The Wickedness of Man

Our Lord himself repeatedly added validity and affirmation to the stories of the Old Testament by quoting from them at least a hundred different times. He referred to Noah as a real man and discussed the conditions of Noah's day in the book of Matthew. I would like for you to turn with me there, please, in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24, and I want us to read in verse number 37. Matthew 24, verse 37. But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days of Noah they were before the flood, that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah 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. Then shall two be in the field. The one shall be taken and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill. The one shall be taken and the other left. Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. Aristotle said, Let us give ourselves to the high and noble purpose of taming the savageness of men and of rebuilding a decadent society. These are noble aspirations and mighty words. But the truth of the matter is that the savageness of man is not being tamed and society is not being rebuilt. The Bible tells us that in the latter days, war will increase. There are some similes in the Bible. There are some consistencies, some comparisons, some parallels that are very, very strange. For one thing the Bible says, in the last days, righteousness will increase. And at the same time, unrighteousness will increase. There will be an advance of technology. There will also be a high incidence of world ignorance. The Bible tells us that there will be an increase in knowledge and in wealth and in goodness and in possession. But there will also be an increase in poverty. All throughout the Word of God, there are cycles that take place in history. Historians tell us that society goes in four basic patterns. There are the periods of discovery and development. The period of cultivation and colonization. The period of leisure and luxury. And the period of destruction and annihilation. And today, America stands, as does indeed the entire world, with one foot in the period of leisure and luxury, and the other foot over the abyss of destruction and annihilation. At this very moment, there are 40 wars going on around the world. There is more chaos. There's more confusion. More calamity. More war. Than at any time in the history of the world. We have fought two wars to end all wars. And yet today, the wars that are going on are taking more of a toll than did the Second World War. And they project that by the end of this decade, unless something happens, and that something will have to be a divine intervention, if not in world affairs, at least in world hearts, that we will probably destroy ourselves before 1980. Now, at the very same time, we have more peace conferences going on than we've ever had before. Now, the Bible says, at the end of time, when men shall cry, peace, peace, then cometh swift and sudden destruction. And so the strange comparisons of poverty and wealth, of ignorance and education, of war and peace, of prosperity and famine, go on to the end of the age. Once again, in history, men have been able to determine three periods that always run like clockwork spiritually. There is always a period of sinfulness and lasciviousness and wickedness. Then there is a period of warning followed by judgment. After that judgment, there comes a period of peace and prosperity. But men seem to be unable to handle peace, unequipped to handle prosperity, and so they always go back into sin. They remember for a time that righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. They begin to pervert and prostitute the blessings of God that come through peace. So once again, a cycle of sin comes. After sin, there is warning and war and judgment. After war, peace. And on and on it goes until men again sin, and the cycle continues. You will remember that just before the destruction in Sodom and Gomorrah's day, there was a period of extreme and awful wickedness. This was followed by judgment, a great period of prosperity and peace, and once again the cycle. Now, our Lord Jesus, dipping down again and again in history to affirm what he had to say, chose one particular Old Testament incident to remind us what the world would be like that we could be ready for his coming just before the end of the world. Now, Jesus Christ talked more about his second coming than any other subject. Did you hear that? Jesus Christ talked more about the second coming of Christ than of any other subject. And I wonder if it ought not to be the prominent theme of the church today. Jesus spoke 18 times, the New Testament speaks 18 times about baptism. It speaks 11 times about the new birth. It speaks 26 times about repentance. But over 300 times, Jesus Christ or the disciples, the apostles, the angels, refer to his coming. The angels, Jesus Christ, after he ascended into heaven, two men in white raiment, angels, stood by and said to the disciples, why stands ye here gazing into heaven? Know ye not that this same Christ shall in like manner come as you've seen him go? I'm glad they said that. I'm glad they're not going to send a substitute. I'm glad they're not sending a representative. The very same Christ, the Bible says, is coming back to this earth. Jesus Christ said he was going to come. He