Let us turn to Matthew 24. I am going to start reading in verse 35. Matthew 24:35-39:
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 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, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
I will stop there.
Last time, we were looking at Noah. This passage is very important for us to look at because it says in verse 36:
But of that day and hour knoweth no man…
That is the Greek word eido (i’-do). I do not know if I am pronouncing Greek words properly whenever I do, but that is my pronunciation, i’-do, which is translated here as “knoweth,” and it is translated as “know” or “knowing” in a few places.
Now, it says that no man knows the day or hour, but it does not mean that man cannot know the day or hour. We know that it was God’s plan all through the Church Age to keep people in the dark regarding the times and the seasons, regarding the knowledge of when the end would come and, actually, many other things. 1 Corinthians 13 speaks of this period of time of the Church Age as seeing “through a glass, darkly.” It was vague, it was cloudy, it was mysterious; people just did not know what God was saying in many areas dealing with time and judgment.
We know this now because God is opening up the Scriptures. He is revealing the truths concerning time and judgment to us now and everything is becoming clearer. We are seeing “face-to-face.”
“Face-to-face” is language that the Bible uses to explain when God makes something plain, like God spoke to Noah face-to-face. He says in Numbers 12 in speaking with Noah that He will speak mouth-to-mouth, which is another way of saying it. He says that He speaks in parables, and I am just kind of paraphrasing Numbers 12, “But not with my servant Noah whom I speak face-to-face or mouth-to-mouth,” because He is making it very plain.
The best way of communicating is when we are talking to a person directly rather than through an email. I have gotten in trouble with emails before. You write something and people take it completely in a way you did not mean it and then you have to explain it. It would have been better if you had just talked to them directly and in person, face-to-face.
So God uses this language to let us know that when He completes the covenant, when He finishes His covenant, which He is doing today, it is as though He is speaking face-to-face. We looked at this awhile ago. In 2 John and 3 John, the Apostle John was moved to say, “I have many things to write unto you, but I will not write with paper and ink; I will come and see you face-to-face.”
God also desires to complete His covenant, but He is not going to write it down. He cannot because Revelation 22 forbids this. You cannot add a word in written form to the Bible, but God is going to complete the covenant by giving understanding to His people who will now understand many truths of the Bible that were sealed.
One of these truths is this language itself; it is the end-time teaching of the Bible, but it is also language like Matthew 24:36, “No man knoweth,” or as it says:
But of that day and hour knoweth no man…
So this verse—in the way that it has been written and in a few other places, similar verses—appears to say that you cannot know the timing of the end. But, you know, the Bible also says, “The things of God knoweth no man.” Did you know that, that the Bible says, “The things of God,” and that is the whole Bible; that is all the Scripture, “The things of God knoweth no man”?
Turn over to 1 Corinthians 2. In this great passage where God gives us a big hint and a key on how to understand the Bible in that we must compare spiritual with spiritual and make sure that our conclusions are harmonizing—that is how we come to truth; that is the method that God has given us for truth—He says in 1 Corinthians 2:11:
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man…
That is the Greek word eido, that same word that is in Matthew 24. You cannot know anything and I cannot know anything spiritually about the Bible. We cannot know a thing.
Now, if God had left that verse there—like He does in Matthew 24 where He leaves it hanging—if He had just left that verse, people would say, “Do not read the Bible; you cannot know the things of God.” God completes the thought here, yet He does not always do this. He does not always do this. He can take a partial thought and put it over here and leave it hanging, and people will grab hold of it and say, “See, the Bible teaches this: nobody knows the day or hour, no man knoweth,” and yet, He expects us—and, really, it is a requirement—to search the whole Scripture to see what else He has to say about not knowing the day or hour.
But here, in 1 Corinthians 2, He does not leave us hanging. It says in 1 Corinthians 2:11-12:
…even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
See, here, it is a full explanation; it is complete. No one knows the things of God, no man knows; however, it does not mean that you cannot know.
Now, a lot of people who are out in the world do not know the things of God, but it does not mean that they cannot know them. God can come and He can reveal it to them through His Spirit and He can give them understanding of the things of God.
It is exactly the same way with “no man knoweth the time or the day or hour.” It does not mean that you cannot know. You can know; however, this is the verse that people want to go to, or similar verses like Matthew 24:36. This is the make-it-go-away verse. This is to make it all go away—just like that!—when they are hearing that May 21, 2011 is the Rapture, followed by five months of torment, and October 21, 2011 is the final end of the whole world, the universe, and unsaved man.
