Philologos
Bible Prophecy Research
Title: 'But as the days of Noe were...'
Submitted by: research-bpr@philologos.org
Date: February 27, 2000
Update: April 10, 2001
URL: http://philologos.org/bpr/files/n005.htm

'But as the days of Noe were...'

"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."--Matthew 24:37

1997/1998, according to the Jewish calendar is the year 5758. When written out in Hebrew letters it spells:

hey, - tav, shin, nun, - chet.

The meaning of the letters when rearranged, i.e, at an ELS of 1, read: (hey - tav - shin- nun, chet):

he = ha (the)
tav = Tekafah (season)
shin = shel (of)
nun, chet = Noah (Rest)

1997-1998 = "The Season of Noah (Rest)."

The year 5708 (1947-1948), the year Israel became a nation = "the Season of Birthpangs."

([The Torah Codes list] Secrets in the Hebrew Alphabet, Perry Stone, video)

"And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." -- Genesis 6:3

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"The biblical record actually shows only 77 generations from Adam to Christ, and if we add to this the two thousand years since, we have something like 100 to 120 generations covering the whole of human history."

(Time and Eternity, Arthur C. Custance, Ph.D. [Doorway Paper published in 1967])

"And Enoch [dedicated] lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah [man of the dart]: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech [powerful]: And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: And he called his name Noah [rest], saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed. And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred and ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died."--Genesis 5:21-31

"...which was the son of Noe [rest], which was the son of Lamech, Which was the son of Mathusala [when he dies there shall be an emission], which was the son of Enoch..."--Luke 3:36-37

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"According to tradition, he [Methuselah] died seven days before the great flood of No'ach's times, when G-D poured out His wrath upon a sinful and rebellious world."

(Yeshua, Yacov Rambsel)

"Methuselah, the son of Enoch, and grandfather of Noah. He attained the greatest age on record, 969 years, in the year of the Flood."

(Universal Standard Encyclopedia)

"As long as Methuselah lived, the Flood could not come." (If the earth is to be destroyed once by water and once by fire, then what needs to be removed before the destruction by fire?)

(Genesis, J. Vernon McGee)

Generations of Genesis:
(1) Adam (2) Seth (3) Enos (4) Cainan (5) Mahalaleel (6) Jared (7) Enoch (8) Methuselah (9) Lamech (10) Noah

"And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth."--Genesis 7:6

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"The six-hundredeth year of No'ach's life, when he and his family entered the ark of safety, could allude to the 6,000 year when this dispensation is completed, and the L-RD redeems His people and juddges the nations."

(Yeshua, Yacov Rambsel)

"The Talmud tells us that the Flood started when Heaven's sluices were opened by 'removing two of the Pleiades.'"

(The Codes of the Torah and Biblical Interpretation, Jim Long, longpeek@earthlink.net)

How Do We Describe The Heathen?

In our Baptist Sunday School and Training Union we boys were told what the "heathen" are like:

1. They wear little or no clothes.
2. They pierce their flesh and even wear rings in their noses and lips.
3. They streak their faces with paint and weird markings.
4. They dance and gyrate in obscene fashion.
5. They drink concoctions that make them tipsy and irrational.
6. They make vulgar movements and gestures.
7. They utter profane and angry speech
8. They beat on drums and make horrible noises
9. They treat human life lightly and are frequently violent
10. They are sexually loose and promiscuous.
11. They worship strange gods and idols.
12. They sacrifice their children to devils.

Need I go on?

(Living Among the Heathen, Hugh Pyle, Christian News & Views, http://cnview.com)

"Depravity of the 90's"
--or--
"Spice it Up?!"

"...you know what I want, what I really-really want..!"

For as little TV as I watch, the little watching I do lately has been bombarded by promos for the "Spice Girls." What a despicable display of whorish debauchery! The things they do on stage, attired the way they are (or lack thereof), represents the kind of debauchery that only "men" were allowed to engage in, in the sleazy parts of town just a few short years ago. Now, before the whole "global community" via the media, royalty parade their children to these shows, arrange private meetings & photo ops with the sluts.

If a person ever glimpses any of the late-night shows, the visiting "entertainment" groups they showcase leave NOTHING to the imagination in terms of "what's there" and "how to use it."

