Matthew 24
36 "But of that
day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the
Father alone.
37 "For the
coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.
38 "For as in
those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving
in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,
39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Here Jesus introduces a mysterious future day that He calls the “coming of the Lord”. He has already answered the questions that His disciples posed to Him after He left the Temple Mount and went up to the Mount of Olives. He's told them about the signs of the end of the age and His second coming and the arrival of the Kingdom.
And then, as He answered all those questions and came to the end, He goes forward into His explanation of other events that are associated with the end times, events that His disciples didn't ask Him about because this was something they had never even heard about.
Jesus referred to this new event as “that day,” and He did so to distinguish it from all of the previous events He had just described in this discourse. And there were several unique aspects about this day, most especially what He says in verse 36, that this is a day that will have no warning signs.
And that was very different from the previous things He described in this discourse. All of the previous events that He has so far described, they all had multiple warning signs. And that's how we know that He is now transitioned into talking about something completely different, something that is new and not what He had already described earlier in this chapter.
And then as He moved forward in verses 37 through 39, He gives us a point of reference, an event back in history that's intended to help us understand the circumstances surrounding this future day when it comes.
He said, “The arrival of this day will be just like the days of Noah before the flood came.” Notice Jesus said, “Just like,”. In other words, just as things were in Noah's Day, they will be again in the days leading up to the coming of the Lord, and that means He's expecting us to make that comparison. Jesus is expecting us to dissect the circumstances of Noah and look for parallels to what we see in the world at the time of the coming of the Lord.
Now, Noah's Day involved people living an ordinary, normal, optimistic life, looking forward to the future, eating, drinking and giving into marriage and so on. They were oblivious at that time to the approaching flood that would soon bring God's judgment upon them.
So that tells us that the coming of the Lord will take place in an age when judgment is fast approaching and the world doesn't see it. What's ironic is the Bible actually says that the world should have learned something from Noah's experience so that they would know that an end was coming. There’s a passage in which Peter tells us this very idea.
2 Peter 3:3, Peter says,
2 Peter 3:3 Know this
first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking,
following after their own lusts,
2 Peter 3:4 and
saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers
fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation."
2 Peter 3:5 For when
they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens
existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water,
2 Peter 3:6 through
which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.
2 Peter 3:7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
So Peter says that in the last days you'll be in the place in a world in which people are mocking the very notion of Judgment Day, of the idea that Jesus is ever going to come back. And Peter says, “They ought to know better. They ought to remember Noah’s story.” That is, they should remember that if God could bring judgment upon the ungodly without notice using a flood, then He could do it again. And He will.
The second thing we learned from Noah’s story is that Noah and his family did know that a judgment was coming. Even though the world was ignorant, God's people were not ignorant. They knew it was coming, and as a result they took on preparations.
So you have the world oblivious to their fate, and you have God's people knowing the judgment is coming and preparing to escape it in a way that God provides through the safety of an ark.
And that offers us another comparison to our day – while the world will be oblivious to its pending fate, believers will know that the end of the world is coming because we were given signs to watch for. Hence, we too, should be preparing for our escape.
Third point of comparison: In Genesis 6 we're told that in the days leading up to the flood, the world was utterly wicked and bent on self-destruction.
Gen 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And what was worse about that time was that the evil of the world also included demons infiltrating and corrupting the human race and leaving their proper station to take human women and use them to produce an ungodly form of offspring. The product of this unholy union is a grotesque race of giant humans called Nephilim in the Bible, and they add to the depravity of the human race in that time.
And so you have the wickedness of the world so great and so persistent that it necessitated a flood. It was the only way God could cleanse the earth of the magnitude of the evil in Noah's day.
In verse 38, Jesus says life in the last days would be just like the days of Noah - people eating, drinking, giving into marriage, which didn’t mean it was carefree and wholesome. Far from it. Those eating and drinking – what that means, in part, is ungodly to an extreme and demonically influenced.
Paul describes the same period this way in 2 Timothy 3:1:
2 Tim 3:1 But realize
this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
2 Tim 3:2 For men will
be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient
to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
2 Tim 3:3 unloving,
irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of
good,
2 Tim 3:4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
Now, as you hear what's in store for the last days and as you think about the comparison to Noah's time, it’s hardly surprising that you're left feeling a little depressed or maybe worried about your future. I mean, we're still here, and even after we're gone, we'll have children here, or grandchildren here for some time.