said, I go and prepare a place for you. And if I prepare a place for you, I will come again. And the disciples said, we look from heaven, from whence appareth the glorious coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Over and over again, the message of the New Testament was the coming of Christ. More is said about his second coming than was said about his first coming. It was at this point that the Jews misunderstood. They looked for a glorious king coming in triumph and victory. But what they did not understand is that the coming of Messiah is twofold. He came the first time in poverty and rejection and humility. But the Bible says that Christ is coming the second time in victory and power and conquering might, taking judgment and vengeance upon them that know not the Lord. There is going to be peace in the valley. The lion will lay down with the lamb. Men will beat their swords into plowshares. The Bible tells us that peace will come in the world. But it will not come through the United Nations. How strange it is that historians and philosophers and politicians and military strategists are looking to every source to try to find out how to have world peace except to the prince of peace who alone can bring peace, Jesus Christ. The world is consumed with a desire for peace. No generation in the history of the world has been as possessed with a desire for anything as our world is in seeking to have peace. But the Bible tells us that it's not going to get better. Wars will increase. Until the very end, and let me repeat the statement that I've made before, Jesus Christ is not going to come when the darkness shall turn to dawning and the dawning to noonday bright and God's great kingdom shall come on earth, the kingdom of love and light, as we sing sometimes. He will not come when we have ushered in the kingdom by spreading goodness around the earth. No, Christ is not going to come when the world has finally become so good it can get along with him. He is going to come when it has become so bad it cannot get along without him. Now the Bible tells us that of all the incidents of referring to situations in the Old Testament that Jesus Christ took the conditions of the world at the time of Noah, just before the flood, and pinpointed it for us and said there, that's exactly what the world is going to be like when I come. That is how you may know that the end is near, revival is imperative, opportunity is fleeting, and the coming of Christ is at the very threshold of the door. Now understand that there are 28 major signs of the coming of Christ. I shall not be able to deal with but six or seven of them this morning. But believe me, the Bible tells us, Jesus said, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near even at the door. Now that's present tense, when ye shall see, or be seen. Then he says all these things, that's plural. Now all through history, some of these signs spasmodically and periodically have happened again and again. But the Bible says that there will come one time in history when every sign will be running concurrently, when they will all be being fulfilled simultaneously. Then Jesus says, like neon lights from heaven, the word is flashing, the king is coming, be ready, Jesus is coming again. We don't just sing Jesus is coming because it has a lilting melody and a nice beat. We sing it because it is the theme of the New Testament, because it is the thrust of the church. It is the motivation for evangelism. It is the purpose for our existence. It is the prodding for our mission. Beware, he says, be ready, be prepared. In an hour that ye think not, your Lord cometh. Now we are in the book of Genesis, ready for the sixth chapter. He gives us some signs. Jesus reviews those signs and tells us some that are not mentioned in the book of Genesis. I want us this morning briefly to consider both sets of signs by which we may know that the Savior is coming. Now I want you to turn with me again and keep your Bibles open to Matthew, and then we shall turn back to the book of Genesis. Turn first of all in Matthew chapter 24, verse number 37. Remember again, Jesus Christ is saying, As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. Then he tells us what they were. Some of these signs are in Genesis. He tells us some that are not. But as the days of Noah were, for as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, comma, let's stop right there. Eating and drinking in the Bible is a sign of physical prosperity. When one studies the word of God, it is well to remember that there are certain things that always bespeak other things. The word sleep in the Bible is always symbolic of death. Eating and drinking is always symbolic of prosperity. Now this word drinking does not necessarily mean alcoholic consumption. It merely indicates that people had plenty, that there was prosperity. There was no famine, there was no hunger, but as the people in those days, so in the days before the coming of Christ, there was world plenty. A prosperous society is a sign of the coming of Christ. Now this is a prosperous day. Things have changed in the last 25 years. The hippies could not have existed 25, 30 years ago in times of depression in the early 30s. They couldn't have existed. There would have been no place in society. It would have been impossible. It is a sign of the overflow of prosperity. They