No, I am not suggesting with this title that we start building ships or that we rush to the Ark Encounter in northern Kentucky hoping that the recreation of Noah’s ark will actually float. I am referring to Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 where He said this, “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”
What characterized the “days of Noah?” Back in Genesis 6, God complained about at least a couple of things regarding the people of that day. Genesis 6:5 says, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of heart was only evil continually.” Besides the extreme wickedness of the time, this expression appears twice, “the earth was filled with violence” (vv. 6:11, 13).
For the past couple weeks I have been contemplating a post on violence in our world, but the recent shooting of Steve Scalise and others pushed this to the forefront of my thinking.
Violence Fills the Earth
In 2016 alone, there were 2,478 Islamic terror attacks in 59 countries in which 21,237 people were killed and 26,680 people were injured. In just the past 30 days there have been 174 attacks by Islamic Jihadists in which 1,659 people were killed in 29 different countries (the source for these numbers is thereligionofpeace.com, which chronicles each such attack).
During the bloody civil war in Syria over 500,000 people have been killed, according the last numbers I saw on this, and the bloodshed and killing continues unabated in this horrible conflict.
The greatest source of deadly violence in our world continues to be abortion. In our nation alone, over 50 million babies have been murdered since 1973 and worldwide, this number is much higher. Is not God just as grieved by this senseless bloodshed as He is by the bombings and killing also prevalent in our world? I believe He is.
Wikipedia lists fourteen current and ongoing wars in our world, including the civil war in Syria, with 1,000 or more deaths each year. The Mexican drug war has claimed the lives of 138,000 people since 2006 with over 12,000 dying because of this violence in 2016 alone.
Does violence fill the earth at this time? Absolutely! We do not know the statistics of violence during the days of Noah, but I have to believe what we see around us certainly qualifies as an apt comparison.
The Acceptance of Violence
What’s also disturbing to me is the growing acceptance of violence in our culture. In the past few months we have seen celebrities advocate the killing of our president. Madonna advocated the blowing up of the White House and Kathy Griffin’s display disgustingly glorifies violence as well. Since President Trump was elected, there have been 12,000 tweets calling for his assassination.
Even more sickening is the play currently running in New York City portraying the assassination of President Trump to which people stand and applaud their approval. This is not sponsored, as you might suspect, by some lunatic fringe group, but by the New York Times and other well-known companies. This applauding of the killing of our president is satanic and disgusting. There is no other way to describe it.
The shooting of Steve Scalise was not some random event; it grew out the frenzied hatred of the left toward President Trump form those who advocate killing as a way to fight back against him.
Granted, not everyone who opposes President Trump advocates violence, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that a significant number of people do on the left. And, from those on the left condemning the shooting of Scalise, I have yet to hear anyone on the left call for the ending of the play depicting the killing of President Trump.
A Day Like Any Other
In comparing the days leading up to His coming to the days of Noah, the Lord also made this interesting statement, “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark” (Matt. 24:38). People on the earth during the time of Noah carried on with their lives completely oblivious to the coming flood until it was too late. The flood came on a day that started out just as any other day for them.
Until the moment Jesus returns for His church, life will proceed here pretty much as normal as well; we should not expect any great sign or worldwide catastrophe signaling His appearing to take us home. Just as in the days of Noah, life will seem normal. It will be a day like any other day, that is, until Jesus comes.
That day will then become a day glorious beyond anything we have ever experienced before in our lives. For those left behind, it will be a much different story.
What also grieves me regarding the shooting of Steve Scalise is what is signifies regarding the future of our nation. The battle of ideas that made our nation great became the politics of personal destruction under former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Now, however, it has evolved into something even worse than even what the Clintons initially advocated. The left has now incorporated violence in the equation getting what it wants.
Please pray for our president and vice president. I believe it is vital that we pray for their safety as well as all those around them in the White House and in the leadership of Congress. President Trump is under attack day and night both from the left and the mainstream media (which is just as devoted to his destruction) as anyone else on the left.
Was it not our prayers that perhaps spared the lives of many when the gunman opened fire on the GOP lawmakers? Until the day Jesus calls us home, our prayers will make a huge difference!
Jonathan C. Brentner