Today is Father’s Day. I normally do not mention holidays that fall on Sunday, like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. I think that there are enough things that are competing out in the world that take away the attention off of the Sunday Sabbath, so we do not really need to focus on these things. Just think of all of the sporting events that are on Sundays. Football games are primarily on Sunday, as well as baseball.
Every sport has all kinds of things that people get involved with, but there is no way that people can be going to stadiums and spending their time rooting and cheering and then also spending time with God on the Sabbath. I am sure that some people try to do this, but they do not mix too well. Actually, they do not mix at all. They are like water and oil, and so this is not a good thing to do.
Today, however, I would like to talk to you about a father who understands that there is a day of judgment. He understands that May 21 of 2011 is Judgment Day and he warns his children about this. He also warns everyone else.
Who do you think that I am talking about? Actually, not only did he warn his children and not only did he warn everyone else, he was also correct in his understanding of Judgment Day and the end of the world. He was correct. This date was proven. We still have to wait for May 21, 2011, and then it will be proven. The only reason that it is not proven yet is because it has not arrived as yet.
But this man was a father and he heard directly from God concerning a date. He knew the year, the month, and the day of the coming judgment. Because of this, he began telling people. He also, of course, spent a lot of time with his own children. We can be sure of this.
What does God tell us in Ephesians about fathers? Go to Ephesians 6. By the way, these are the primary instructions for children. We read elsewhere in the book of Ephesians, “Husbands, love your wives” and, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.” For the children, this is what God has given for you to listen to and to do. If you are wondering whether or not you are a child of God, a big way of looking at yourself and examining yourself is to see how you are doing as a child in relation to what God says in Ephesians 6:1-3:
Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
Do not let this last statement fool you because it is not talking about this earth. If a child honors and obeys his parents, this may not necessarily extend his life a single day. Of course, it could keep you out of a lot of trouble and God could work through this to keep someone alive, but this would not be the cause of someone living to be one hundred or anything like this. God is referring to the “new earth.”
Children are to honor their parents and this would be a sign of a true believer, someone who is a child of God. Therefore, you will “live long on the earth” because you will have everlasting life, which is a long time. You will live long on the new earth if God has given you a new heart and a new spirit and if you are genuinely and sincerely honoring your parents and obeying them as a result of this.
Now look at Ephesians 6:4:
And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
This is what true believers desire to do. True believing fathers desire to bring their children up “in the nurture…of the Lord,” which means to bring them the Gospel, to read the Bible to them, to share what the Bible has to say with them, to pray for them, to nurture them in the Word of God by having Family Radio on. For your whole child’s life, this is a good way to desire to nurture them.
Keep in mind that there are many families who do not have Family Radio on and they do not listen to Bible reading or to beautiful hymns or teaching that is true to the Bible. They might have the local rock station on. If they are more intellectual, maybe they have a symphony orchestra on; but this is not going to help anyone. To have Family Radio on can be a big help for parents in raising their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
Do you know what would be an excellent thing for parents to do? It would be for parents to make sure that their children sit down with them and listen to the “Open Forum” program from Monday through Friday. From Monday through Friday, for at least an hour out of the hour and a half, sit them down to listen with you. Parents are supposed to be the ones who are in control in the household, and so you can tell your children, “I desire for you to listen to the ‘Open Forum’ for at least an hour because I love you and because this will bless you and help you.”
They have heard this from us, as mothers and fathers, but in a house where everyone is living together, everyone else knows everyone else’s faults and failing. It is easy for either the wife and the husband, the husband and the wife, or the children towards their parents to bring these things to mind and to say something like, “Dad is telling me to do this, and yet he gets angry.”
So, effectively, they can decide to not listen to the parents because these parents have sinned in the house, certainly, from time-to-time. Therefore, they believe that they can just write off what Mom or Dad is telling them about Judgment Day.
However, to have children seated and listening to the “Open Forum” where Mr. Camping is teaching, and has been for fifty years and has also given nothing but a good testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ, is something that can be very important and effective to the children who are listening. If you remember, God says, “A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.”
So Mom and Dad can maybe have some difficulty with their own family, but Mr. Camping is certainly someone who teaches very soundly and clearly; and every night they are going to hear that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day. They are going to hear this every night.