But then, why not! The president of this country is so known for his escapades that comedians have never-ending supply of jokes. During his campaign, laughing and enjoying the questions from the youth... "boxers or briefs?"

The saga continues. The crime yet unsolved; murder of the six-year old would-be show-girl-beauty-porn star. A position thrust upon her by adult parents who, apparently have no more morals than our president; teaching her to cavort about "suggestively." And the media calls her "An Angel."

The woman most adulated by the world, killed in a car crash while engaged in another of her escapades of infidelity. Worshiped by the world as a "saint."

America's Funniest Videos rewards a child's disobedience tantrum with $10,000. And, hardly a prime-time sitcom anymore that is "fit to" to be watched by mature adults...let alone, children. The casualness with which immorality is portrayed and encouraged; as though, anybody not thus engaged is weird.

"WOE UNTO THOSE WHO CALL EVIL GOOD, AND GOOD EVIL." (Isa 5:20)

While we may look at the world and shake our heads in dismay, I am reminded (at risk of offending any relatives who will read this) of the table comments while dining out with my late "Baptist minister" uncle years ago, once the waitress had taken our orders, "...bring out the dancing girls." While meant in humor I think, why would a professing Christian make such a joke?

Years ago while traveling with a car-full of pastors one day, the "fat women" jokes, and this and that, to a point where I as the junior member of the group was quite uncomfortable. And, if I were to be honest, why have I enjoyed some of the Jay Leno kinds of jokes on occasion, myself? The flesh! And the evangelist who at night would preach "hell- fire" ...in the back rooms ??

Scripture says of Israel, "Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. (Ex 32:6) The context of this verse; God had "just" given the Law, the Ten Commandments. The "sight" of God's glory was so awesome that Israel pleaded with Moses to speak with God on their behalf, lest they die.(Ex 20:18) So Moses goes up into the cloud on the mountain to be with God, and receive the rest of the law and directions for the tabernacle, etc. And as a few short weeks have gone by, they decide to revert to idolatry. Aaron makes the golden calf. The offerings in this verse are "to the calf." And the "play" that they rose up to do were the debauchery of the heathen around them. Sexual orgy- like activity. Breaking laws 1 & 2, as well as 7 & 10.

Paul writes of them, "with most of them God was not well pleased."(1 Cor 10:5) And says, "their bodies were scattered in the wilderness." They were engaging in the very activities of the nations they were supposed to go and wipe off the face of the earth to cleanse it. And yet, they were engaged in the same. God had to deal with His "own" people first. A new generation grew up in the wilderness, and then they went and eventually did God's bidding in the land.

God's judgment against depravity in Sodom and Gomorrah was swift and total. Fire and brimstone.(Gen19:24) We have a presidential staff that openly praises the sodomite "lifestyle." Info from an Emailing list I'm on told how boys in a primary school class were "paired up" recently and "married" to each other in lessons of tolerance of "alternative" lifestyles. They pretend it is "normal" as I about puked one day on my way to work as a couple of these perverts were out for their daily run, pushing the baby stroller in front of them!!!

Where will it all end?! We are living in the days...the "last hours" of the time "as it was in the days of Noah."(Mt 24:37) What were the days of Noah like? There was immorality.(Gen 6:2) There was intermingling with demonic beings. In our paragraphs above we haven't even touched on the occult, satanism, witchcraft, UFOism, etc. And God "saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.(vs5)

Intent...thoughts of the heart...evil. When I was a youth the schoolyard talk could be vile. But it was only the "bad boys" who would "feel up" the girls. At any given work place, every other word from the mouth of fellow-employees might have been of sexual innuendo. But at least the broadcast airwaves were "clean." Leaders were expected to be a "notch above" the depravity. And generally society as a whole deplored perversion. Now, the leaders not only engage in it...they speak at rallies to the degenerate, condoning and promoting it openly. And it has become nearly impossible to find evening entertainment that isn't continually, openly, in the gutter. "ONLY EVIL CONTINUALLY!!"

