The last days #6: Violence fills the earth Gen 6:9-13, Luke 17:26-27
Violence in the earth is not new. The age will end with a return to the days that preceded the flood. This violence will again precipitate judgement.
The violence in view here is the violent behaviour of man toward God and toward his fellow man. We are not thinking of the violent acts of Divine wrath that will be seen on the days prior to the return of Christ.
The earth that the Lord returns to will be one soaked in blood by the hands of violent men. This may be measured by the plague described in Rev 16:3, 6. As in the days of Pharaoh where the rivers ran red with the blood of murdered Israelite newborn boys before God turned the water to blood so they could recognize that He had seen that blood and was holding them to account for it.
I SOME INDICATIONS OF THE VIOLENCE OF THE LAST DAYS.
- The beginning. Cp Matt 24:6-8, Rev 6:3-4, 7-8, 9-10.
- The climax of the last days in the violence of Antichrist’s power.
- His violent rise. Cp Dan 7:8, 11:21-22.
- Violence against God’s people—Jews and Christians. Cp Dan 11:33, Rev 13:15, Matt 24:15-22.
- Violence within his own kingdom. Cp Rev 9:13-21.
- A display of violence at his end. Cp Rev 16:13-14, Dan 11;40-44.
II MEN’S HEARTS BECOME HARDENED TO VIOLENCE.
Violence has a numbing effect. We can become acclimatized/desensitized to it.
- The violence of Noah’s day was seen by God. This is suggestive of the fact that men did not see it!
- The Saviour’s words. Cp Luke 17:27. The Lord Jesus describes the conditions of Noah’s days in which life went on as normal even as the structures of society was being destroyed around them.
III Men are particularly blind to the fact that their violence summons the wrath of God.
Cp Gen 6:13.
- Men reap what they sow.
- The men of Noah’s day refused to see what Noah warned of for 120 years.
- Christ will purge the world from the effects of this violence. Previously He washed the earth in water. At His coming He will purge it with fire. Cp 2Pet 3:5-7.