From His Heart

Speaker 1

Listen, the door to the ark of safety that's found in Jesus Christ is open right now. It's open for you, but it won't be open forever.

It's open to you now. And if you do what those people did in the days of Noah and you blow off the warning from the Lord, one day he's going to close the door and the day of grace will be over for you.

Speaker 2

Just as there was room in Noah's ark for more people to be saved, there's still room at the cross for all who come to God in repentance and faith. God's grace is available now, but as Pastor Jeff mentioned, the door won't stay open forever.

This is from his heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. Thank you for being with us today. The message is entitled "A Fig Tree and a Flood," and it's from Pastor Jeff's new nine-lesson series, "When the Son of Man," a study of Matthew, chapters 24 and 25.

Today's message may lead you to some questions about salvation, like: Can I be sure I'm going to heaven when I die? Or if God loves me, why doesn't He answer my prayers? Or if I'm saved and going to heaven, can I mess up enough to lose it? Or I know myself, so how can God still love me?

These are great questions, and they have gracious answers. When you go to promisheart.org, click the "Why Jesus?" link.

Speaker 1

Link.

Speaker 2

But first turn in your Bible to Matthew, chapter 24, as we learn the similarities of a fig tree and a flood. Part two. Here again is Pastor Jeff.

Speaker 1

Jesus gives an illustration, a parable of the fig tree. And then he goes back to history—ancient history, antediluvian history, the time before the flood. To help us understand about end times, what does the fig tree teach us? The fig tree teaches us this: it teaches us about the certainty of his coming. You can mark it down. Heaven and earth may pass away, but his word is not going to pass away. And it is a sure thing that he is coming again.

The flood teaches us about the suddenness of his return. It is certain he's coming. And when he comes, he comes quickly. He comes suddenly. That's what Jesus says in Revelation, chapter 22: "Behold, I am coming quickly." And that means suddenly, rapidly. So the question comes into our minds: well, what were those days like? What were the days of Noah like? The days of Noah were days of societal disaster and degradation. They were awful days. We read about those days in Genesis, chapter six. The land was filled with great wickedness, so much so that every intent of a man's heart was only evil continually. That word for wickedness means distress. It means evils, it means miseries. It means afflictions, it means calamities. It was an awful time.

But not only was it a day of great wickedness, it was a day of moral corruption. The Lord goes on to say in Genesis, chapter 6, verses 11 and 12, "Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence." God looked on the earth and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. The word corrupt means to ruin. It means to spoil. It means to go bad.

There was, thirdly, rampant violence, because the Lord says the earth was filled with violence. In Genesis 6:13, he says this: "Then God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me. For the earth is filled with violence because of them. Behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth." Life was cheap during the day and age of Noah.

And then fourthly, there was demonic oppression, demonic possession, and demonic activity. Genesis chapter six introduces us to the people called the Nephilim. Nobody knows for certain who the Nephilim were, but this is what the Bible tells us about them: "Now it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God"—that's in the Bible, a reference to angels—"saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose."

Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not strive with man forever because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall be 120 years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

People say, "Who? Who are the Nephilim? What is the Bible talking about here?" Well, there are three possible answers. The first answer is that all it is saying is that you had the godly line of Seth, and then you had the ungodly line of Cain. They began to intermarry the godly line with the ungodly line, and they had these children that weren't pure, you know, in terms of their morality and things like that. Well, that doesn't seem to fit with me because the sons of God—men aren't called the sons of God. In the Old Testament, the angels are called the sons of God.

So the second way to interpret that and understand the Nephilim is that they are angels who Jude talks about. In the second to last book of the Bible, the book of Jude, it says angels didn't keep their proper domain but went after strange flesh. They say these are angels that took on the body of a human. Because angels are different from us, obviously. Jesus said angels don't marry in heaven; they're spirit beings, spiritual beings.

So they somehow took on the body of a human, just like the two angels who went to Sodom and Gomorrah. They looked like men, although they probably looked a little different—maybe they glowed a little bit, I don't know. But they say, "Well, these angels took women, they seized women, and they began to have children with these women." They were these half-demon, half-human children. You know, remember the movie "The Bad Seed" way back when? We have this Greek mythology where you have this demigod, this half-spiritual being and half-human. They say, "Well, that's what that is."

That was going to destroy the bloodline. God had promised in Genesis 3 that the seed of the woman was going to crush the serpent's head. So the devil is trying to destroy the bloodline and destroy the seed of the woman so that couldn't happen. That's why God had to wipe out the earth, to preserve the purity of the line from Adam to Christ.

Well, that could possibly be, but it does say that these Nephilim were men. The sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the men who were of old, men of renown. It calls them men; it doesn't call them something else. It doesn't call them half men, half demon; it just calls them men. So I tend to think that the Nephilim are demon-possessed people who end up having children, and they are given over to demons. There's something demonic going on. This is not just the godly line of Seth with the ungodly line of Cain. I think it is much deeper than that.

