HG139pt8 Matthew 24:36-51, Mark 13:32-37, Luke 21:34-38, Luke 12:41-48
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36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. 37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38 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, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. 42 Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
45 “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. 47 Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. 48 But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, 51 and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
This morning we had a look at the parable of the fig tree and we will finish this chapter with some remarks on the next.
Something is coming that this world is unprepared for and that is the Second Advent of Christ. It will come like a tsunami, which instead of a flood of water as deluged this world a few thousand years ago, will the next time be a flood of God’s wrath in glory, power and fire.
I’ve chosen this imagery because of who this passage is speaking of; Noah. The way Jesus speaks of this is not only in some symbolic way but historically as a literal event. It matters not that scientists think that the extinction of the dinosaurs was 65 million years ago we know that it did not happen until after the flood. We know that the promise given to Noah and his family, and by extension, us, was that of a rainbow which meant that God will no longer flood the whole world again. Some people have tried to explain away the notion of a world-wide flood as something impossible and tried to localise it to a particular area. The problem is that God’s promise is broken if he only flooded a portion of the world for, even in our time, we have seen a literal tsunami spread across the ocean and kill nearly a quarter of a million people in a day. Of course, for us who are familiar with the story of creation we know that the whole world was covered by water until the 3rd day:
9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.
So, the world can be completely flooded, even before the devastation of Noah’s day which was like a renewed creation when the waters receded.
37
Here in verse 37 it says that as it was in Noah’s day so shall it be when Jesus comes back. The story of the flood is from from Genesis 6.
It says of that time:
5 When the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, 6 the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was deeply grieved. 7 Then the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.”
The pre-flood people gave themselves over to every vile affection of the flesh. They were so bad that God determined to destroy everyone. God was grieved for He loved people but they had no desire for Him, just for themselves and their passions. And yet God does not judge people until their sin is full. There is a point in time, unknown to us, where God’s patience runs out and then He lets out His fury. If our God is a lovey-dovey God then we do not truly know Him. God’s love has nothing to do romantic love but is a choice He has made to love us with an everlasting love. But God is also a God of justice and wrath. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
That description of Noah’s day could easily describe things today. The fullness of sin has not yet been reached for we know that when the Church is raptured then lawlessness on an enormous scale will be let loose. We are called bigots by those who disagree with us if in relation to homosexuality or transgender or abortion or so on. The only bigotry allowed today is against a bible-believing Christian. This is nothing new, of course. When Lot lived in Sodom he was accused of being judgemental yet we have no evidence that he ever spoke up but he did live a righteous life. If you are not for them they consider that you are their judge. They try to repress you with accusations and tolerance for you and I are no longer there. They do not like being told they’re wrong or that God thinks what they do is wrong, Even so, they have the opportunity to be saved.
What was Noah’s day like? What is today like? There are scientists today who advocate that an animal’s life is more important than a humans. Some are advocating aborting a baby even after they are born into the world especially if they are malformed or disabled or has down syndrome because they simply are not human according to the British Medical Journal’s Journal of Medical Ethics in May 2013 for they are still fetuses. They have less value than a chimpanzee. (Peter Singer, Bioethics Tutor)
What was Noah’s day like? What is today like?
24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
The regular question is: are people born this way? Well, no, but all are born sinners. You know that recently they have completely debunked the idea people are gay through genetics, that there is no gay gene, something that we have been told for years exists. The desires we have come from within, out of the heart which is deceitful above all things:
21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
The city of Sodom is where we get the word sodomy from but we also read other things about Sodom in:
49 Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. 50 And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit.
Pride marches are aptly named. They were lazy too, the kind who are on benefits because they make no effort or who propagate the short working week and didn’t care about anyone except themselves. But people are warned about this too, in
6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;
What about Noah? I mentioned this morning that he is an example to me. He preached for 120 years without a convert. And what was his message? A flood is coming. Judgement is coming. Get on the boat! How the people laughed at him. But we read in
5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;
A preacher of righteousness. Until then there had been no rain, no flood, no need for a boat in the desert. They ignored him, ridiculed him, said don’t be daft, don’t preach hell and damnation for God is not like that. Your sermons are too dark. But for 120 years Noah and his family built the boat to salvation according to the dimensions God gave him. Can you hear the hammer and nails getting it ready? In their hearing and in their sight Noah was preaching judgement, the kind of Apocalypse I have been telling you about in Revelation, except the judgement of the future will be so much worse.
What were the days of Noah like? It was pretty normal and ordinary. They were eating and drinking. Anyone do that yesterday and today? Anyone here get married or give away a son or daughter in marriage. Nothing strange. Nothing obviously wrong with these things, surely. Yet it was on such a day that a drop of rain fell on the nose of someone, and water came up from under the ground and soon they were up to their ankles, their knees, and soon they were banging on the ark but just as an unexpected tsunami took away around 240,000 souls in 2004, this one took them all away.
