in the hands of his two daughters, God being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. Yeah, God was merciful to Lot. Literally took him by the hand and said, get out of here.

And later over here in, in, later on in the chapter, it says that God remembered Abraham at that time. And it may well be for Abraham's sake that God saved Lot. He was living, he was living and he knew, but Lot had become quite enamored with society, and he had become quite enamored with the lifestyle of Sodom. So we look at, we look at Sodom, we learn something about it, we see kind of what the situation would be like when Christ Himself says, as in the days of Lot, we see something about society, we see something about Lot.

And it would admonish us when, if and when in our lifetimes, God says, get out, we'd better be ready. We'd better have our eyes wide open as to what the truth is. We may better not have been compromised with the world and believe all the songs and dance that they give us to think, yeah, this is okay, there's nothing wrong with that. We can't allow that to happen. God says very clearly, if you don't come out of her, He says, come out of her, my people, or you will partake in her punishment.

And God was merciful to Lot and said, I'll take you by the hand and get you out of here. Let's go over to Ezekiel, Ezekiel 16. Many times in Scripture, when God is talking to Judah and the house of Israel, He will compare them to Sodom and Gomorrah. And He'll talk about how those cities were, and here in Ezekiel 16 is one of those places where He's talking to Judah, and He talks about how Sodom is their sister.

Ezekiel 16, verse 49. We'll pick it up in verse 48 here, beginning of the paragraph. Verse 48, As I live, says the Lord God, neither your sister Sodom, nor her daughters, have done as you and your daughters have done. Look, verse 49. This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom.

She and her daughter had pride. They had fullness of food and abundance of idleness. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy. They were haughty. They committed abomination before Me. Therefore, God says, I took them away as I saw fit. This is the sin of Sodom. This is where it began. They were prideful. They looked around and they thought, who can compete with Sodom? Look at all we have. We have a great commerce. This is a great place to live. You can't find a better place to live than this.

As you looked around the world at that time, one of the areas that they were, it had all the conveniences. No one can defeat us. Even when we were defeated, it all came back. And here we've survived these many years. And as they became more prideful, and as they looked to themselves, and as they looked at how strong they were and what they were doing, they lost God.

They lost God. Because in a thriving economy, and when things are really going good, we can lose sight of God. We can begin thinking. Individually, we can begin thinking as a nation. It's our might that does this. It's our military. It's our wealth.

It's our stock market. The world looks to us. We've done all those things. Who needs God? Life is very, very, very good. It's their pride. Their haughtiness. Proverbs 16 verse 8...Proverbs 16 verse 18 says, pride comes before a fall, for pride comes before destruction. Sodom was destroyed. God says pride was the genesis or the...at the source of their sins. You can mark down in your notes there.

You can read it later from Romans 1, verses 20, down through the end of the chapter. You can see, and you can apply that to Sodom, and you can apply it to our nation today. And you can see the same thing happening again that happened in Sodom. Well, Lot somehow became not enamored with that society. He still believed in God. He still entertained. He knew enough that when the men came in, the angels came in to house them.

He knew enough to listen to them. He went to his son-in-laws and said, it's time to leave. But he still was torn. I really like it here. I don't really want to leave. If I can stay somehow, remember the story, even as God's going to take him out of the wilderness, he says, can I just go to the city over here?

And that didn't work out well either for him. But let's go back and look at a condition of people at the end time known as the Laodicean condition. Let's go back to Revelation 3. Look at a few verses that describe the Laodicean church, the Laodicean attitude. Back here in Revelation 3.

We'll pick it up in verse 17. And think about our country. Think about Lot. We've just talked about him as we read these verses. Verse 17, chapter 3, Revelation.

Because you say, I'm rich, I've become wealthy, I have need of nothing.