But all that to say, during the days of Noah, they were days of demonic activity. What do we have today? You know, we lump everything in the category of, "Oh, that's mental illness. All those people, they just have mental disorders." Well, maybe some of them do, but I think a lot of those people have demonic oppression and possession taking place in them. There was demonic oppression, possession, and activity taking place during the days of Noah. So they were days of societal disaster. But secondly, they were days of spiritual dullness—tremendous spiritual dullness.

Speaker 2

You're listening to part two of the message, "A Fig Tree and a Flood," from Pastor Jeff Shreve's series, "When the Son of Man Comes," a study of Matthew 24:25. What a dynamic series about prophecy and end times from the mouth of Jesus.

Pastor Jeff will return in just a moment to close out this important lesson, from which he will unpack the sobering truths of the final judgment where Jesus separates the sheep from the goats, not based on good deeds, but on a true relationship with Christ.

The series is our gift of thanks to you for your support from His Heart this month of any amount. You can make that gift and receive the series when you call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE, or go online to fromhisheart.org. Together, we're helping people hear the truth so they will prepare their hearts and their homes for Jesus' return.

Now, let's get back to this impactful lesson.

Speaker 1

Now, Jesus said as he points out the days of Noah, verse 38. For as in those days before the flood, what was happening? They were eating and drinking. They were marrying and giving in marriage. And Jeff Kinley, my friend who wrote a book on Matthew 24:25, he says, well, he thinks that marrying and giving in marriage was connected to the Nephilim and the sons of God taking the daughters of men and marrying them. Jesus said they were marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark.

And very interesting when you read in Genesis chapter 7, the Lord called Noah to come into the ark seven days before the flood came. Now we preach and believe that the rapture comes seven years before the return of Christ and the tribulation period is seven years. And so I see a correlation there. But he comes in seven days before, and it says, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away. So will be the coming of the Son of man. Noah is called a preacher of righteousness.

Now, Noah was 500 years old when he became the father of Ham, Shem, and Japheth. And he's 600 years old when he gets into the ark. Now the Bible clearly says in Genesis 6:3, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, yet his days shall be 120 years. So I've always struggled with this. How long was Noah building the ark? Was it 100 years, from 500 to 600? Or did he start at 480 and go to 600? Because the Lord does say, I'll give man 120 years. Most conservative Bible scholars say he's 120 years in building the ark. So it's either 100 or 120. It's a long time.

And he's building this massive vessel. You know, the ark was 450 ft long, 75 ft wide, and 45 ft high. And he's doing, I guess he's doing that in his off time. So he works a full job and then he comes home. What are you going to do tonight? I'm going to build the ark. He's building it for a hundred plus years, a long, long time. And he's a preacher of righteousness.

And so as he's building the ark, remember this. There had, from all indications we can get in scripture, there had never been any rain on the earth. God would water the earth with a mist that would come up from the ground. He's saying that God is going to destroy the world with a flood. They're like, what's a flood? Well, there's going to be rain that's coming. What's rain? They don't have any baseline for this. They don't have any knowledge of this.

And so he's preaching and telling them that judgment is coming and it's coming in the form of a flood. But he's building this ark, and it's an ark of rescue and an ark of safety and an ark of refuge, and they can come on the ark and be saved. But what do the people say? They blow him off. They're marrying and giving in marriage, they're eating and drinking. They're just going about life all crazy. Noah, you know, he's been building that boat for decades and decades and decades and decades.

Adrian Rogers likens a little story of a boy coming home to his dad, and he said, dad, I gotta tell you something, dad, I'm just so scared. He said, dad, we were out there playing. We saw that there's this guy out there that's building this giant boat out in the middle of nowhere. Dad, he said that God's going to destroy the world with a flood. And dad, but he said that we could come on this boat and then this ark and then we'd be saved. And so, dad, what do you think about that? And he goes, oh, he goes, son, you don't need to worry about that. He said, that old fool, he's been building that thing since, you know, your grandfather was a boy. And there's no flood. And then nobody's ever heard of a flood. There's no flood coming. Don't let that guy scare you. All he is is a shock jock preacher. He's just trying to scare you. He's just trying to get decisions. And made his little son feel much, much better. They just went about their business. They were spiritually dull.

Now this is what it says in Luke, as Jesus is talking about this same kind of situation. Because he says, as it was in the days of Noah and as it was in the days of Lot. Now, Noah's day brought about worldwide destruction. Lot's day brought about localized destruction. The cities of the plain, four cities were destroyed in Lot's day: Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim.

And this is what the Lord says in Luke chapter 17. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot. They were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building. But on the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. They didn't know. They were totally oblivious. They were spiritually dull. They didn't understand.

When Noah went into the ark seven days before the flood, he went into the ark. And those people are just like that guy. He's a nut job and so is his wife, and so are his three boys and his three daughters-in-law. They're all crazy because nothing happened for seven days. But at the end of seven days, it began to rain. The days of Noah were days of worldwide judgment. That's what they were days of.

And very interesting. So you have a man in scripture, he's the son of Enoch. Enoch was the very first astronaut. He was not, for the Lord took him. He was the guy that never died. He just went up into heaven. And he had a son named Methuselah. Methuselah is an interesting name. Methuselah is a compound name. Methuselah's name means, it shall be sent when he is dead. Methuselah lived longer than any other person, 969 years. And if you do the math, you'll find out that the year Methuselah died is the year the flood came.