God is going to destroy it all, and who really wants to hear about that? Who wants to think about that? Who wants to consider that as a real possibility?
Well, certainly not the multitudes who are in the churches today. They do not want this to be so; they do not want it to be so. They want to live in their churches as Christians. They want to be called by God’s Name, as we read in Isaiah. Let us look at that verse in Isaiah 4, where it says in Isaiah 4:1:
And in that day seven women…
Which points to the seven churches of Revelation.
…shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
Now, Christ is the Bread. The Gospel is the Bread of Life, “But we want to eat our own bread; we want to develop our own kind of gospel where we can get saved by accepting Christ or we can get right with God by being baptized.”
There are a thousand variations of their “own bread” because for as many churches as there are, there are that many gospels, and yet, “We also want to wear our own apparel.” That is, “We make our own.”
I watch my wife make clothes all the time: the measuring, the pattern, the cutting of the fabric in order to make her clothing. She did not buy it at a store. Nobody else made it. She made it personally. It was all her work.
That is exactly what this is saying to those in the churches. They want their own apparel. They do not want the covering of Christ’s righteousness for their sins because that would mean that they would have to humble themselves before the Word of God and wait on the Lord for His salvation.
It is much easier to just put on your own fig leaves and wear that for your covering rather than having the Lord cover you through the slaying of the Lord Jesus Christ and His blood that washes away sin, at which time He gives that white robe, that pure and white linen that is the righteousness of the saints.
No, they want everything to be their way, “This is my gospel; this is my understanding of the Bible; this is what I think; this is my private interpretation of what the Bible says; however, let me still be called by Your Name; let me still take the Name of Christ; let me still be a Christian,” because they understand that this is the only way to have their reproach removed. The only way to escape judgment and the wrath of God is to be a Christian.
Some people have that much intellectual understanding. They do not see sin taken away in any other religion, in any other way except through the teaching of the Bible. They are correct in that; however, you cannot deny the Lord’s teaching and still have the Lord. You cannot reject the Word of God and still have Christ as Savior.
So this is a contradiction that is impossible. They can call themselves by God’s Name, but they cannot truly be God’s people and truly be Christians.
Today, history is repeating itself because the churches and congregations and the teachers and the theologians want to maintain their theology, which is an expected coming of Christ at some point in the future but not today. Well, yes, they would say that He could come at any time, even today; but, of course, nobody lives like He is coming today.
However, true believers are realizing that when we see His coming date—we know that He is coming on that date and that it is not that far away—it is affecting the way in which we live at this point, because true believers are realizing that we have to do things God’s way more and more.
If you really thought that Christ was coming today, you would live in a state of greatly desiring to do the will of God, but many in the churches want the expectation of Christ’s coming and yet they want to continue just teaching as they have been teaching and going along as they have been going along and doing things as they have been doing things. It has no impact on them at all.
This is very similar to when Jesus was coming the first time. Remember, the wise men from the east came to Jerusalem and to Herod. We find that when they gave the information that they were following His star, Herod was troubled. Herod was troubled, and he should have been; he was a wicked man and he should have been troubled that the Messiah was coming. But the unusual thing is that it says, “and all Jerusalem with him.” All Jerusalem! Then Herod goes to the leaders in Jerusalem and he tries to find out more information about the coming King, and they tell him that He will be born in Bethlehem.
They had information but they were troubled at the news that the Messiah was coming. But they were the Jews; they were the people of God in the Old Testament. Supposedly, they wanted the Messiah to come. For hundreds of years, this was their expectation and what they were looking forward to, and then God delivers on His promise and Jesus is born in Bethlehem of a virgin, a little babe.
Did the Old Testament people of God, the church, want Him to come? No, it actually interfered with their own authority and their own way of doing things. They just wanted the promise of a coming. They never truly, really, wanted the actual coming of Christ, of the Messiah, and it is exactly the same today. History is repeating itself for many “Christians,” for many who are called by His Name.
“Oh come Jesus; come!” Okay, God is revealing from His word, “I am coming; I am coming!” And what is their reaction? There is a greater troubling of mind and distress of spirit than, really, we have ever seen. People are so upset, so angry, so disturbed.