tell us that 90 % of them usually get a paycheck on Monday morning from a mother and dad who are supporting them and approving their action. But it would have been impossible in the days 35, 40 years ago for them to have existed. Welfare roles are filled, but also it's more prosperous in many places to be on welfare than it is to work. In California, a husband and wife with two children out of work can make $5 ,800 a year by working the minimum wage if the father works, but if neither of them work, they can make $7 ,200 a year off of welfare. It is more prosperous not to work than to work. They tell us that the gross national product is going to pass a trillion dollars. I heard it explained this way this week on the NBC Today Show. If you fill an auditorium with a thousand persons, that would be about two -thirds of this downstairs, and you give each of them a thousand dollars, that's a million dollars. Now, if you gave each of these a thousand people a million dollars, that would be a billion dollars. If you gave each of them a billion dollars, that would be a trillion dollars, and it literally staggers the imagination. Eighty percent of the automobiles are owned by Americans. Eighty -five percent of the television sets are owned by Americans. These are good things in themselves. When they are not an object of worship, but a gift of God that does not stand between a man and God, they're a blessing from the Lord. But the Bible says that prosperity is going to be a sign of the coming of Christ. Also, they were days of promiscuity. Look again in verse 37. He says in the 38th verse, Before the flood, they were eating and drinking. They were marrying and giving in marriage. This is an expression which literally, the best translation means, no sexual restraint. No sexual restraint. Marrying and giving in marriage does not imply that the father was consenting to give away the bride at the marriage altar. It means that they were marrying, and the best translation would be that the bonds of marriage in giving in marriage were meaningless. Marriage was falling apart. The marriage bond was useless. A young woman said on national television about a month ago from California in an interview. I fail to see what a piece of paper signed by a minister has to do with my relationship with a member of the opposite sex. Two out of three marriages are ending in divorce in many states. A good thermometer of a nation's moral fiber is her attitude on the point of marriage. They tell us in Edward Gibbon's book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that one of the four major signs that preceded the destruction of that and any society is that there was a loss of respect for character -building institutions and institutions of character, such as the home, government, and the church. The home is falling apart. And I say to you young married couples today that more than anything in this world, you must see to it that the spiritual dimension is in your life. They say it's bigger than both of us. It certainly is. There must be a third party, a third power, the presence of Christ that is above you and beyond you that pulls you together, or the problems and pressures of the world can certainly pull you apart. The Bible says three times in the book of Romans that the despicable wickedness of Noah's day was such that God gave them up. Three times. God gave them up. God gave them up. Homosexuality. Another sign of the degeneracy of morals that will be preceding the coming of Christ. It was at that point that the Bible says God gave them up. They turned from the natural use of sex and turned to that, the Bible says, which is against nature. And the Bible says for that reason, God sent them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. In other words, in setting themselves against God and the will of God, the Bible says God allowed them to be set and sealed and damned and doomed in their sins. I saw here in Houston the other day a store advertising A -line suits for men. And one of the men's suits on one of the models, the male model, was carrying a purse. I'll tell you, if you dress like that, you better carry a purse. And you better have it filled with cement and lead because you're going to have to fight somebody off. Perversion and immorality, the Bible says, are signs of the coming of the Lord. Thirdly, they were days of poverty. They were days of poverty. Historians tell us that paralleling, as at the time of the coming of Christ, paralleling righteousness, there is unrighteousness. Paralleling justice, there is injustice. And both of them increase. And we shall see when two weeks from tonight, I preach in the closing service of the crusade on the battle of Armageddon, how every evil conflict, every problem, every righteousness against unrighteousness, is ultimately going to be consummated in the grand battle of the ages in Armageddon, when right and wrong and Gog and Magog and Christ and Antichrist ultimately fight for Jerusalem, the control of the world through which the Father, Son, Jesus Christ, is coming to reign and rule on the earth. And that makes me a premillennialists. Days of poverty. Days of poverty. Now listen. You see the Bible says the wages of sin is death. Now follow. Righteousness exalted the nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Sin makes people lazy. Sin makes people lazy. I never pick up a paper. I challenge you to pick up a newspaper in Houston that you cannot find 300 ads for people with absolutely no education and no qualification for a job. No experience required. No experience needed. If you want work, you can find it. And I'm not saying that everybody that's out of a job is lazy. But by and large, sin makes people gluttonous. Sin makes people lustful. And gluttony and sin makes people lazy. And laziness leads to poverty. And poverty to death. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. It is all a symbol and a part of a dying, rotten, rotting, decadent society like Noah had, for which God had lost all concern and said, I will destroy the world. It repenteth me that I have ever even made man to fall to such an awful condition. Poverty. Now look again over in chapter 24 of Genesis. This time turn back with me to verse 7. Nation shall rise against nation. Kingdom against kingdom. There shall be famines, pestilences, earthquakes in diverse places. Pestilences and famine are the result of sin. Poverty follows sin. Example, it is true that in Harlem, we need some good social work. It is true that in Harlem, we need good education, good schools, good food. But it is also true that in Harlem, less than 7 % of the families are in an intact unit. And the moral degeneracy is probably lower than most places in America. It is also true that 59 % of the children are born out of wedlock. It is also true that every night from 30 to 50 boys and girls, little babies that are starving will be brought into a hospital where their earlobe or their toe has been bitten off by a rat. Poverty and sin go hand in hand. While we're cleaning up slums, God help us to keep cleaning up the slums in the hearts of men, or we'll be cutting off our nose to spite our face and doing very little good. Number four, the Bible says they will be days of progress. Look at verse 40 and 41. Two will be grinding in the mill, one will be taken, the other left. Two will be working in the field, one will be taken, and the other left. What does that mean? That means that society will progress. That means that business will progress. That means that men will not stop working, will not stop achieving, will not stop producing, that life will go on. The Bible tells us just before the coming of Christ, it will reach such a fever pitch that many shall run to and fro. The day you can get on an airplane at 11 o 'clock in New York and get off at 15 minutes until 11 in Los Angeles, a quarter of an hour before you left. I don't know how long that thing flies, but man, I'd like to see it take off. That's really, really moving down the line. The Bible says knowledge shall increase. We've learned more in the last 20 years than in the past 200, and more in the past 200 years than we have in all the rest of the history of the world. Friday night, we went to see Torah, Torah, Torah, the story of the invasion of Pearl Harbor. And I thought of the terrific power of those bombs that were dropped on those ships, and how awful and devastating it was. But then I was reminded that we now have B -52s circling the globe. At any given time, one -third of our air force, I think it's on, what is it, SAC Strategic Air Command, is airborne. and so that they're never all of them caught on the ground. And those planes that circle the globe are carrying bombs, which they tell us, any one of which, and we have thousands, listen, any one of which is more powerful than all the bombs dropped on both sides in the First and Second and Korean Wars put together. How technology has advanced, how science and learning and business and education has increased. Jesus says it will be a sign of the coming of Christ. The fifth word is this, there will be days of perplexity, days of perplexity. The Bible says in the last days there will be confusion. There will come a time in history when men will be pressed in. That expression used by our Lord literally means no way out, no escape. Dag Hammershul shortly before his death said, I see no exit for the human dilemma. We have tried so hard and have failed so miserably. The Bible tells us that these are drastic days, and I submit to you that it is time for the church to take some drastic measures, to have some spirinos, to have some revivals, to have some outreach, to do all that we can to be an impact for God and for good while the time remains. I believe with all of my heart that it is no accident that the Holy Spirit of God this Sunday before revival had us in this story in Genesis about the days of Noah and the wickedness of man. The end is near and the time is short. Now I want us quickly, if you will, to turn back to Genesis itself and see some other signs that are there that our Lord did not mention. Verse 1, It shall come to pass when men begin to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them. Now let's stop right there. Rapid multiplication. It is there in Genesis. It is a sign of the coming of Christ. One of the most overwhelming problems with which sociologists and politicians are concerned today is the problem of birth control. The problem of the rapid multiplication of the race. We are about to produce ourselves out of our very existence. The rapid multiplication of the day of this man is a sign of the coming of Christ. Jesus said it will be just like that. Is it any accident? Does it not seem