What was Jesus' purpose in referencing the "days of Noah?" To illustrate the days "just prior" to His coming. As time keeps ticking along I keep thinking to myself that "it can't get any worse." But the recent deluge of Spice promos has really been quite annoying! So brazen, open, unashamed!! Along with everything else...it certainly appears that we are "just about there!"

"Until the day that Noah entered the ark."(Mt 24:38) Noah, a type of Israel, was hedged away safely in the ark to be kept from destruction. Lot, a type of the Church, was taken "out of Sodom."(Lk 17:28) And then, in both scenarios, sudden destruction came and "took them all away" and "destroyed them all."

Destruction of God's Wrath is coming. Where will you be? Safely in Christ? or swept away in ignorance and depravity? He is "not willing that any should perish" but that you come to repentance.(2 Pt3:9) But He is not slack, and the day of the Lord WILL come! Turn to Jesus Christ now, before it is too late!

(A Voice in the Wilderness, http://www.a-voice.org)

SERMON

PREACHED IN CHALMERS MEMORIAL CHURCH, GRANGE, EDINBURGH, ON THE MORNING OF SABBATH, 11TH SEPTEMBER 1887, BY THE REV. HORATIUS BONAR, D.D., BEING HIS LAST SERMON.

"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."--Matthew 24:37-39.

He who is "the faithful and true witness," even the Son of God, who came to bear witness to the truth, gave testimony here concerning our world that most deeply concerns us all, and that more and more as the ages roll away; and this testimony is for our warning. He selects two eras, two epochs, two periods, specially. These two periods are "the days of Noah," and "the days of the Son of man." He places them before us, just as He did before the men of His day. Mark what these periods are. They are not eras of light, but of darkness. They are eras of judgment and of terror. He selects them for our warning. He speaks this truth aloud in the ears of a careless world, which shuts its ears against everything but business, vanity, and pleasure. He tells them of what is yet before them, even the days of the Son of man. "In the days of Noah,"--that is, the one hundred and twenty years during which Noah preached, and warned, and besought in vain,--men listened, perhaps were interested for a while, and yet, in the end, were utterly heedless. Let us look at this; let us see what the Lord means to teach us, what He means to teach the Church and the world, you and me.

Observe, there is one thing that runs through the whole; it is comprised in that word rejection--rejection of what is Divine, of what is supernatural,--rejection of the things of God: God and man come face to face; and man says to God, I will have none of you,--"We will not have this man to reign over us." It is a rejection which involves divers points.

First. Here we have in both cases,--in the case of "the days of Noah," and in the case of "the days of the Son of man"--rejected truth. It was by truth that God was working among the antediluvians in their mad career of worldliness and corruption; not by the truth as they would call it, but like the truth preached by Jonah,--"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." So with Noah,--"yet one hundred and twenty years, and the world shall be overflowed with water." Here again was rejected truth; and at all times we find it is Divine truth,--supernatural, directly from God, not reasoned out by man,--that is rejected. Men are willing enough to receive the conjectures, philosophies, and sentiments of human device; but a message directly from the lips of Him who made them, and who shall be their judge, they will not receive. This is the world's condemnation. The present is a lying age: the philosophy of this age is lying; the literature of this age is lying. This age will receive anything that professes to be truth, except what comes from God.

Second. It is not merely rejected truth, but rejected grace. The message is not merely concerning judgment, it is "the exceeding riches of the grace of God," which showed the Divine willingness to spare even the world in spite of its wickedness. "Grace! grace!" The amount of meaning contained in that word "grace"! It is by grace we are kept even for a single hour out of hell. We little realize what "grace" means. It is the source of whatever flows to us from God. "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The word "grace" is constantly on our lips, but is little understood,--if not misunderstood, and abused for purposes of sin. "Grace! grace!" "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Amid all that mass of antediluvian iniquity, there came up a voice from the lips of God's own servant, proclaiming "Grace! grace!" That was rejected, and the world went down at last in the flood.