The people today do not want to hear. Maybe some even here do not want to. But in the final days there will be over 144,000 preachers of the Gospel, preachers of righteousness and though the world will know God is doing things to judge them they will not, not because they can’t, they will not come to be saved but instead curse and swear and laugh and mock until they are all carried away when He comes again.
Jesus points to Noah as one he saved and shut the door on the world that laughed and derided this family of 8 and God shut them in and protected them along with the animals. And they were saved and the others were not.
Today our churches are emptying. No room for God, no room for Jesus, no room for the Church.
It’s not like people are not being warned. I’m warning you and you should be warning others. And others are warning people too. The Tsunami of 2004 did not come without warning. I heard the story of children on the beach on elephants and long before the wave hit the shore the elephants suddenly took off without warning leaving their handlers and parents running after them and they were not caught until they got to higher ground. The elephants saved all their lives.
On another beach a 10 year old girl from England called Tilly Smith was in Thailand. She had a lesson on Tsunamis the previous week in Geography class, and recognised what was happening when the water receded, warned those on the beach and saved many lives. Over 100, in fact. It was the only beach to have no deaths or injuries. They heeded the warning.
Others though were curious and instead went out on the receded beaches and they were too far from the shore when the waves came in. They just did not see the signs and understand them.
On another beach in Thailand a Czech woman called Petra Nemcova was with her boyfriend when the Tsunami hit. He was taken, she was left. This we see in verses 40-41. Two are out. One taken, the other left. This is not the rapture here. This is about judgement. One is taken in judgement the other left. Why? The one left is a believer who will come into the Kingdom of God on earth. That one was ready for the Lord’s return.
In Noah’s day the people had 120 years to get ready and were warned and warned and warned and warned. So far, people have had almost 2000 years. Whoever is alive when these things happen will have up to 7 years to be ready if they can survive. But ready or not, just as the flood in Noah’s day, will come the judgement when Jesus finally returns.
In Matthew 25 we find the separation going on there too. There will be those who will go to everlasting punishment and others who were saved during the tribulation and are still alive being given the kingdom, first for 1000 years of Jesus’ earthly reign and then into the eternal reign in a New Heaven and New Earth.
This is Jesus’ last sermon before His death, burial, resurrection and ascension. It is very important. He wants us to know these things.
2 Corinthians 5:11a Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men
The timetable is set for the future. It is in His hands. We are to be bold and strong in preaching Christ and Him crucified. He came to seek and save the lost and hates it when people perish without Him for it is so unnecessary.
Jesus is so vivid about the picture of the lost and it is something Matthew records five times in his gospel including the final verse of this chapter in verse 51: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. each time Jesus speaks of this it is a way to describe the terrible, unrelieved, inconsolable pain of eternal hell.
On Wednesday, in parliament, Corbyn talked of the migrants who died in that refrigerated truck found in Essex. He said:
Can we just think for a moment of what it must have been like for those 39 people, obviously in a desperate and dangerous situation, for their lives to end, suffocated to death in a container
Indeed, it must have been dreadful. If our hearts are touched by this tragedy then can I rephrase what Corbyn said for the message of Matthew 24:
Can we just think for a moment what it must be like for the billions of people who are in a desperate and dangerous situation, in hell, with no escape.
Now think about what we can do to tell others that there is salvation in Jesus and Him alone to save others from going there. And though we can tell people with such urgency that the door to salvation is going to shut soon, either by Jesus’ return or by their death, there still will be only few who will be saved.
Let us thank God that Jesus paid the price in full on the cross for our sin and now there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. If we have trusted in Jesus then we have eternal life and we will live and reign with our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Benediction
Benediction
20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.”
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Carr, A. (2015). The Sermon Notebook: New Testament. Lenoir, NC: Alan Carr.
Davies, W. D., & Allison, D. C., Jr. (2004). A critical and exegetical commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (Vol. 3). London; New York: T&T Clark International.
Elwell, W. A. (1995). Evangelical Commentary on the Bible (Vol. 3). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Geisler, N. L. (2005). Systematic theology, volume four: church, last things. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers.
Grudem, W. A. (2004). Systematic theology: an introduction to biblical doctrine. Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2014). John MacArthur Sermon Archive. Panorama City, CA: Grace to You.
McCune, R. (2010). A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity: The Doctrines of Salvation, the Church, and Last Things (Vol. 3). Allen Park, MI: Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.
O’Donnell, D. S. (2013). Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth. (R. K. Hughes, Ed.). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
Rogers, A. (2017). Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive. Signal Hill, CA: Rogers Family Trust.
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 10:47 12 October 2019.