Well, I thought that they wanted His coming? Is that not what they have been waiting for? God is coming. He has told us that He is coming. He has revealed these things to us. But instead of embracing this information, people go to the Bible to try to find something to disprove it, to try to show that this is not going to happen.
They are searching the Scriptures to see why it cannot be so, but that is a wrong way to search the Scriptures. That is not a Berean attitude. That is not being noble. In God’s sight, it is dishonest. It is very dishonest to search the Bible to find verses that show that He cannot come.
You can do this with any doctrine. You can find a few verses to disprove it. If that is your mindset, you can disprove election. You can disprove that Jesus is God. There are certain verses that you can go to, specifically, if you want to disprove it in your mind.
It does not change the facts; it does not change the teaching of the Bible. But anyone who wants to be contrary to God’s Word can, and yet we read of the Bereans that they searched the Scriptures to see if it were so. It was a positive way of looking at the Bible.
“Okay, now I am hearing this information about May 21st; I am hearing these things. Let me go to the Bible and see if it is true.” Check it out. According to 1 John 4, check to see if it is true.
Some people come to Matthew 24:36:
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
And let us keep reading. Matthew 24:37-39:
But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 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, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
There! That is the proof! God says, “No man knows the day or hour,” and then He gives the example of Noah. Then look; we read in verse 38:
…Noe entered into the ark,
But the other people, all the people, verse 39:
…knew not until the flood came, and took them all away…
Total ignorance. They did not know. You see, this proves that no man knows the day or hour.
Now, if people were honest, if people were honest when they go to this verse, they would say—since God is saying, “My coming will be just like the days before the flood, right before the flood came and took them all away”—that this is the comparison. People like the comparison when it says that they knew not until the flood came and killed them all and they all drowned.
Alright, now let us stay with the comparison. If Christ’s coming is as in the days before Noah, then the question is: did any man know the flood was coming? Did any person know the flood was coming? Before the flood came, did anyone have advance warning? Did anyone possess knowledge prior to the deluge, prior to the terrible flood that destroyed the whole earth?
Alright, if we go back to Genesis—we will not get into the 120-year advance warning that God gave to Noah—it says in Genesis 7:1, where God is speaking to Noah:
And JEHOVAH said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
Then in verse 4, Genesis 7:4:
For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
So what is that saying? Did Noah know? What did Noah know? He knew the year, because it was the 600th year of his life. He knew the month; it was the second month. And he knew the day; this was the tenth day and God said, “Yet seven days.” So on the seventeenth day of the second month exactly, the flood would come.
Now, Jesus instructs us, “As it was in the days of Noah before the flood, so shall it be concerning the coming of the Son of Man.” Foreknowledge; advanced warning.
It actually tells us in Hebrews that Noah took warning. In Hebrews 11:7:
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house…
This also proves that it was a 120-year period, because Noah did not take warning seven days before to construct the ark. He took warning way back in Genesis 6 when God told him that it would be 120 years. However, so people would see this very explicitly and directly, God came to him one week before the flood and told him exactly when the flood would come, and “as in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of Man.”
I love it now when people mention Matthew 24:36, when they say, “No man knows the day or hour; it says it right here.” Okay, let us go; let us take a look at that; let us think about it; let us read what it is saying. We have to compare the example that God gave us with what the Bible says.
Noah was warned, and, of course, Noah’s wife, Noah’s sons and their wives. Eight people got into the ark before it rained. Before the water came, they knew that it was coming.
Likewise, God is bringing many people into the ark of safety today—and that Ark is the Lord Jesus—into the refuge of Christ, into His salvation. When this day comes on May 21st, they are going to be spared; they are going to be delivered. God will have shut the door, thereby guaranteeing their safety, and at the same time, shut everyone out from that point on for the five-month period.
We wonder why it is that so many people who are professing Christians do not want to hear about the end. They do not want to hear about this information from the Bible. They refer to a couple of verses and then they shut their ears.
This is a true statement and God knew it—He quotes it several times—“They have eyes but they see not and ears but they hear not,” because they do not want to know, and these are the people of God. These are the “Christians” who do not want to know.
Go to Jeremiah 8:7, where it says:
Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming…
Birds do have a natural instinct to flee winter, to flee the bad weather. They go to much more comfortable climates where they will be able to survive, and God is saying that these birds know their appointed times. However, it goes on to say:
…but my people know not the judgment of JEHOVAH.
Not strangers, not the heathen, “My people know not,” and they will not know because they do not want to know; they do not want to know, “No man knows the day or hour.”