And God says, you don't know that you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Sodom, we're rich. We have need of nothing. We've got it all here. God says, you don't know you're miserable, poor, blind, naked. Your pride has blinded you. Your eyes are shut. You don't see what's going on around you. That was the condition of Sodom. Lot saw it to some extent. But the rest of the people couldn't see it. They didn't see, ah, this is wrong. God is God. God will have his way. What God says will happen, will happen. And people will live his way of life. They'll either choose it now, or they will choose it, or reject it after Christ returns.

Can we? We don't want to be people that are said, ah, look, it's a wonderful place. I want to be one foot in there and one foot in here. I can have it both ways here. I can be in the church and I can be in the world. Now, God says, open your eyes. See the condition of everything around you. Watch what's going on. Compare it to the Word of God, the Word that will last for eternity. And you make your judgment from its word, not from what you hear on the news, not from what you hear at people at work or the people at school or wherever else. You might be hearing people saying, this is all good, this is all right, this is exactly, this is society moving forward, this is the new age. No. That's the way it was, as in the days of Lot. And if it wasn't for God's mercy, Lot would have taken in the punishment of Sodom just as the rest of the people did.

But Lot is one person that faced the end of the age. He survived. The other one we read about was Noah. Noah. And Noah's circumstance was different than Lot's. He lived, he was the only one in the whole world that was living God's way of life. He was the only one in the whole world who walked with God and who paid attention and strove to live his life in accordance with his words. Let's go back to Genesis 6.

Genesis 6.

Remember Christ said, As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be, in the days before the coming of the Son of Man. And so you know the story of Noah. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it. Let's just draw your attention to a few things here.

Remembering that Christ says, As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be, in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. Let's look at verse 3. Genesis 6.3. God said, My Spirit will not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh. He is mortal. Yet his day shall be 120 years. Verse 4, There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.

Those were the mighty men, who were of old, men of renown. So we see a condition in the world at the time of Noah. God says, as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the time of the coming of the Son of Man. Now we see giants on the earth in those days. Now we've talked about this before a little bit, but we know what the Hebrew word for giants is translated there, and may indeed have been in Noah's day, giants. People that were 8, 9, 10, 12 feet tall. May well have been.

We know that when David was there, Goliath was a very tall man, and he lorded it over people. And if we had a giant among us, if there was a 10-foot man in America, he could probably lord it over a lot of people, and he could have dominion over them, and he could probably force his way through a lot of people and do a lot of things that are done.

But does it really? Do you really need to be 8, 9, 10 feet tall to have that happen? Can you be called a giant without being 10 feet tall? Because there are commentaries, and there are concordances that say that the Greek or the Hebrew word translated giant there could be translated tyrants. Giants among men. Giants among men. People who lorded over them. People who have their way and make them do what they want to do. We have political giants. The world has forever known political giants. That's been kind of the way of the world. Genghis Khan, I don't know how tall he was.

I dare say he wasn't 10 feet tall. But you know he was a giant on Earth, and he commanded those people, and they did exactly what he said if they wanted their life. Adolf Hitler was no by no means 8, 9, 10 feet tall. He was a giant on Earth in those days. He commanded what was going to happen, and he brought a whole nation down around him. And 6 million Jews died as a result of his ideas. He was a giant on Earth. We have corporate giants today. We have giants in a lot of society that they have power over us. Or in the past they have, I should say.

There were giants on the Earth in those days. It could well be. God says that, as it was in the days of Noah, it will be in the coming of the days of the Son of Man.

I don't see too many 10 feet people running around the Earth today. If they were, they should be playing in the NBA, right? Or the Orlando Magic. They could probably use a 10-foot person. But we don't see 10 feet people. And yet there will be giants on the Earth at the time that Jesus Christ returns. The beast power, it's a giant. It's a giant. People will be told, you bow down to this image of this beast power, or your head. Well, your head is coming off, to use an ISIS method here.

