What's So Important about the Days of Noah?

What Do the Days of Noah Have to Do with End-Times?

Jesus said concerning His Second Coming that no man, no angel, not even Jesus Himself knows the day or the hour of His return. Only the Father God knows it. But, one thing Jesus did tell us was that His coming would be like the days of Noah. What did Jesus mean by that? What were the days of Noah like? That’s what we are going to take a look at in this weeks Light on Life.

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Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put into operation.
This weeks call is:

Jesus is coming again. That’s a Bible fact. It’s as real a fact as Jesus first coming was. But just like Jesus first coming, there were many who didn’t believe it. The same is true of His Second Coming. Where are you in these truths?

Join the Conversation

Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believers life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
This week’s question is:

Question: The Great Tribulation is no cake walk. Jesus likened that time to the days of Noah. How does that thought motivate your heart to live solely for God? Please leave your comments in the comments section below.

Episode Resources

You can find more information on the subject of the End Times by clicking on the links above.

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 37 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate it on Stitcher Radio and leave a review. If you have a suggestion for a Bible topic you would like to see taught, or if you have a question, please e-mail me at emery@emeryhorvath.com

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Podcast Notes

Review

In this series, we have made it through the Tribulation and just into the first day or so of the Millennial Reign of Jesus.
Just to recap, the Lord is coming back a second time.

Jude 14–15 (KJV) — 14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, 15 to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

When He comes, the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his saints.
That’s what the book of Revelation says.

Revelation 19:11, 14 (KJV) — 11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war… 14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

Revelation and Jude Together Identify the Army which Comes Back with Jesus

Revelation identifies the army that follows Jesus by their style of clothing: fine clean white linen.
But of course, this could mean angels or it could be the saints of God
Jude distinctly identifies the same army as the saints of God.
The saints are coming back with Jesus and they have a job to do when they come.
They are going to execute judgment on the ungodly.
They will convince the ungodly of their ungodly deeds.
The Greek word ‘convince’ means to convict that is to prove or show to be guilty.
In the podcast, ‘Who Makes It Out of the Tribulation?’, we saw that the first order of business for the Jesus, the new King of planet earth, was to send out the angels to separate the ungodly out from the godly.
Once the ungodly are separated, they are brought to judgment before the saints.
That’s what Jude is saying.
This is all part of early life in the Millennium.
The saints of God get to enjoy the 1000 year reign of Jesus.
The unrighteous are separated out and judged.
Think about that.
The unrighteous who make it through the awful judgments of the Tribulation does not get to enjoy the peacefully perfect Millennial reign of Jesus.
The Bible likens these events leading up to the coming of Jesus as the days of Noah.
What did Jesus mean by that statement?

The Days of Noah

Matthew 24:36–39 (KJV) — 36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. 37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Luke’s version has this to say.

Luke 21:34–36 (KJV) — 34 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. 35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

But the period of time right before the Coming of Jesus is likened unto the days of Noah.
To understand what Jesus meant, we need to go back to the book of Genesis and see exactly what the days of Noah were like.

Corruption and Violence during the Days of Noah

Genesis 6:11–15 (KJV) — 11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. 13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

Two characteristics which marked this period of time are located in verse eleven, the earth was corrupt and it was filled with violence.
The text emphasizes the word ‘corrupt’ by using it three times in verses eleven and twelve.
So, three times we have the earth is corrupt, it’s corrupt, it’s corrupt.
now, all we have to do is find out what ‘corrupt’ means.
Does it just mean unethical, or does it have a further meaning?
The Hebrew word ‘corrupt’ does mean to be lacking in integrity or uprightness.
But, it also means something else.
It means “to be damaged, spoiled, ruined”.¹
In fact, the Dead Sea Scrolls translates ‘corrupt’ as ‘ruined.’

A Ruined Earth

The earth was ruined but not according to the 6 o’clock news.
The scripture says it was ruined in God’s sight.
God’s estimation of the goings on planet earth during the days of Noah is that the whole thing is in ruins.
We would say ‘jacked up’ in modern vernacular.
So now, you can understand something about the Flood.
It wasn’t the Flood that wasted the earth.
It was already wasted by sin and disobedience.
The spiritual always comes before the physical.
So, the Flood was a physical manifestation of a spiritual conclusion.
Meaning, the earth was decimated long before the Flood waters ever hit it.

The Days of Noah: Zero Moral Integrity

Lack of integrity always brings society to a place of ruin, that’s a fact.
So, here we have an entire planet full of humans with zero moral integrity.
Remember, this is back in the days of Noah.
Jesus said, ‘My coming will be like those days.’
Lying was the norm during these corrupt days of Genesis six.
The entire social structure was swimming in a pool of shady deals.
Who could you trust?
No one.
You go out into the fields to work your land and someone is coming in the back door stealing what you’ve got.
Zero moral integrity, did you get that?