strange to you that our society is so consumed with concern about the multiplication of the race? One man in Australia, an Australian sociologist, in the Sydney, Australia Herald said less than six months ago, in great headlines, world famine approaching. He said we are less than five years away from the beginning of a problem of being totally unable to feed our growing population that will consummate in world famine in less than 15 years. And he further added the catastrophic statement that if every nation in the world now begin a crash program of trying to stop multiplication of the race and a crash program to produce enough food to feed what we already have, it would be totally too late. He said it cannot be stopped. Again, Jesus said there will be famine and the increase, the multiplication of the race, a sign of the coming of Christ. Now I would add to you very quickly that the Bible suggests to me here in Genesis as well that there will be a famine of preaching. A famine of preaching. A lot of talk. A lot of rosewater cliches. But not much preaching of the gospel. Not much preaching of the word of God. Not much thundering of judgment and repentance and the new birth and the blood and the coming of Christ. Listen. It came to pass that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of all which they chose. Obviously inferring the ignorance of the will of God. They took whom they chose without giving God concern. The community was not climatized and saturated with a standard of righteousness and men were doing what they wanted to do. Now every theologian has tried to explain what this verse means when it says the sons of God took unto themselves the wives of the daughters of men and intermarried with them. One of the most consistently ridiculous statements purported upon us is that the sons of God were an expression for angels. That's absurd. Angels are sexless beings and incapable of cohabitation. This must be an expression that means the sons of God, Christian men, were taking wives of non -Christian women and were intermarrying with the heathen, with the pagan, with the non -believer. It is likewise today a sign of the times. It's been a cold, cold day in August, friend, since I've had a girl say to me in love, I will not marry him because he is not a Christian. The unequal yoke is more prominent today than Christian marriages. It's almost absurd. It is nearly, totally unheard of that a girl would put her faith in God and the command of God ahead of her faith in that boy. Oh, they're going to change him. We'll save him after we get married. But once again, they come day after day, week after week, with marriages that have become a hell on earth because Christ is not altered, the church is not loved, the tithe is not given, prayers are not said because the head of the home is not a Christian and the poor struggling wife wants to serve Christ and go to church. I warn you, the Bible says, don't enter into that kind of a marriage. If you can't get them saved first, girl, you better forget it. You'll not get many of them saved after the wedding date is over. The sons of God marrying the daughters of men whom they chose, whom they chose. The inference is that it was their choice. Why? There's only one reason that a society basically is bent in opposition to the will of God. That is because of an absence of the preaching of the word of God. It is only the word of God that keeps a community sensitive. I'll tell you there's one basic reason why students will sass teachers and sass police and sass parents and that is because the ultimate authority of God is no longer allowed in the public school system. We've allowed a few absurd, ridiculous atheists to dictate to us and we have created a monstrosity in the schools for which our society is paying. Now you can be very astute and very intellectual and very educated and very affluent in all of your answers, but the truth of the matter is that our society didn't used to be like that. Things didn't used to be that way. And they wonder where is the authority symbol? Why no respect for God, for the church? Why no respect for the word of God, for the flag, for the country, for the policemen? Why? Because all of these things are but the symbols of the basic authority symbol, God himself. They don't get God in the schools. They don't get God in too many churches. They don't get God at home. And when there is no strong preaching of the gospel to saturate and climatize and bathe a community, then to that degree you have anarchy and rebellion. Now there aren't any exceptions to that. Why is Houston the murder capital of the world? Why? Four people a night through the past have been dying in this town. I do not know. I'm not blaming anybody, but I'm saying this. I just pray somewhere God will raise a voice, a church, with an impact, with a power, with an authoritative message for what saith the word of God that the people of Houston, Texas will listen to. else to that degree we shall continue to persist in our anarchy and our ignorance and in our sin. Well, there are so many other things. The last word is this. God intervened. God spoke. God warned. God judged. But God was ignored. I haven't got through half my sermon. The time is gone. Let me read it for you again. They were entering. They were drinking, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark. And