That's a giant. When he can command that much attention and wield his power over you. Let's go on to the next verse, and then I'll come back here, and we'll do a 20-year comparison again. Giants on the Earth in those days, and afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

And there can be some conversation about the sons of God and the daughters of men. And some people will say these are fallen angels who have come down, and they reproduced with women. And yet Jesus Christ said, angels don't marry. And Jesus Christ in Genesis, when he created Earth, he created kind after kind.

Cattle only begets cattle. Cattle can't reproduce with a horse. Man after man, his kind. And over and over in Genesis, you see kind after kind after kind. That's how it goes. Angels are a different kind than man. Man doesn't become angels when he dies. Angels and men are two different things in God's eyes.

So if angels could, if angels could marry, which Christ said they can't, and if they could reproduce, then God would be going against himself and the pattern that he set up in Genesis 1. And we would be seeing maybe some of the same things today, because Christ said, as it wasn't the days of the Son of Man, or as it was in the days of Noah, it will be in the days of the Son of Man. So we should see the same phenomena happening today.

Or was this, more realistically, just a natural phenomena here of man becoming just evil and corrupt and yielding to God, and becoming more and more sinful as each generation passed? Now let's do a 20-year comparison like we did with Sodom. Let's go back to 1995 and see where the world was in 19 or 20 years ago. In 1995, the Soviet Union had fallen. It was gone. Communism, the Cold War was over. America stood alone as the superpower of the earth. Everyone looked to us. There were no real giants. I guess the president was a giant, but America is a very accommodating nation and not a conquering nation and not one that is always looking out for its well-being and looking out for the well-being of others.

There were no giants on the earth in those days. They were gone. We might have had little giants in little regions in Iran and Iraq and things, but they weren't making a whole lot of world noise. In 1995, terrorism was alive and well. Iran and Iraq had their episodes. And here in 1995, the Oklahoma City Federal Building was bombed.

Timothy McVeigh, remember him? Homegrown terror, the greatest homegrown terror, at that time, tragedy in America. But by and large, America would be seen as a safe place. We didn't have giants on the world. The world looked pretty good at that time. America was the one leading the ship. America was who everyone looked to. Our enemies had pretty much fallen by the wayside. Twenty years later, where are we in 2015? Well, America is still up there at the top of the list, but our stock has fallen quite a bit over the last several years.

And today we have Russia back again. We have a man over in Russia. He doesn't happen to be a really tall man, but he looks like he could be a giant on earth. He looks like he could say some things and make some things happen that could really spell a problem for the world. He looks like he wants to put together the Soviet Union again. He looks like he wants to be a challenge to the West. It looks like he wants to partner and set up alliances with the Middle East and with China.

And he wants to counter America, who he has made no false pretense that he really has no respect for us. We're just something he has to deal with today. He's a burgeoning giant on the earth that we didn't see back in 1995, in fact, just the opposite. Today we have some burgeoning giants. ISIS is over there. We didn't even hear of ISIS a year ago. And they may not be the ultimate of what's going to happen in the Middle East, but they certainly are a step forward to Al Qaeda, who is still alive and well, as France found out this week and the rest of the world found out this week with their activities.

And we have these giant organizations who inflict pain and who inflict their will on people, much more so than we ever heard about in 1995, to the point that now that it's happened in Paris, in Australia, in Canada, now all the nations, all the English-speaking nations, are on high alert. If this could happen in these places, couldn't it happen here?

And the answer is yes. The answer is yes. You and I no longer live in a safe place like we did in 1995. In 1995, we weren't thinking, if we go out to Publix or we go out to the mall, we don't know what's going to befall us. We didn't know then, but we wouldn't have thought that there may be some terror plot or someone that would take us hostage or take a group of people hostage and create mayhem.

Today, we don't know that. No matter where we live, no matter where we go, we are always at risk for what someone may have planned. Because that's the world we live in. It's a much more violent place. It's a much more dangerous place to live now than it was in 1995.