I think that if you try to start this with your children, you might find that they do not want to listen; at least some of them, but some will, however, by God’s grace. He is working in the lives of some children, but some children do not want to listen. They cannot sit still or maybe they talk with one another. You might have to say, “Look, I want you to listen. I am going to stay here with you. I am going to listen. Let us listen to this for the next hour, because this is so important. The time is so short and I know that you can be blessed by listening to Mr. Camping on the ‘Open Forum.’”
This would be a very good way for parents to begin to follow what God is saying here in bringing their children up “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” This could be a way that God might bless.
I was talking about a father. Do you know who this father is who warned his children of the day of judgment? It is Noah.
Do you know what God says about Noah? Look at Hebrews 11. Sometimes we get caught up with the whole idea of explaining how it is that believers can know, when the Bible says “of that day and hour knoweth no man.” We can look at Noah to show how God did reveal specifically to Noah the timing of the end of the world, but we might miss something that God says here in Hebrews 11, which is the faith chapter. We read in Hebrews 11:1:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
All through this chapter, we see this particular Greek word translated as “faith.” We see the word faith, faith, faith, as we read of these people of God who did this or that tremendous thing “by faith” and accomplished this or that “by faith.” We read of this all throughout this chapter.
If we make a substitution with the word “faith,” this will help us a lot in our understanding of this. What substitution should we make? Instead of saying “faith,” we can substitute “Christ.” This is because God is love, God is wisdom, He is sanctification and righteousness, and He is faith. His Name is “Faithful and True.” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He is The Faith and God has given Him this Name.
In the book of Jude, it speaks of “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” This would be referring to Christ who was delivered for the sins of His people “from the foundation of the world.”
So when we read in Hebrews 11:1:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for…
We could say:
Now [Christ] is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Now go down to verse 6, Hebrews 11:6:
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Without Christ, it is impossible to please God. No one can please Him without Christ. He is the One who is the doorway to Heaven.
Then we read in verse 7, Hebrews 11:7:
By faith…
Or:
By [Christ] Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith [Christ].
So Noah, “by faith” or “by Christ,” did these things. He did them “by Christ.” If we quickly scan over:
…being warned of God of things not seen as yet…
We could say:
By [Christ] Noah…moved with fear…
Noah “moved with fear” by the working of the Lord Jesus Christ within him. This is why Noah believed God. When God told Noah about the flood, he believed “by Christ” because Christ worked in him.
Remember what we read in Philippians 2:13:
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Noah was not a super man. He was a man like anyone else. He was a sinner, even though we do not read about his sin until later. In Genesis 9, we read about when he became a husbandman and drank of the fruit and got drunk. But he was just a man. He was just a man; however, God came to him and gave him information. He believed this and acted upon this “by faith” or “by Christ.”
Look at Genesis 6 where God speaks of man’s sinfulness. We read in Genesis 6:5-8:
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented JEHOVAH that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And JEHOVAH said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of JEHOVAH.
This is the identical way of salvation today, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves.” It is not your faith that saves. It is not any man’s faith. Remember that God tells us in Galatians 2:16 that we are “not justified by the works of the law.” To exercise faith is a work. Then Galatians 2:16 goes on to say that we are justified “by the faith of Jesus Christ.” It is by His faith that anyone becomes saved.
Noah was identical to any modern person of our day because Noah was a sinner. Since God uses the word “grace” to describe Noah in that he “found grace,” this indicates that he was as big a sinner as anyone else. No one needs grace unless they are a sinner, unless they have transgressed the Law of God and need a Saviour. It is then that they need grace.
For Noah to have found grace in God’s sight is letting us know that he had the same heart of unbelief and was as desperately wicked as all of the others whom we just read about whose hearts were “only evil continually.” But God changed his heart and gave him a new heart. This is where it begins with Noah, as God has given him a new heart and spirit. Now Noah can begin to act.
Look at verse 9, Genesis 6:9:
These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
This word “just” is translated as “righteous” in Genesis 7:1, and so Noah was a righteous man.
People read these kinds of descriptions of individuals in the Bible and they think that they were good, that they were morally good. Then they tend to think that if they could only be as good as them, then they, too, would find grace or that they could also be accepted by God; and yet all of this comes after salvation.
So Noah was a righteous man, a just man, because of the righteousness of Christ. He was perfect because God had made him perfect, and he walked with God.