Third. Not only truth and grace, but long-suffering was rejected. This means more than grace--it means grace protracted, for, it may be, months, and years, and ages. God is unwilling to leave the sinner alone to perish. He is continually lifting up His voice in the midst of this ungodly world. Yea, God sware by Himself--"As I live...I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" In the prospect of the coming flood Noah would point to the ark he was building, giving repeated warnings--"Turn ye! turn ye!" But turn they would not. They rejected long-suffering. It was not simply righteousness that they rejected to their destruction. They rejected long-suffering grace. This will be the heaviest part of the sinner's eternal ruin; not because God would not be reconciled to him, but because he would not be reconciled to God. The sinner looked that long-suffering in the face, and said, "I will have none of it."

But there is one thing which rises above all these,--comprising all, but yet rising above them,--a rejected person. The messenger embodied all these in his own person and message. Noah was the embodiment of that grace in all its long-suffering. And the Son of man is still more the embodiment of divine grace--of Divine long-suffering. The Jews rejected Him. He stood as one full of compassion, and loving-kindness, upon their own hill, looking down upon their own city, weeping--"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,...how often WOULD I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye WOULD NOT!" "I WOULD," but "YE WOULD NOT." To Jerusalem, to the world, to us, "I WOULD"--"YE WOULD NOT." I blessed--you would not be blessed. In both cases there is the rejection of a person. The rejection of an ambassador of peace, a royal ambassador, is the most heinous of national crimes. The heavenly ambassador rejected! Noah was only a man; but He whom they saw, heard, and of whose hand they could take hold, who entreated them to turn and live, and whom they rejected, was the Lord--the Lord from heaven.

I do not doubt that in the case of those who were lost in the flood, there was the stinging remembrance of Noah's words. Those words would come back again, and again, and again in the ears of those lost souls--O that we had listened to the message! In the case of those who have rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, O think how, in that coming eternity, thoughts of past sermons, warnings, invitations, and messages of love, will come in upon the memory when too late!

All this is to come suddenly upon an unready world that shall get no more warning than what it has had already. No second Sodom and Gomorrah! no second destruction of Jerusalem! "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments." In an hour when we think not, the Son of man cometh. Gird up your loins. You are living far too like the world. "Make ready"; for sudden destruction is coming upon an unready world. "In such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh"!

The Midrashim [expositions of Bible verses] regarding the days before the flood accuse the people of those generations of three specific crimes: idolworship, bloodshed and immorality.

1. Idolworship— wanted to distance themselves from God. "They strengthened their independence from Hashem by acquiring expertise in witchcraft."

2. Bloodshed— were murderers.

3. Immorality—"These generations ignored the commandment given to Adam (1:28), "Be fruitful and multiply." Since their goal in life was to gratify their instincts, they attempted to minimize the number of children that they had. This explains the atrocities prevalent at that time: a) a man would take two wives, one for the purpose of childbearing, the other for his pleasure; b) they exchanged wives; c) they arranged 'marriage contracts' between men and beasts, thus legalizing forbidden relationships; and d) the judges themselves were corrupt."

These three are bad enough, yet God would have given them more time to repent if they hadn't added the fourth crime of robbery.

Their thievery was of a subtle nature. Each would steal only a small amount, something so small it was not punishable by law, yet the cumulative effect would be that the victim was left with nothing.

A few examples from the Midrash:

1. R. Eliezer walked along the road and required that one of his students get him a wooden splinter to use as a toothpick from a fence around a vineyard. Even though the fence was private property, the owner would certainly not object to anyone taking a minute particle of wood of no value. Nevertheless, R. Eliezer changed his mind and said, 'Do not bring me the splinter! Others might follow my example and eventually will cause the fence to be demolished!'

2. R. Shimon ben Elazar related, 'Once a girl set me right in a halachic matter. I was walking across a field when a girl called to me, "Rabbi, this is a privately-owned field!" "But I am walking on the path," I objected. "This path," she answered, "was blazed by robbers like you!"'

They were also accused of moving the boundary markers, taking donkeys, oxen, sheep and even clothes from each other.

"Why was their guilty verdict finalized for the sin of theft more than for the crimes of idolworship, bloodshed or immorality? The answer is that robbery undermines the basis of all civilization. It is common sense that another person's property may not be stolen. Whenever Hashem sits in judgment over a person guilty of several crimes, there is one crime that accuses him above all others--the sin of robbery."

[All quotes from "The Midrash Says, The Book of Beraishis" by Rabbi Moshe Weissman]

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