We've gone through the 9-11 attacks. We've gone through the 2008 recession, and America has rebounded. But the world is a different place. And along with that rebounding that we do, there's a danger that can happen among that.

Let's go back to Genesis 6 and go on here and see what God said the world was like back at the time of Noah. We've seen some of the things and some of the people that were there and what society was like back at that time when these people, these giants, men of renown, mighty men who lorded it over people. Verse 5, God 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. They were not looking to do good. All they could think about was, what can we do? What can we do, as we'll see, to get advantage for ourself? Or what can we do to upend something? And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. So he said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found grace in God's eyes. He was living. In the midst of all this, he was living God's way of life. Verse 11, the earth was also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth and indeed it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. And behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Their iniquity was complete. God looked at the world and he said, I'm done with it. They won't turn back to me. The end of the age has come. Noah, I'm going to destroy the earth. So we see a picture of another picture of what the world would be like. Corrupt, violent, increasing brutality. Now, we don't even have to talk about corruption. I think there's more corruption than we can even imagine that goes on in the world around us today. I know in the industry I worked in for many years, I saw the corruption setting in. And I see it today and I hear it in peoples when they tell me the stories of what goes on. I see what's going on in health care. I know what's happening and it's not always what's best for the patient, but it's always what's best for a pocketbook of someone, not necessarily the patients. And that's just one industry. All of them, all of them have their corruption. And everyone is in it for what they can get and what they can get from you. Because that's the way of the world. That's the way that the world has become. And I don't think we even have the little bit of it. After services this morning in Ocala, one of the men there told me a story I wouldn't even repeat it here. But it fits right in line with what I'm talking about here and aside, I never had even had thought before. But the corruption runs deep and the violence we see running deep and we see it increasing year to year. Well, let's go back because they're paying the time where God said, enough. I've had enough of man. But let's get a picture of what the world was like at the time of Noah and we find that back in 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy 3.

Remembering again, God said, or Christ said, as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days before the Son of Man returns. 2 Timothy 1.

Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient, the parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness, we go to church every Sunday or once a year or so, but denying us power. From such, turn away.

Well, that describes the world in Noah's time. It describes the world in our time, too, doesn't it? Every single one of those adjectives, we can look at the world around us and say, that's us. And we know it was at the time of Noah because Christ said at the time of Noah, it's the same as it will be at the time before he returns. So we have a picture of what the world will be like when we look at Lot, when we look at Sodom, when we look at Noah, when we look at the world before the flood, in Gulf tongue. And we can see what Christ said, and we don't know. We can't set any dates. We can't say it will be this a date or now, a decade. I mean, it's God's determination. Only God will determine when he looks down and says, enough is enough, the people's iniquity is complete, they will not turn back to me, and I won't tolerate it anymore. It's God's decision. And then he will send Jesus Christ to return. The whole plan will be set in motion at that time.

But that's one part of it. We see the picture of the world that's going to be, what did Noah do? What did Noah do with the knowledge that the world that he knew, the entire world, every person, every animal, except those on the Ark, all society as he knew it was going to come to an end? Let's go back to Genesis 6 and see what God told Noah and how he responded.

