While many in the U.S. are praying that God will overturn the evil that has been recently exposed throughout our country, few take time to consider that instead of deliverance, we may be receiving God’s righteous judgment upon our land. Too often, many believe and proclaim that since God is sovereign, He will bring our country back from the evil path it is now on. He will overturn evil, bring back peace, and restore our prosperity and freedoms. That is not only not biblical but can lead us to being disappointed in God. What has He promised? What has He done in the past? What has He told us about the future?
First, one more example on being saved in the middle of His divine, holy, righteous outpouring of His wrath.
Genesis 6:1 Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 6:2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.
6:3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."
6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
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.
This is a very sad account of how Satan once again tried to destroy all that God had created as good. In just 1500 years, all the people on the earth had left Him to do evil. Fallen angels certainly contributed to this worldwide evil.
Could these demonic spiritual beings be once again trying to destroy all that is truly good to rule in a world that is entirely evil?
6:6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
6:7 The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them."
6:8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
God only found one righteous man in all the world. God’s response was to destroy all of the evil throughout the world. That is also God’s soon coming future plan.
6:11 Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.
6:12 God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.
6:13 Then God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.
Couldn’t God offer them salvation instead? There is nothing to say that they weren’t offered salvation, as none could say they had never heard of God.
Hebrews 11:7 By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
2 Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; 2:5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
So what has God just revealed to us? Noah was God’s instrument to warn the world, preach to the world, and to build the ark. The ark and his preaching should have convinced and convicted some! But, none came other than his three sons.
Luke 17:26 "And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 17:27 they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
1 Peter 3:20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.
God gave them adequate warning, sufficient teaching, and godly examples, but to no avail. In effect, no one was interested in listening, as their lives kept them self-satisfied, self-indulged, and self-deceived. The world today looks, sounds, and acts in a very similar self-centered, ungodly fashion.
7:12 The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
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, 7:14 they and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds.
7:15 So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life. 7:16 Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the LORD closed it behind him.
7:17 Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth.
God’s patience, i.e. long suffering, had come to an end. Jehovah personally closed the door of the ark and then the rain came for forty days and forty nights. All perished except those who God protected in the ark. The wrath of God literally was poured out upon the world, yet Noah and his family, plus the animals, were protected.
More next time.