Who else walked with God and was not because God took him? Enoch walked with God, and Enoch is also mentioned in Hebrews 11 as a man of faith; that is, the Lord Jesus Christ saved Enoch. After Enoch was 365 years old, he was translated. God gave us Enoch’s age in order to let us know that after “the acceptable year of the LORD” would be the rapture. God also uses this picture in other ways.
So Noah found grace. He was a righteous man. He was perfect. He walked with God, which means that he was keeping His commandments. God tells us to “walk in his statutes.” God also tells us to “run the way of thy commandments.”
When we can walk with God, when we can walk the way of His commandments, then we are no longer lame, spiritually speaking. If we cannot walk in His commandments, it is like we are a lame man, which is why God uses this figure sometimes. He also does this to paint a picture of salvation; for example, when a lame man begins to walk or to jump or to run around.
But here in Genesis 6, God gave Noah specific instructions concerning the ark. We read in Genesis 6:14:
Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
Then we read in Genesis 6:17-18:
And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die. But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
God told Noah this long before the flood came. He told him this long before. He is just getting the commandments to build the ark. He just got the specifications from God, and God has already told him, “You, your wife, and your three sons and their wives are going to enter into the ark.”
In other words, this is a good illustration of election, as God has predestinated people before the foundation of the world to salvation. It was only these eight people who did go into the ark many years later. After God was ready to bring the flood, no one else went into the ark. It was only the ones whom God had preordained, those who He told Noah would enter into the ark. These were the only and exact ones who were delivered from the flood; nobody else was.
Noah was told that he himself, his wife, and his sons and their wives would be the ones going into the ark, but he was not told that no one else would. So in his mind, it was not necessarily just them. Perhaps he hoped that others could also hear and be warned and enter into the ark, but God here is prefiguring the doctrine of election by telling Noah before the boat was even built who was to enter into the ark.
Then we read in Genesis 6:22:
Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
God told Noah what to do and Noah did it.
Let us go back to Hebrews 11. We read again in Hebrews 11:7:
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet…
In relation to being “warned of God,” this word “warned” is also found in Luke 2:26 where it is referring to a man named Simeon. We read in Luke 2:25-26:
And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
This word “revealed” is the same Greek word that was translated as “warned” in Hebrews 11:7. God came to this man named Simeon in some supernatural way and gave him information concerning the Messiah, concerning Christ, and that Simeon himself would not die “before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” We know this story. Simeon does see the baby Jesus and he takes Him in his arms. Then Simeon proclaims, “For mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”
The reason that I wanted to go to this verse was to show another English word to help us understand this word that was translated “warned.” We find the word “revealed,” as when God reveals something; and so God could reveal something in such a way that He is warning us as He is giving us this information.
This word is also found in Hebrews 12:25. This same word that was translated as “warned” is also translated as another English word.
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:
In the middle of this verse, the English word “spake” is the word that was also translated as “warned.”
So God is saying here in Hebrews 12:25:
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that [warneth] on earth, much more shall not we escape…
I wanted to read this because God is likening and identifying the word “warned” with His speaking, with His Word, with the Word that comes out of His mouth. This word has to do with warning.
God has told us in Psalm 19 something that is important for us to know because as we tell people that Judgment Day will come next year, we use the example of Noah and how God came to him and foretold him, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth.” They will say that they understand this, but then they say that we need to understand that God spoke directly to Noah. They understand that God gave divine revelation to Noah. Then they say, “If God did this to me, if God spoke this way to me, I would act just like Noah. I would be as obedient as he was and I would get busy, too, doing whatever it was that God wanted me to do.”
Do you think that this statement that these people make is true or false? Is it true that this would be their reaction if God spoke to them like He did to Noah? Let us put it this way. A person today who is completely disregarding God’s warning right at this point and at this moment in time of Judgment Day being next year on May 21, 2011, if God spoke to this individual like He did to Noah, would this cause that person to say, “Oh boy! Now I believe! Now I understand! I have to get busy now and warn everyone”? This is the question, and the answer is no!
They might actually try to get involved in some things, but they would not last; they would not be able to endure. They would probably still end up finally disregarding this, because it is not the way that God is warning people that is the problem. It is not that He is not speaking from Heaven with thunderbolts and lightning or that He is not showing Himself to any specific individual that Judgment Day will be next year.