Because that would be what we need to look at. As Paul says, the people upon whom the ends of the ages have come. And Noah's situation is different than Lot's. Lot, the men, the angels came in, and the very next day, if you will, Sodom was to be destroyed. But it wasn't the same as Noah's time. Noah's time, there was corruption and violence. Sodom had another sin that they were dealing with, and the message to Noah was a little different. Verse 14. God says in verse 13, I'll destroy the earth. Verse 14, Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, covered inside and outside with pitch. And then he goes through and he describes to Noah how he should build that ark. And do you remember how long Noah was building that ark? A hundred years. A hundred years. God said, Noah, the end of the earth has come. I'm fed up with man. They won't turn to me. I've given him every chance. We're going to start all over. And for one hundred years, Noah built that ark. One hundred years. The end, the flood wasn't going to come the next day. Noah built and Noah built, and he built it to exactly the specifications that God said, using every word and every measurement that he gave for a hundred years. And through all that time, the Bible tells us Noah was a preacher of righteousness. When people would come to him and ask, Noah, come on, what are you building this ark for? In the middle of dry land, no less. He told them why. He told them why. He didn't cover it up. He didn't lie. He wasn't ashamed of it. He told them, God's going to send the flood on earth. It's going to consume everything, because you departed from him. You won't pay attention to his way. You won't follow him. And because of your sin, you will perish. They didn't believe him. Not one person in that hundred years, as they watched Noah day in and day out, and his family go out and build that ark, not one person listened. Not one said, I think we have to make some...we have to listen to Noah. Maybe he's gotten to something here. They all closed their mind. They all rejected it. And they all perished. A hundred years Noah did that. That's a long time. I don't know that any of us in this congregation will even live to a hundred, but Noah worked on that ark for one hundred years of his life. Dutifully, following God's commands, patiently waiting for the time the flood would be there, going about God's work day in and day out. And he took abuse. You know people were laughing at him. They were scoffing at him. Come on, Noah. It's the world. The world's not going to come to an end. Let's go back to 2 Peter. 2 Peter, and we can see exactly what Noah went through in 2 Peter 3 and the attitudes that he had to face.

2 Peter 3. We'll pick it up in verse 3.

Remembering again, Christ said, As it was in the days of Noah, it will be in the days before the return of man. Verse 3, chapter 3, 2 Peter. Know this first, that scoffers will come in the last days. Walking according to their own lusts and saying, Where's the promise of his coming? Hey, Noah. You've been at this for 20 years. Where's the promise of his coming? Come on, Noah. It's been 60 years you've been working on this thing. Where's the promise of his coming? 80 years! Come on, Noah. Where's the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. And that's what people will say today. How many times have we heard about the end of the world? Y2K was a flop. We sailed right through it. Harold Camping's prophecies didn't amount to anything. The Mayan calendar showed it was just another calendar with a lot of hype around it.

How many times has the world heard, the world is ending? The world is ending. The world is ending. To the point that they will look at a message and say, really? Where's the promise of his coming? How many times have we heard this before? How many times do we have to hear it again? Maybe some of you. Maybe some of you young people think that. How many times are we going to hear this? The world is going to end, and yet day in and day out, everything just stays the same. It takes faith to believe God. Noah believed God for all of his life, and for 100 years he worked, and for 100 years he built that ark. Now, when the end came, because he knew it would surely come. Just like we know, surely this end will age, and surely Christ will come again. Surely we are on the road to the return of Jesus Christ. Only God knows when. You know what James Dobson said right before the Y2K? Non-event, if you will? Here's what he said. He said, if after the hype and doomsday predictions, Y2K enters with minimum problems, people will no longer pay attention to the end of the world. Hmm. It'll just become a novelty. It'll become something that makes good movies, makes for good news, makes for a good magazine article. Something to kind of watch, you know? But people don't really believe it's going to happen. And he was right. You know, Matthew 13, verse 15, it says, Christ says, My people have become dull of hearing. They're not listening anymore. They hear the words, but it's not sinking in. They've heard these things, but it's not sinking in. They're just not getting it. They're not understanding that the time will come and that they've been called to a purpose far greater than anything we can imagine. That Jesus Christ will return, and this age, this society, is going to come to an end. It can't survive. It's not built on a foundation of rock. It's built on a foundation of sand. It must fall. It will fall. It can't stand. And without Jesus Christ, it would fall, and every single human being would be obliterated in the process. God has given you and me a tremendous calling, a tremendous opportunity, just like Noah, who he said, build this ark. Do these things. The end of the age has come upon you. Let's go on here in 2 Peter 3. We hear people saying, really? When is this going to happen? We've heard about this forever. Verse 5, For this they willfully forget, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water, and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. What God is saying, it was by the word of God, the heavens and the earth were renewed, man was put on the earth, by his word, by his power, this came about. But the heavens and earth, which are now, I've missed verse 6, by which the world that then existed perished, God, God is the one who ended that society, that time when Noah lived, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth, which are now preserved, by the same word, remember we talked about God's power, sustaining the world, making sure that everything stays in place. The heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire, until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

That's what it's waiting for. Man will turn to God, or God will destroy the society, because the society without God cannot survive. A house built on sand cannot survive.

