In the day's before Christ's return...

Mat 24:36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
Mat 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Mat 24:38 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,
Mat 24:39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.


In the days before Christ returns we will be…


Eating
Drinking
Marrying
Giving in marriage


It's safe to say we'll also be…


Watching television
Going to work
Playing golf
Using a computer
Talking on a cellphone
Attending school


Life will be going on as normal.


Now let's catch a picture of all this. Noah was building an ark. The ark wasn't built overnight. The Bible isn't specific on how long it took to build the ark but we know it was after Noah was 500 years old and before 600. Given the tools of the time and the size of the job it's a fair assumption that it took a long time to build the ark, right? So here we are, Noah begins working on the ark and that garners some attention from people. At first they're curious and as time goes on and this ark keeps getting bigger again it's a fair assumption that he became something of a laughing stock. Today if someone were building something on the same scale-- let's say they're building another ark but this one is for time travel-- it's huge, it's being built because this guy thinks that in time the power will come from somewhere that will enable this huge time machine to work. At first we'd see this guy and his work in progress on the news, and on our computers, there would be talk of him on twitter and pictures of him on cellphones. People would visit him out of curiosity and for the fun of it and yes, he'd be made fun of and probably called a lunatic. As time passed we'd keep an eye on Him, the crowds wouldn't be as thick any longer but there would still be visitors and maybe a weekly update on his progress on the Tonight Show. You understand what I'm trying to do here, I'm trying to make a comparison to Noah's day and Our day-- but I'm also trying to create the image of Noah's day and how things might have been. People would go about their day to day business after the novelty of the Noah's building an ark had worn off.


Jesus is going to return-- that's a fact.


People go about their every day lives and will continue to do so until Jesus returns.


So many people are expecting a period of time to get ready. So many people are expecting a warning that they cannot ignore- such as an end of the world scenario. They want there to be such a crisis that it can't be anything but the end of the world and of course Jesus comes before the end of the world sooooo…. I mean during our natural disasters you hear of people talking about thinking the world was coming to an end because that's what it felt like to them. Has the world ended…no. Also, the trouble today is we're being conditioned with every earthquake, every destructive hurricane, every season of raging wild fires, tornados, floods, etc. to think of them more and more as commonplace and less and less as warnings of any sort. Wars, natural disasters, countries in peril, local, state, providence murders, thefts, criminal activity of all kinds, we are becoming desensitized to it all. Is it no wonder at all that when Jesus returns people will be going about their business as usual, that the warnings will not be heeded?


We have to live with the expectation of Jesus returning at any time! We cannot rely on any great flash of a warning sign showing up in our heads driving us crazy until we pay attention. We cannot wait until we're done sowing our oats of sin. We cannot wait to get *things* out of our system before expecting our Savior.


We NEED to live every day expecting Jesus to return.
We NEED to live every day with that hope in our hearts.
We NEED to live ready to spend eternity with our loving Savior at every moment.


May God bless us and help us to live in expectation of our Savior's return now and always. As we live our lives in what we deem a normal way let Him forever be before us in our spirit, our thoughts, our hearts. It's too easy to become desensitized to life's tragedies but rather than be desensitized may the Holy Spirit convict our hearts to feel the pain of all the horrors we live with so that we may never be accepting of the sin that caused it all. Let our tears be shed now knowing some day they will be all wiped away.


By the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior now and forever in HIS righteousness through His love.


Amen.