Well, if you continue holding on to that, then Christ is going to come as a thief in the night and you will be surprised, you will be shocked, and you will be destroyed. As it says here, many who say that they are God’s people do not know the judgment of Jehovah.
Notice in verse 8, Jeremiah 8:8:
How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of JEHOVAH is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain.
That is the Bible. Why did God give us verses like Amos 3:7 that says:
Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
And people dismiss it; they do not even consider it; they do not think about it. God said that He will do nothing, except He reveal His secret.
What about Ecclesiastes 8:5-6, “A wise man’s heart discerneth time and judgment”? That is part of the Law of God. God moved a scribe or a prophet, Solomon, to write those words.
Is it in vain? Should we not think about this and what this means, that a wise man’s heart discerneth time and judgment?
Or what about Daniel when God says, “Seal up the words, Daniel, till the time of the end, and then knowledge will increase,” and then later on, “The wise will understand, but none of the wicked will understand”?
None, not one will understand according to that. We know this verse and we know that this is how it will be because if anyone truly understood, they would be running to God and they would be crying to Him for mercy and they would be beseeching Him like the Ninevites who heard a message of time and judgment when God sent Jonah to Nineveh and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown or overturned.”
That is a reaction of a discerning heart, of one who understands judgment, when you interrupt your life, like the Ninevites did when they sat in sackcloth and ashes and cried mightily to God. They did not go on eating and drinking. They did not continue marrying and giving in marriage. They did not build and plant. They realized, “This is very serious; it is extremely important that I respond to the information that God has given me.” They did not say that Jonah brought it; they said that they believed God. They knew that God had sent him.
Well, here, God’s people know not the judgment of Jehovah. It says also in Jeremiah 8:9:
The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of JEHOVAH; and what wisdom is in them?
It is very sad, it really is, how people are refusing to go to the Bible and to find out truth, to find out if it is true, to search the Scriptures to see if it is so.
Let us go to Proverbs 28. In Proverbs 28, the Lord also used Solomon to write this verse in Proverbs 28:5:
Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek JEHOVAH understand all things.
Is that not a good verse? Is that not fitting right in with everything else that the Bible has to say about how the wise will understand? A wise man’s heart discerneth time and judgment; the wicked will not understand.
Evil men understand not judgment…
They cannot. They cannot because they have a natural mind. Their mind does not understand spiritual things, and so they cannot grab hold of it; they cannot grab hold of it.
What is the reaction of evil men who understand not judgment? They begin to revile. When you are talking to people who have a familiarity with the Bible, they have some intellectual understanding of what the Bible says and so they bring up “no man knows the day or hour.” Then you go into the Bible and you show them, “No, you have to dig deeper. Look, look at Noah; he knew. Look at what God says here; look at what God says there. Yes, you can know.”
Well, they cannot gainsay the Scripture. God has given His people a mouth of wisdom that cannot be gainsaid, it tells us in Luke 21. You are not finding people who go to the Bible and say, “Okay, now here is why that is not true,” when you say that a person can know. They just know this verse or a couple of verses and that is it, because they cannot use God’s Word of Truth to dispute the Truth of God’s Word. That is an impossibility. They cannot use the Bible in an honest and good way to prove something that God is teaching in His Word, and so they are left with no recourse.
It was the same thing with Stephen. They could not gainsay nor resist his words when he was preaching before the council of the Jews. They could not go to the Scriptures, so finally they shut their ears and they ran upon him and they stoned him.
This is their last resort. They just are so frustrated, so troubled with what is coming out of the Bible. They cannot go to the Bible to disprove it; therefore, they begin to get very angry.
In 2 Peter 2, which is a chapter dealing with false teachers and prophets, it mentions Noah in verse 5 and it tells us that he was a “preacher of righteousness.” Then it mentions Lot a little later, that Lot was “vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.” Then it says in 2 Peter 2:10-12 [note: speaker said 2 Peter 2:2], it says:
But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
You see, the wicked understand not, as Proverbs 28:5 tells us, and yet they sense that there is something about what is being said. Out of frustration and just out of a great desire to make it go away, they speak evil of those who would bring the message. They speak evil of things that they do not understand because they cannot understand.