You know, Noah, for a hundred years, there's a difference. Lot, the next day, Lot, get out of here. The next day it was destroyed with fire and brimstone. Lot, or Noah, a hundred years, a hundred years.

The world doesn't see what's going on around it. If you listen, as I said, to the news in our day and age, the things that happen that make us look like or compare to Sodom are championed. Pat on the back. Good job. This is progress. This is moving forward. The corruption and the violence, we kind of think that we can offset it, but we see it growing and we're just not watching what's going on in the world around us. And we buried our heads in the sand as a nation. Let's go back to Isaiah 30. Isaiah 30 and verse 1.

Woe to the rebellious children, Isaiah 30, verse 1, says the Eternal, who take counsel, but not of me, who devise plans, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin. Their sin just increases. Year by year, it gets worse and worse, and it just grows. You and I are supposed to be the opposite. As we repent, believe, are baptized, are led by God's Holy Spirit, we should be becoming more and more like God year by year, less and less like the world, more and more like Him. If indeed we believe Him, and if indeed we will be where He wants us to be in the positions that He has for us, but the world goes just the opposite.

Sin adds to sin, adds to sin. So 20 years from now, if the world is still around, we'll be talking about what it was like in 2015 and saying, wow, look how much worse it is now. Okay. Who devise plans, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin. Who walk to go down to Egypt, and they haven't asked my advice to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of Egypt.

They look to each other. They look to each other. They don't ever look to God for help, for strength, for guidance. Therefore, the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame, and trust in the shadow of Egypt shall be your humiliation. You will fall by the things that you have sought. Verse 8. Go. Write it before them on a tablet, noted on a scroll that it may be for time to come forever and ever, that this is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of the Lord, who say to the seers, don't see.

And to the prophets, don't prophesy to us right things. Speak to us smooth things. Prophesy deceits. Get out of the way. Turn aside from the path. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. Tell us what we want to hear. We don't want to hear what the Bible says. We want to hear what you say. Tell us that things are going to get better and better and better. The economy is getting stronger and stronger and stronger. That we are getting stronger and stronger. No one can threaten us and get God out of the way. We don't want to hear anything from Him.

We just want to hear what you say. Tell us what we want to hear is the message of the time. Verse 12, therefore says the Holy One of Israel, Because you despise this word, and because you trust in oppression and perversity and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, a bulge in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant. A bulge in a wall.

You know, you can see a bulge in a wall. If you go home today and you see a bulge in your wall that wasn't there this morning, you might want to think, Hmm, there's something wrong that I should pay attention to. Because if that bulge keeps growing and keeps growing, what's going to eventually happen? It's going to burst. It's going to burst suddenly in an instant.

And you may think, man, I didn't see that coming, because you just got your mind accustomed to seeing that bulge. You weren't paying attention to it. And that's what God is saying. All the signs are there. Get your eyes open. See what's going on around you. The world isn't. The world is not paying attention to this stuff. They are not in tune with God's law.

They will tell you it's good when it's evil. They will tell you it's right when it's wrong. They'll tell you it's wrong when it's right. And if you listen to them, when God says, Enough is enough, it's going to come to you suddenly. It's going to come to the world suddenly. Because their eyes were closed. They weren't listening. They didn't pay attention. And none of us want to be in that situation. God didn't call us.