The Days of Noah: Violence in Every Corner

Mix this lack of integrity with copious amounts of violence.
The scripture states that the earth was ‘filled’ with it.
The Hebrew word ‘filled’ means to be full or become containing as much or as many as is possible or normal.
I mean it wasn’t 99% violent or 98%, it was 100% violent everywhere.
The gauge was pegged.
Feuds were brewing everywhere.
It’s the Rosen’s against the Klein’s.
You know that’s the Jewish version of the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s.
Everybody was sniping at everyone else.
Serial killers roamed the earth in hordes.
There wasn’t a bad side of town in Noah’s day.
Every side was bad.
Every section of every city was filled up with as much violence as it could possibly contain.
The word ‘violence’ is a third word that we should look at.
It means violence as an act of aggression; especially involving physical contact.
Muggings, murders, rape, gang assaults are crimes of physical contact.
No neighborhood was safe.
It was dog eat dog with the greatly corrupt preying on the weak and the frail.
No one was safe.
There was no peace.

The Days of Noah: Wrong Sex

That’s what the days of Noah were like.
We haven’t even talked about the sexual perversion piece yet.
Throw that into the mix.
Men were having sex with angels.
Go back a couple of verses in chapter six and you’ll see that.

Genesis 6:1–4 (KJV) — 1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. 4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

So in every way that sin could express itself through a human, that’s what the days of Noah were like.

Even the Animals Were Evil

The scripture says ‘all flesh had corrupted its way.’
All flesh would include animal flesh.
The entire cycle of life was out of kilter.

Genesis 1:29–30 (KJV) — 29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Man in the Garden Enjoyed a Meatless Diet

Back in Genesis, one man was given herbs, plants and the fruit of trees as meat for their table.
Adam and Eve didn’t eat rib-eye in the Garden of Eden.
They didn’t hunt for game.
They didn’t kill animals for food and clothing.
As far as the text states they were vegetarian.
The Garden of Eden didn’t have tree stands in them.
I am not saying that the Bible teaches that we should be non-meat eaters.
That’s not what I am saying.
But, think about what heaven is going to be like for a moment.

Eventually the Wolf and the Lamb Will Enjoy Peace

Isaiah 11:6 (KJV) — 6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, And the leopard shall lie down with the kid; And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them.

Isaiah 65:25 (KJV) — 25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, And the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: And dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.

Did you hear that?
The lion and lamb and the wolf are all going to lay down together.
The lion is going to go back to eating straw instead of meat.
Well if the lion is going to do that and there shall be no hurt nor destruction in all of God’s mountain, that means man will also go back to a Pre-Flood diet which didn’t contain meat.
So, this evil time period we read about in Genesis six and the Flood that followed it changed all of that.
On the other side of the Flood God says these words to Noah.

Genesis 9:3–4 (KJV) — 3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. 4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

Life as Normal: Eating, Drinking, and Marriage

Matthew 24:38–39 (KJV) — 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Jesus said the people of planet earth during the days of Noah were eating, drinking and marrying.
That means that people had acclimated to the moral morass of the day.
Evil was the new normal.
Even though the standards of conduct were sinfully bad, people enjoyed the normal pursuits of everyday life.
They pursued eating and drinking which is just life in any moral climate since the Curse came into the earth.
They ate, they drank, they married, they courted, they built families.
The people in the days of Noah were no different than the people of our day.
We get up, we go to work, we exchange our time for money so we can eat and drink and support family.
None of these things was the real problem.
It is all very normal.
The telling problem comes in verse thirty-nine, ‘they knew not.’

Unaware of God or His Time Line

The Greek word ‘knew not’ is the word ‘ginosko’ which means to not perceive to be unaware, to not know.
So, in the days of Noah, the people were not aware that there was a Flood coming.
Only the people who lived in Noah’s vicinity would have known and seen the huge boat-like structure he was building.
People in other parts of the world were removed from that happening.
There was no Internet, no evening news, no social media.
News traveled really really really snail level slow.
People were going along with their normal self-centered, family-centered, sin-centered, ‘eating and drinking and marrying’-centered lives until one day it began to rain and rain and rain and it refused to stop.
The Flood came and took away a clueless people who had no thought of what God might be thinking or that there was even a God.
The Flood came suddenly to an unprepared people.
Think about all of this in the light of Jesus words in Matthew twenty-four.
Remember where these words are in the prophetic timeline of End-Time events.
Jesus said the days of His Second Coming, which are after the Tribulation, would be like the days of Noah.