That is a lot of what is going on today. They just say, “You are a cult.” They do not bring Scripture. They just say, “We are not going to discuss the Bible; we are not going to compare what you are saying and check it out and search it like the Bereans and be noble. You are a cult; it is heresy; you are a heretic; you are a Campingite.” It is a total lack of understanding and, therefore, they speak evil of what they understand not.
It is very sad; it is very sad to see people come to this point. They do not realize that they are in violation of the Scripture when they are reviling. The Bible does not give anyone allowance to revile anyone else. For instance, if you go to Jude, it says in Jude 1:8-9, in this one-chapter Epistle:
Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel…
And Michael means “who assuredly is God,” and it is referring to Christ, the Chief Messenger.
…when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
Jesus would not even revile Satan. He would not even speak concerning Satan as Satan, we would say, deserves. In the harshest of ways, we would say, “Well, Satan, you are this and you are that.” No, the Lord does not revile and the Lord’s people should never revile. They should never speak evil of another person. God tells us that.
Now, if we think that someone has a false gospel, well, we feel sorry for them, we pray for them, we try to share the truth with them. If they do not want to hear it, “Okay, I am sorry.” There is a big world that we have to share the Gospel with. We do not become fixated on them and speak as badly as we can and follow their every movement and listen to their every word. That is not the Spirit of God and I think that is obvious.
Well, it also says here in Jude 1:10:
But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
You see, God again is saying that they do not know. They have a natural mind. It is not the mind of a saved person who has the Spirit of Christ.
Well, we looked at Noah. Let us also quickly go to Luke 17, which is the chapter where God gets into His coming and the end of the world. It says in Luke 17:26-30:
And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
So here is another example that God is giving us. He gave us Noah, “As it was in the days before the flood, so shall it be with the coming of the Son of Man.” Now He is saying, “Go and look over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, because that is a type and a figure of the final judgment, of the coming of Christ, of My coming and of the end of the world.”
God does tell us also in Jude, regarding Sodom, where He says in Jude 1:7:
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Because this is picturing the final end, and this also helps us to understand that God’s wrath, His judgment, is going to be the burning up of the world and all the unsaved in it. For all eternity, they will cease to be. It will just be utterly destroyed, just as the example of Sodom.
The fire in Sodom is not still burning and there is no eternal flame in hell that will bring torment on people, but the destruction of Sodom is a picture of the end of the world. God rains down fire and brimstone. It was all burned up with all of the people and the fire went out; the fire ceased. But in the sense that the destruction of that city was forever, that it will never come back—it is a complete and final end of that city and those people—it is an example of “eternal fire,” and that is what is coming on October 21st in 2011.
Well, let us go back to Genesis. We were going here because the Lord directed us to go here. He said, again, “Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed,” and what happened prior to the destruction of Sodom? We will ask this question: did any man know? Did any person know that God was going to destroy Sodom before God destroyed Sodom? That is the idea of “no man knoweth.”
Well, go to the days of Noah, and like in the days of Noah, we find that man did know. The believers knew: Noah and his family. No man knows about the time of Christ’s coming? Well, that is not so.
Another example is here in Genesis 18 when God in the form of three angels visited Abraham and Sarah his wife to tell them that Sarah would have a child. Remember that Sarah laughs. Sarah laughs and then she denies, “No, I did not laugh,” because she was afraid, and yet she did laugh. In this context, we read in verse 16, Genesis 18:16-18:
And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. And JEHOVAH said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
Then he goes on to describe the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, that their cry had come up to God’s ears and that their sin was very grievous. Then we know that He revealed to Abraham that He was going to destroy Sodom because Abraham began to intercede, “Will you destroy the city if so many righteous are in it?” He began with fifty, and then he counted down, and so he was pleading for the righteous in Sodom because his nephew Lot was there and Lot’s family.
Abraham knew. God said, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” No, He revealed it to Abraham and Abraham was able to pray, and that is good instruction for us. We know that it is coming. We know the date. We know that it is going to happen, so let us pray; let us go to the Lord and intercede for others, for other people.
At this point, nobody in Sodom knew. Only Abraham, the child of God, knew what was about to happen, and he was praying. He was going to God and speaking to Him; he was pleading.
That is exactly what prayer is. When we talk to the Lord, we are beseeching Him, praying that He might save our children, that He might save our mother or our father or our brother or our sister or our neighbors or anyone whom we know. We just pray to God that God would do justly, and, of course, the Lord will do justly.