knew not until the flood came and took them all away. They knew not what? That the flood was coming? Knew not that the judgment of God was impending? Knew not that God was unpleased? No, no. For 120 years, God gave them a faithful prophet that said, Repent, repent, repent, judgment is coming. That word, that expression, and knew not, is an old English translation which literally means this. And they would not know. They refused to know. They knew they didn't do. They heard they didn't respond. They were informed they didn't act. Before that awful hurricane and tidal wave that hit Louisiana in 1957, when scores and scores of people were killed, I believe it was 57, Eisenhower sent in a, after Eisenhower sent in a team to investigate what had happened. And they came back with the words, with the report, that the average person in southern Louisiana had heard about 60 warnings in the last 36 hours and had done absolutely nothing about it. Poverty, riots, war, disease, all of these things were like it was in Noah's day. And of all the things in the Old Testament, Jesus Christ chose to refer to that and said, now that's how it'll be when I come. And anyone that'll open his eyes and look can see that obviously these are similar signs that are existing in our society today. And Jesus Christ warned us, there are still those who try to figure it out, have all the little answers, scoff, ridicule, and refuse to know until the judgment comes and takes them all away, and they were not. Our God is a God of mercy. He is a God of justice, however. God is not mocked. And when men reject the will of God, and when a society goes against God, the Bible says God judges that society. But thank the Lord, first of all, He warns them, and He gives them a way of escape. You say, wouldn't it be wonderful if America would turn to God? If society would experience revival. But who is America? What is society? Just people. Just people. Someday, I believe with all my heart, revival is going to come. Someday I believe that. I believe God will send one last great chance at world evangelism to the church before He comes and winds it all up and says, that's all, boys, it's closing time. And somewhere that revival fire that shall spread like a prairie conflagration will start in somebody's service, in somebody's church, in somebody's heart. I appeal to you, not as a church, not as a part of society, as people, as persons, as individuals, to simply ask God to forgive every sin in your life, to repent and to turn away from it and to quit doing it, to start to read God's Word and live by God's book, to let the Spirit of God flood and fill and bless and control your life. But revival can come next week. It can come today. And it will. For He says, if my people, that's where revival starts, if my people, which are called by thy name, will humble themselves, and humility includes confession and contrition and repentance, although there is no use to pray, the order is this, humble themselves, then pray, then I'll hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and heal their land. America needs to hear from heaven. Revival could start right now, today, in your heart. Let us pray. Our Father, this is a hard message. We know it's not a popular message. And it would be so much easier not to preach it. But dear Lord, you have told us, in your Word, that you had pretty well come to a time, as you spanned the centuries down there, from Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, so very quickly, as though almost to get to the point, that from the very first sin in the garden, from the very first murder by Cain, yonder until the cup of divine indignation was filled to the brim, that you'd had enough. I said, all right, now prepare to meet your God. And then our Lord Jesus Christ said, that's how it'll be when I come. And you have called us today to revival and to repentance. And we ask thee in the name of our Savior, that it shall become a reality in our hearts. In His name we pray. Heads are bowed, eyes are closed. Don't try to analyze. Don't try to judge or to weigh. Let God speak personally to you. Was there something in this sermon for me? Was there a sin of which I was guilty? Is there some place where the Spirit of God was prodding my heart? But I ought to repent of my sin. Now it is after 12. It is late. It's time to go and be on time. But I should like to ask you in a few closing moments to remain and be patient. And if you are a Christian in this service, maybe I mentioned something of importance and personal application to you and maybe not. But if the Spirit of God mentioned something to you, if the Holy Spirit talked to you and tugged at you and touched your heart, will you come and kneel and rededicate your life and confess your sin? And if you desire, you may return to your seat. If you're here and belong to another church but believe this is the will of God where you should join, then we invite you to come here now and do so. But if you do not know Christ as your Savior, you've never received Jesus, He's never come into your life, come and confess Him as your Savior and say, Pastor, I want Christ in my life. I want to give my heart to Him. As He speaks to hearts and we sing, I urge you to come as we have our invitation. Shall we stand? We wait for you. We wait for you.

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