And he lived longer than anybody else because the patience of God was waiting in the days of Noah. And God knew that nobody was going to respond other than Noah and his family. But he was still waiting. The door of the ark was still open. Worldwide judgment came in the flood.

Now, people misinterpret what it says in Matthew 24, verse 40. Then there will be two men in the field. One will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken and one will be left. And people say, well, that's the Rapture. I mean, God just takes them. No, that's not the rapture. Matthew 24:25 doesn't speak of the Rapture. Where these people are taken are the same people that were taken during the flood of Noah's day. They're taken away in judgment. The ones that are left are the ones that get to go into the kingdom, the millennial kingdom. They're the sheep that the Lord puts on his right. The goats are on the left. The goats are taken away. These are the sheep that get to go into the millennial kingdom.

And this is how the Lord words it in Luke chapter 17. I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and one will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place. One will be taken and the other will be left. Two men will be in the field, one will be taken and the other will be left. And answering, they said to him, where, Lord? Where are they taken? And he said to them, where? The body is there also the vultures will be gathered. They're taken away to death. That's where they're taken. The days of Noah, days of worldwide judgment.

And you know what? This is so wonderful about the Lord. The days of Noah were days of avoidable wrath. God is going to pour out his wrath on an unbelieving world, on a world that is filled with wickedness and violence and corruption, but it's avoidable. The ark is a huge vessel. The animals that went into the ark, you know, some people say, well, how could all those animals have gotten into the ark? Well, number one, they don't have to be full-grown animals. They can be small. They can be sheep-sized animals. And you don't have to have every breed of dog on the ark. You just have to have the canine species. And from that, you can get all these others.

And so somebody said that of the animals, there were probably on the high side, 16,000 animals on the ark. There's 1.3 million usable cubic feet of space on the Ark. There's room on the Ark for many, many, many people. We sing that song: "There's room at the cross for you. Though millions have come, there's still room for one. Yes, there's room at the cross for you." There was room on the ark.

And Noah, who is one of my favorite people in the scripture, not a perfect man, but a faithful man, he preached his heart out for at least 100 years, 120 years, whatever it was, might be. And he saw no decisions other than his family, none. Nobody responded. A preacher of righteousness warning people that the wrath of God was getting ready to fall in the form of a flood, and nobody responded. They just blew him off.

It is hard as a preacher to preach your heart out and see no response. And to do that Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, week after week after week, month after month after month, year after year after year. Well, this guy did it for decade after decade after decade. Nobody responded. And he knows for certain that judgment is coming and it's coming soon. And when he goes into the ark, Genesis 7:16, the Lord shuts it behind him. And the day of grace was over.

Listen, as we close out, the door to the ark of safety that's found in Jesus Christ is open right now. It's open for you. You're here today, and you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. I want to tell you the ark is a picture of Jesus, and the door is open, and he is saying, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The spirit and the bride say, "Come." Revelation 22:17, the last chapter of the Bible. It's an invitation. Come, come. Let the one who is thirsty come, and let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.

The door to the ark is open, but it won't be open forever. It's open to you now. And if you do what those people did in the days of Noah, and you blow off the warning from the Lord, one day he's going to close the door and the day of grace will be over for you. I want to plead with you with all my heart. If you don't know Jesus, you've never given your heart to Jesus. You need to do it today, because we don't know when he closes the door. But I know that there's room at the cross for you. And I know that Jesus does not take pleasure in the death of anyone who dies. Therefore, he says, "Repent and live and come to me and receive my love, my grace, my forgiveness, and my salvation."

Speaker 2

Jesus Christ gave His very life so that sinners could be reconciled to Him. If you'll just come to Him, confess your sins, and make Him the Lord of your life, He'll receive you, and all your sins will be forgiven. You'll have a relationship with Almighty God.

To find out more about what that looks like and how you can be sure, go to fromisheart.org and click the "Why Jesus?" link on our website. We also have a small sampling of many real testimonies from real listeners all around the world, sharing the real fruit from this mission called From His Heart. We would also love to hear what you think about how God has used this ministry to help in your daily walk. Go to fromisheart.org/real-testimonies and leave us your thoughts on the impact the teaching of Pastor Jeff has had on you. Thank you so very much.

When you're at our website, we hope you'll sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly Real Hope email encouragement devotional letter. You'll get that in your Friday morning inbox. The web address again is fromisheart.org.

Well, thank you so much for being with us today. I'm Larry Nobles, and a big thanks for joining us today on From His Heart, the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, who next time will continue the series "When the Son of Man Comes," a study of Matthew 24-25. And here's just a small bit of what's to come.

Speaker 1

Jesus says, behold, I'm coming quickly. Quickly didn't mean I'm coming tomorrow, obviously, because it's been many centuries. But it means he's coming.

When he comes, it'll be sudden and it'll be rapid.

So the question is this: How are we to live until the Son of Man comes?

Speaker 2

It's a lesson called Watchful and Wise. That's Friday here on From His Heart.