As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37-39).
I have always been fascinated by this passage of scripture. When you read Matthew 24 and think about the things that Jesus says will be happening on the earth before His coming, you would think that people would be lining up at the churches to find out what the Word of God has to say about the times in which they are living. But the exact opposite is true. Jesus is saying that people will be so spiritually dull that they will go about doing their own thing believing that the world will continue as it has always been.
We can see this phenomena taking place in our world right now. The warning signs of Christ’s coming are everywhere. But instead of getting right with God, they are all caught up in their jobs, their family activities, music lessons, soccer practice, their favorite sports team, and so on. Who takes it to heart that the end of the age is upon us and that means that the party is over?
"Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, (intemperate living and self indulgence) drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:34-36).
It has always been a challenge for Christians to know how to live in this corrupt world and not be of it. The apostle John says; “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15). The key to keeping a safe distance from the world is to be fully engaged with the Lord, keeping Him as your first love. When God is your first love, you will not allow any other loves to take His place on the throne of your heart.
This brings us to the most important issue of our times, the issue of the Glory of God. The anti-christ spirit that fuels this present world system, offers mankind a counterfeit view of life, one that conveniently leaves the Creator of all things out of its consideration. When we pull back from it all, we see that this corrupt world system is really a “parasite” that has been living on God’s creation. It is redirecting God’s intended purpose for all things towards an alternate corrupt purpose designed by the father of lies. Paul says; They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen. (Romans 1:25).
This is a little hard to understand because unless it has been revealed to you what God’s original purpose was for the earth and his creation and how we were to live within it, you would never be vexed by how utterly evil this world is.
Quoting Romans again; For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21). Has it occurred to us that we have never known in our short life spans a time when men were not as Paul said; foolish and under spiritual delusion? We would like to think that total depravity and spiritual delusion should be something rare and temporary but this is not the case. It has been that way in this world from the moment we arrived and will be that way until Christ returns and abolishes it from the face of the earth. We are like tadpoles that were hatched in a polluted pond gasping for air and struggling to survive and yet it has never occurred to us that there is fresh, clean water somewhere else. We go about our lives and business thinking that this is just the way it is and so we accept everything as it is without question. Well I have news for you; there is such a thing as fresh water!
It is just accepted that the “lie” is true and you just better go along with it. This is reinforced in what you watch on television, read in magazines and hear in the voices of the people you encounter on the street. The “lie” is the spiritual toxic pollution I am speaking about. It has reached every man because it is transferred to us through the osmosis of this world’s group think. It is inescapable. But it can be overcome.
Jesus warned us that it is essential for us to go and find this fresh and life-giving water. When we do, we discover the treasures of wisdom and knowledge necessary to living above the trappings and dangers that await the foolish and deceived.
This reminds me of one my favorite movies; The Matrix. This story is about a regular guy who is a computer nerd who mostly accepts the world as he sees it but he is troubled by some of the things he would like answers for. One day he receives an email from an unknown source who seeks to contact him about his questions. His curiosity gets the best of him and so he follows up. He meets a man named Morphius who has information that is almost too much to accept. He tells him that the world he sees and has lived in all his life is the result of a massive computer program that has been plugged into the minds and consciences of the human race. Their real bodies are lying in pods and are plugged into this system like computer chips. People think they are free human beings enjoying life but they are really slaves attached to this evil system. He gets unhooked from the Matrix and joins up with this group who seeks to deliver the humans from the Matrix forever. The story is complicated but so is the Truth of God.
Those who have come to know the truth are outside the world system. They can no longer give themselves to the delusions the world holds mankind under. They see the strategies and lies the world uses to destroy God’s purposes and because of their allegiance to Him, they have “unhooked” themselves spiritually and emotionally. They understand what Jesus meant when He said; “You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free.”
Knowing the Truth and walking in the Light as He is in the Light takes discipline and wisdom. God has given us His Word to provide the Light we need to navigate this wicked world and be able to see wonders of our God. Once we have found the original purpose for all things, we won’t get fooled again.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE MATRIX CLIP
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