And so as you think about what the Bible says the last days will be like, you might be left thinking, “I wish we could go back to the good old days.” Or maybe you're wondering, “How long will we have to endure these things before we’re rescued? How do I get through all of these things?” When the question we should be asking is, “How do I make the most of this time and opportunity?”
At this point, it would be helpful to find out how Noah addressed his circumstances as the godly man living through his times, because, after all, Jesus said that's our example.
So how did Noah deal with his circumstances? How did he make the most of his opportunity? How did he feel? Well, it depends on which way Noah was facing.
If Noah turned his focus to the evil of the world that surrounded him, it's easy to imagine he probably lived in terror. He probably had dread and disgust at everything he saw. The truth of what Noah faced in his day is nothing like what we're facing today.
We have never known a world yet that is filled continually with evil hearts everywhere, living together with demonic creatures among us. Noah probably took a risk every time he walked outside his home.
He probably was watching his back for an attack at any time. He had to avert his eyes from gross immorality all around him. He probably slept with a weapon near his bed. He probably routinely had to run thieves off his property.
Noah was living in difficult times with a degree of evil unparalleled in anything we've seen on earth up to this point. With what he would have seen around him, it would have weighed heavily on him. For 120 years he was living under these circumstances.
None of us is going through that – 120 years is a long time to suffer in a world of continually evil hearts everywhere. If Noah had focused his attention on that sad state of affairs, he would no doubt be worrying, he would have had anxiety and frustration and anger and all the rest.
And I would also imagine that many of us are feeling some of those same things today as we look at what we see in our world, even though our world isn't equal to Noah's yet. Still, we're fretting over the world becoming the way it is now, over evil getting the upper hand.
Maybe you're one of those who writes angry posts on your facebook page, on your whatsapp and telegram groups all day, hoping to tell everyone what they need to know. Or maybe you joined the protests somewhere you know where trying to make the world a better place.
Perhaps there were days when Noah and his family too felt the desire to lecture the world about their sin or to fight against the depravity that was all around them. But that wasn’t the mission God gave Noah.
God didn't ask Noah to fix the world. God told Noah, “I'm going to destroy the world. You need to build an ark.”
And building the ark was not merely a matter of personal preservation for Noah and his family. It was the way Noah was going to save the world.
By building an ark, Noah ensured that he and his entire family would survive the flood along with all the animals, obviously, because if there had not been any animals, humanity couldn't have survived. So between his family and the animals, Noah was saving the world for a future, better place that God was about to prepare following judgment.
And that is the irony here. The way Noah saves the world from the evil that was all around him is by letting it be what it is, and letting God take care of that. Meanwhile, he builds an ark. He prepares for what God told him is coming.
Noah had to move his attention and focus away from the world toward the mission of building the ark. Building the ark gave Noah his life meaning and purpose beyond anything he had ever known.
Think about it - whatever Noah may have accomplished prior to the moment he started building the ark, no one knows Noah. Building the ark was the defining moment of Noah’s life, for good reason. Noah was a man who received a God-given mission in the midst of the saddest state humanity had ever known.
Every time he woke up in the morning, Noah could look out at the world and grow despairing or depressed or angry, or he could look at the construction site that he was involved in and he could suddenly understand why that world needed this solution.
And he had a reason to get out of bed every day. And when his eyes might one day catch a glimpse of the world falling apart, it just gave him more urgency, just gave him more reason to do what he's doing.
Perhaps that’s how we should look at the world we live in today, because even if our world isn't as bad as Noah's Day yet, the circumstances certainly parallel. And if our days are evil, to a degree, like Noah's, and you focus your attention on the world's deterioration - if you get up every morning concerned with what you see going on outside your window, then you too are going to feel isolated and frightened and hopeless.
You need to take your eyes off of a crumbling world and fix them squarely on your mission, just as Noah focused his attention on the ark.
And just to be clear, our mission is not to fix this world. Our mission is not trying to fix something that God Himself has just told us in His Word that He is going to destroy. Our mission is to prepare to help people escape the world and prepare to enter the new one that is coming.
We are offering the world an ark, the ark of Jesus. And when someone enters that ark by faith, they too are rescued. That is our mission. And when we turn our attention away from the world's troubles and onto that mission, we will find purpose.
Our work at times will be hard. But you know what? Building an ark wasn't easy. In fact, that was probably the hardest thing Noah was ever called to do. And at the same time, the world is still going to be evil.
Our work in this fashion is not designed to stop the world's evil. The fact is, the world is going to get worse. But that's just motivation to keep working harder on the mission to rescue all that more people. As Paul says in Ephesians 5:16, we will be making the most of our time knowing that the days are evil.