None of this should happen suddenly to us. We shouldn't wake up one day and see the world falling around. Or God, however he's going to, let us know what happens. And say, Whoa, that happened suddenly. I didn't see that coming. Because, you know, if we didn't see that coming, we've been asleep all the time. Because if our eyes are open, we see what's coming.

And if we think it's not coming, we may want to go home and we may want to ask God to open our eyes. And we may want to examine how we're living our lives and where our priorities are and where our beliefs are. To the world, it will come suddenly. In Noah's time, they had 100 years. 100 years, they watched Noah build that ark. 100 years, Noah answered, God is going to send a flood because this is a sinful generation.

They have turned from God, and he will not let society go on. He'll consume it with the flood. They watched the ark go from a piece of wood all the way up to a full-blown thing. They didn't believe him. But you know what? I bet every single person on earth was very surprised when the floodwaters came. And to them, it suddenly happened. All of a sudden, the waters came. Really? You had 100 years to see what was going on. 100 years! You heard that this was going to happen.

We have some years that God is showing. None of us, to none of us, suddenly wouldn't apply. To the world, it will apply. It'll take them by guard because they've been lulled to sleep, thinking everything is okay. The prophets, the seers, the economists, the newscasters, all the people that they look to, it's all good. It's all good. It's all wonderful.

We don't have anything to worry about. To them, it'll be suddenly. To us, it won't be suddenly, if we're living the right way. Okay. The world, the world, the way it was at the time of Noah. What did Noah do? We know that Noah built the ark, right? We know what the type of man Noah was like. I don't have to go through and explain to you that Noah was a righteous man.

As you read through Genesis, you'll be getting to Genesis, Noah's account here this week, as you read through Genesis. You know that he was a just man. He was a righteous man. He lived by God's way of life. He had faith in God. He believed him. For a hundred years, he built that ark.

He knew and he absolutely believed the end was coming. He had all those things, and he was patient with God. And he faithfully did what God asked him to do down to the detail. He built that ark. And when that ark was ready, and God was ready, then the waters came. All those things that God did with Noah, he asked him to build an ark. Noah did it.

We need to be doing the same thing. One thing about Noah. You know what he was building that hundred years? He was building the ark that was going to keep him above the floodwaters. Now, God was his salvation. God told him what to do. God gave him the parameters and instructions. But Noah was building his salvation, the vehicle by which God would save him from one world into the other. If he had decided midway through the project, it's just, you know what? I don't feel like doing this anymore. Come on. I've been doing it for 50, 60 years. What if I take a month or two off? Would the ark have been ready when God was ready?

No. What if he had decided to use a different type of wood? That the parameters were just too big. Who needs an ark that big? I can scale it down a little bit. That'll be fine, right? Now, he built for a hundred years exactly what God said, and he built it to exactly God's specifications. We've talked about in the last few weeks what God is building in us, right? He's building a temple in us individually, and he wants it built to his specifications.

Not our ideas, not saying, I'll do it 50% of the way God said. I'll do it with half a heart. I'll do it with all my heart. He's building a temple in us individually, and he's building a temple among his church that he will return to. He'll be our salvation. It'll be because of him, and what we allow him to build in us as we yield to him that sees us from this age into the next.

It won't be anything we do. It'll be what he does as we build and we dedicate our lives to letting him build in us and as we make the choices to build the temple that he's building in us, just as Noah dedicated his life to building that ark.

Two more verses and then I'll stop. Philippians 2. Philippians 2, 12. Read this in line of us, but also read it in line of what Noah did and how patient and how faithful and how believing and how obedient he was to God. Verse 12, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Always fear God, always tremble before him, always know that he is going to do what he says and that he will provide what we need. He will give us the strength, he will give us the development, he will give us the power to overcome ourselves and become like him. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure.

Let me conclude with Christ's words that I think summarize everything we've talked about today. Luke 21.

Luke 21, verse 34. Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come upon you unexpectedly, for it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch, therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man.