Business As Usual

"Business As Usual"

(The Days of Noah)

"As it was in the Days of Noah, so shall it also be 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 Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all."(Luke 17:26)

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He has made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth…But, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Genesis 6:-5-8)

It was ’Business as Usual’. Everything went on normally, as though nothing unusual was about to happen, even though Noah, a ’preacher of righteousness’ (II Peter3:5), ’a just man and perfect in his generations...[who] walked with God’ (Genesis 6:9), warned the ungodly generation of that day.

The hearts of men revealing their ’Business as Usual’ attitude described by the Lord Jesus, is what it will be like ’in the days of the Son of man’, those days before the Lord comes to rapture His church! The wicked of that day will scoff and say:

’Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same Word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.’ (II Peter 3:4-7)

These ungodly scoffers displaying their ’Business as Usual’ attitude are already questioning whether the Lord really is going to return by pointing out that there are no changes since the beginning of time displaying their arrogant, dark-minded denial of God’s Word and working in the past.

Peter’s response uncovers their ignorance and outlines the supernatural judgment of God in the past through the universal flood, and His plan for the future Day of the Lord judgment of the world. Yes, God’s response to the ungodly scoffers and the wickedness of man will be the same as it was in the days of Noah, because He will judge the world for it’s wickedness through His fiery, devastating and destructive Day of the Lord judgments the same day He rescues His church by rapture! The only difference is He used the flood in Noah’s day, and He will use fire during the Day of the Lord!

Genesis 4-6 provide us with a clear picture of what the world was like in Noah’s day detailing various prevailing conditions of that time: The first and one of the most crucial conditions was Religious Apostasy. In (4:3) Cain becomes what many preachers call the first modernist.

His obvious departure from offering what was required by God could also be described as the actions of one who subscribes to neo-orthodoxy. Whatever we call it, it is clear God did not accept Cain’s new idea of offering ’the fruit of the ground’.

We must assume that Cain knew what was acceptable in the eyes of God and instead of bringing the acceptable blood sacrifice as his brother Abel did, he decided to offer the result of his own works described as the ’way of Cain’ (Jude 11).

Every other ’religion’ tries to make it’s mistaken approach to God through works. But, there is one, and only one, ’true religion’, and that is the one of faith in the shed Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary! Religious Apostasy was openly evident in the ’days of Noah’ and it is openly evident in our own day, which could well be described as the ’days of the Son of man’.

The second condition prevalent in Noah’s day was gathering together of the population through City Building. (4:17) Population centers in our day are multiplying and growing at a phenomenal pace and for the most part are the sin/crime capitals of our time. In the USA 85% of the population lived on farms during the year 1850.

This number has drastically been reduced as cities, crime and corruption have skyrocketed. One man rightly said ’God made the country, and man made the city’ referring to the man created corruption and ungodliness that gathers in the city. Although city building in itself is not ungodly, it certainly was a common occurrence in both the days of Noah and in the present day.