Putting All of This Together

So think about that.
The Judgments of the Tribulation period are falling.
The earthquake’s are rocking the planet.
The famines and the pestilences are rolling in.
The waters are turning to Blood.
The wildlife in the seas is dying.
The Anti-Christ, the Beast, and the False Prophet are parading on the stage of world news.
The stock market has crashed and brought it’s devotees to ruin.
And what are the people of planet earth doing?
They are accepting all of this as the new normal.
Earth’s population has acclimated to the carnage of the age and are going on with their lives.
While they are cursing God, they are clueless about the Second Coming of Jesus.
They are unaware.
The ungodly do not know.
They are hard of hearing and completely blind.
The choice for them is indifference.
Dante once said,

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in a time of great moral crisis.”

The Problem of Indifference

“In Germany, they first came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Next, they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Finally, they came for me—and by that time no one was left to speak up” (Martin Niemöller, a German pastor, a victim of the Nazi concentration camp).²
What’s the point of this illustration?
The hottest places in hell are reserved for the indifferent.
Kitty Genovese was a young woman who was murdered in a New York residential section while at least 38 neighbors watched from their windows. During the course of the 30-minute assault, no one even telephoned the police.³
That’s what the days of Noah were like and that’s what the days of Jesus return will be like.
People who are indifferent and because they are indifferent they are unaware.
But the indifferent won’t possess the ability to blame their lack of awareness on slow snail mail.
- The Internet is now on the scene.
- Social media makes knowledge available with laser like speed.
No, these people are unaware because they choose to be.
They choose to eat, drink, marry and give in marriage and so the day of the Lord comes upon them as a thief in the night.
Don’t be that person today.
You can’t put God on a shelf.
You can’t ignore Him, He is not going away.

Why It’s Important to Flow in Faith’s Domain

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References:

William David Reyburn and Euan McG. Fry, A Handbook on Genesis, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1998), 154. ↩
Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 203. ↩
Galaxie Software, 10,000 Sermon Illustrations (Biblical Studies Press, 2002). ↩

emeryhorvath.com

Equipping people to pursue God's glory

What’s So Important about the Days of Noah?

Podcast: Light on Life Season Five Episode Seven

by Emery Horvath

Listen to the Audio

Click Play to Listen | Right Click to Download | Subscribe in Stitcher Radio

Read the Notes

Accept the Challenge

Jesus is coming again. That’s a Bible fact. It’s as real a fact as Jesus first coming was. But just like Jesus first coming, there were many who didn’t believe it. The same is true of His Second Coming. Where are you in these truths?

Join the Conversation

Question: The Great Tribulation is no cake walk. Jesus likened that time to the days of Noah. How does that thought motivate your heart to live solely for God? Please leave your comments in the comments section below.

Episode Resources

You can find more information on the subject of the End Times by clicking on the links above.

About Emery

Subscribe to the Podcast

Share the Love

Podcast Notes

Review

Revelation and Jude Together Identify the Army which Comes Back with Jesus

The Days of Noah

Corruption and Violence during the Days of Noah

A Ruined Earth

The Days of Noah: Zero Moral Integrity

The Days of Noah: Violence in Every Corner

The Days of Noah: Wrong Sex

Even the Animals Were Evil

Man in the Garden Enjoyed a Meatless Diet

Eventually the Wolf and the Lamb Will Enjoy Peace

Life as Normal: Eating, Drinking, and Marriage

Unaware of God or His Time Line

Putting All of This Together

The Problem of Indifference

Listen to the Audio

Click Play to Listen | Right Click to Download | Subscribe in Stitcher Radio

Read the Notes

Accept the Challenge

Jesus is coming again. That’s a Bible fact. It’s as real a fact as Jesus first coming was. But just like Jesus first coming, there were many who didn’t believe it. The same is true of His Second Coming. Where are you in these truths?

Join the Conversation

Question: The Great Tribulation is no cake walk. Jesus likened that time to the days of Noah. How does that thought motivate your heart to live solely for God? Please leave your comments in the comments section below.

Episode Resources

You can find more information on the subject of the End Times by clicking on the links above.

About Emery

Subscribe to the Podcast

Share the Love

Podcast Notes

Review

Revelation and Jude Together Identify the Army which Comes Back with Jesus

The Days of Noah

Corruption and Violence during the Days of Noah

A Ruined Earth

The Days of Noah: Zero Moral Integrity

The Days of Noah: Violence in Every Corner

The Days of Noah: Wrong Sex

Even the Animals Were Evil

Man in the Garden Enjoyed a Meatless Diet

Eventually the Wolf and the Lamb Will Enjoy Peace

Life as Normal: Eating, Drinking, and Marriage

Unaware of God or His Time Line

Putting All of This Together

The Problem of Indifference

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