Then in Genesis 19, two of the angels or messengers, who are actually God Himself in the form of those messengers, goes into Sodom. They encounter Lot and Lot does not want them to sleep in the streets, so he brings them into his house, and it says in verse 9, Genesis 19:9-11:
And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door. But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
This is spiritually taking place in the church where Christ is the Door. They are wearying themselves to enter in through that Door into salvation, and yet they cannot because God has struck them with spiritual blindness.
Then in verse 12, Genesis 19:12:
And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:
Has any fire and brimstone fallen at this point? No, they are telling Lot what is going to happen to the city. They are actually encouraging Lot, and this is the Lord who is in the form of these angels. The Lord is encouraging Lot to go to his family, to warn them and to bring them out of the city.
You know, it is encouraging when we see the examples that God gives of the end that is coming. He saved Noah and his family, and the only ones spared from Sodom was Lot and his family. So God does work in families. Wonderfully and mercifully, God is going to save a great multitude, not just individuals in families. He is going to save others, and yet it is encouraging for any of us who do have families that God saved primarily families in these two examples of His judgment. God is saying, “Go to your family, go to your family and warn them. Tell them exactly what I told you,” and this is what Lot does.
Let me read verse 13 into 14, Genesis 19:13-14:
For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of JEHOVAH; and JEHOVAH hath sent us to destroy it. And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for JEHOVAH will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.
He just repeated what he had heard from the Lord. He was a messenger. He was sent by the Lord to his family to share the exact same thing that the Lord had said. This is what believers are doing when we are warning people about May 21, 2011. We are sharing what we have learned in the Bible, what God has told us, and we are just sharing it with others.
I think that we have to note the response and the reaction of Lot’s sons-in-law; they mocked. Let me read it again:
But he seemed…
That is Lot.
…as one that mocked unto his sons in law.
The word “mocked” is the same word as “laughed” when Sarah laughed. It is used a couple of times in Genesis 18. It is the word “sporting” when Isaac was sporting with his wife Rebekah. It is the word “play” in Exodus 32:6, when they made themselves an idol:
And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
So that is the word “mocked.” It is also translated as “mocked” with Ishmael, when Isaac was born and Sarah noticed that Ishmael was mocking. It is that same word, and it has everything to do with that which is not serious. That is how you would sum it up. Sarah heard about the promise of Isaac and she laughed. How could that be since she was old and Abraham was ten years older? Or Isaac sporting with Rebekah, just a young couple playing around, and the king noticed.
His sons-in-law were perhaps stunned at first because their crazy father-in-law, Lot, came to them—we do not know what time of night; it could have been pretty late; we do not know—but he comes and knocks on the door urgently. He has to give them this message. The Lord is indicating that this is a very urgent thing. Actually, not too long after, when the morning arose, the Lord takes Lot and his daughters by the hand and Lot’s wife and they go out of the city, so there was not much advance warning to the people of Sodom, but there was advance warning and when his sons-in-law receive the news, they thought that old dad, Lot, was joking, “You cannot be serious! You are pulling my leg! You are playing around! You are playing around; that is a good joke!”
No, no, and I am sure that Lot tried to convey in every way that he could, “I am deadly serious. I am as sincere as anything could be. God warned me and I believe God. I am going to flee and will you not please come with me? Will you not please escape this city? God is going to destroy this city.”
This is very serious is it not? Is not this news about the end extremely serious, that God has given us this date, and it is not based on a dream or a vision or a tongue, which we could write off, and this is not a Mayan prophecy that people play around with? That is a game. You can join groups on the Internet and talk about the Mayan prophecy of the end of the age or era, or whatever it is.
It was kind of funny because I checked that out on the Internet. I went to read some of that group and then I saw someone who must have been a Family Radio listener who put into their chat some information about May 21, 2011. At that point, they went off on that thread discussing that for a period of time until one guy wrote and said, “You know, I joined this group to have a little fun. I joined it to have a little fun, but since we are discussing May 21, 2011, it is not fun anymore,” and he was serious.
You see, people want to joke. People want to have fun and they do not enjoy hearing about this, because it is so serious and so real. You know, God is very definitely as sincere as possible when He is giving us all this information. It is our eternal life that is at stake and that is what makes this so serious. To perish forever is an eternal tragedy, and that, also, is what makes this so serious.
If there is one thing that we can, perhaps, keep in mind is that when we hear this, we have to seriously respond to what God is saying by checking it out and by going to the Bible to see if it is so.
We will stop here.