When we go back to the story of the flood shortly before the flood came upon the earth, God told Noah that it was time for him and his family to enter into the ark with all of the animals.
Gen 7:13 On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark,
Notice that they entered the ark on the very same day, and not just them. The Scripture goes on to say that the animals went in on that same day as well. And then in Genesis 7:16, we're told that the Lord Himself closed that door. Everybody else was inside. There was no one to do it except God Himself. He shuts this gigantic door supernaturally and seals it closed so that everyone who was inside was now prevented from leaving. And everyone who was outside was prevented from entering.
And Noah and his family and those animals waited in the ark a full seven days before the flood came. In Genesis 7:7, we're told,
Gen 7:7 Then Noah and
his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him entered the ark because of
the water of the flood. (Then verse 10.)
Gen 7:10 It came about after the seven days, that the water of the flood came upon the earth.
They had to spend a full week waiting for the flood while inside the boat. Why not just be told to get in the boat the day before? Why seven days? Well, both of these details were telling us even more about the circumstances under which the day of this coming of the Lord will take place.
So Noah's family entered the ark prior to the flood. Notice here it’s before the flood - not in the middle of the flood, not halfway into the flood - prior to the flood, they entered the ark. And in that same way, the coming of the Lord will happen before the coming of God's judgment. As in 2 Peter 2:9, we're told,
2Pe 2:9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,
He knows how to separate the two and give each their own destiny. So our rescue will take place before the Lord moves to bring judgment on the earth. In fact, notice how Noah's family was safely in the ark for seven days before. Similarly, our rescue will proceed God's judgment for a period of seven.
Now we know that the tribulation is a seven-year period on the earth. It's the last seven years of this age before the second coming of Christ, and at His second coming, He brings judgment. Paul told us that the Lord will come from heaven to rescue the Church from the wrath to come.
So Noah's seven days sitting in that ark before the floodwaters is a picture of our rescue happening seven years or so before the judgment of God comes on the earth. And then, at the end of those seven years, Jesus returns, and we're with Him, and the world is mourning at that moment because they're the ones under judgment, similar to the world mourning as the rain began to fall. And remember, when the judgment happens, we are with Jesus. We are witnesses to the judgment on earth at the second coming of Christ, although we're not caught up in it.
Likewise, that's pictured by Noah: Noah was on the earth in a boat, watching the floodwaters come, watching the judgment hit the world. And yet he was safely in that ark. He could see it without it affecting him. And then, lastly, just as everyone in Noah’s day entered that ark on the same day, similarly, when it's time for the Lord to bring this day about, all who are in God's family will enter on the same day, in the same moment. No believer will be left out. We all experience the same rescue.
That moment will be a dividing line for all humanity, just as Noah's ark in his day made very clear, who was being rescued and who was not. There will be two groups of humanity in this future moment. That is those who are safely in the ark of Jesus and those then who are being rescued and those who are not in Jesus and will be left behind. And at that moment, there will be no going back. There will be no exceptions. There will be no appeals, and there will be no doubt who was protected and who was not.
We've been put on notice and the flood is still 120 years away. Maybe the end that we're all anticipating is still a long way off. That doesn't change our mission. Noah couldn't wait until the last 10 years to start building the ark. He needed all 120 years. And whether we live out to the end of this age or whether we're simply here for a while before the end comes, either way, we're participating in the work of a mission that needs to be done every day between now and when the end comes.
So yes, judgment is fast approaching. But God has planned a rescue for us, and as we await our rescue, the world around us is going to become increasingly evil – so don’t lose heart over it, don’t wring your hands over it, it's going to happen, you heard it here first from the Bible, the world's going to get worse, and it's OK. Because that is part of God's plan.
And we're to focus our attention on the mission of preparing for the next world, not trying to preserve this one. And we know that we serve God in a mission that He gives us in the midst of the last days, and that should give us a greater urgency and, for that matter, a greater excitement about what it is we're here to do.
So, rather than being depressed or angry or discouraged by the days you live in, let that fill you with purpose, and to a degree, joy, because you move your eyes off the world and onto Jesus and onto the people that He wants to rescue through the plan of the Gospel.
We need to be building the ark and stuffing it with as many passengers as we can. We need to be preaching the Gospel, sharing the truth, being a witness in these dark times. That is the way you establish optimism and hope in your heart, while looking at a world that is falling apart around you.
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