God was able to warn the Ninevites without all of these kinds of theatrics. He just sent a lone prophet, Jonah, to say, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” There were no miracles. Yes, Jonah had come out of the belly of a whale, but we do not know what the Ninevites knew about this. They probably did not know much about this, and yet God used just the simple words of a lone prophet to warn a whole city; and they believed.
They believed, but many people think that they would believe as recommended by the rich man in torments in Luke 16 who said of his brethren, “But if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.” This is what he said to father Abraham, but father Abraham said, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” “Moses and the prophets” is a reference to the Bible, to the Word of God.
So God is saying that they would not believe even if God parted the Red Sea, that they would not believe even if God struck a rock and poured out water like a river, that they would not believe even if they saw manna falling every day in a desolate wilderness for a period of forty years. They would not believe because it is not the signs or the outward evidence that can change anybody.
If you are unsaved, you have a heart of stone, which is going to stay this way. It might harden more still, but it is not going to get any softer unless God changes your heart and gives you a new heart and a new spirit.
So for someone to say this, it is almost as if they are saying that it is unfair that God spoke directly to Noah but wants them to read a Book, which is kind of like Naaman the Syrian who was upset at the manner in which God had brought cleansing to his leprosy. Elisha had simply sent a messenger out to Naaman and told him, “Go and wash in Jordan seven times.” But Naaman the Syrian became furious with Elisha, that great prophet, because he had not come out and addressed him himself.
Naaman had expected Elisha himself to come out and say a few words and do something dramatic; however, he instead sent a lowly messenger. If it had not been for Naaman’s servants who came out to him and said, “If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?” Naaman finally did this. He “dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”
To answer anyone who says that there is a difference because God spoke to Noah directly but He is not speaking to them directly, go to Psalm 19. We see here starting at verse 7 many references to synonyms to the Word of God, such as “the law of Jehovah,” “the testimony,” “the statutes,” “the commandment,” “the judgments,” etc. This Psalm is really a mini summary or an analysis of Psalm 119, a Psalm that uses all of these same phrases to describe the Word of God, the Bible. Speaking of the Word of God, the Bible, it says in Psalm 19:10-11:
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned…
We are warned by the Bible. When the watchman sees the sword coming upon the land, he has an obligation to warn the people. We sound the trumpet, and this trumpet is giving a very clear sound. You may not agree with what is being declared, but nobody can argue that stating matter-of-factly with an exclamation point that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day is not clear. This is crystal clear. This is very clear. Even the worst enemies of the Gospel and those who are extremely hostile would still have to admit that this is clear, that what is being stated is very clear. This is one of the reasons why they do not like this. It is such a plain, forthright, and direct statement, “This is the day of judgment!”
So where do we come up with this date? We get this from the Bible, from the Word of God, through genealogies that are found in the Bible, which are actually a Biblical calendar of history. We get this through statements like what we read in 2 Peter 3 where God says that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years” and through the language of Genesis 7 where God said to Noah, “For yet seven days.” By God’s grace, putting it all together, we find that this is it. This is it. This is the end of all things.
In a household, traditionally, the father has been the one to lead the house. This is how God lays this out. If there is a marriage, it is the husband, it is the father, it is the man who leads the house. He is the one who instructs his household.
So if there is a man who has children and he understands these things and he knows and believes that this is true because God has given him this belief, then he has a duty as a watchman, yes, to warn the whole world; but he, especially, is to warn his own house and his own family and his own children and his own wife. There is an obligation and a responsibility to warn the people whom God has placed us closest to. We must share this information with them and we are to pray for them. Again, we can try to get them to listen as much as possible to this information in order that the Lord might have mercy on them.
Going back to Hebrews 11, we read in Hebrews 11:7:
By faith [by Christ] Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet…
These two words, “as yet,” are very important. God is going back into history and He is looking at the historical events that surrounded the flood; and God has this complete view because His perspective is from an eternal perspective. He sees the end from the beginning. Of course, God knew all along that He was going to destroy the world by a flood.
So we place ourselves prior to the flood in the days of Noah when God told a man, a man who was a husband and a father, and then God moved in him “to will and to do of his good pleasure,” and Noah got busy. Noah started hammering and constructing an ark and building that ship. I am sure that he was telling people all along, the whole way, exactly what God had told him, which was that God was going to destroy the earth because of man’s sin; and so, slowly, he continued working.
It is a very good thing that this was not me because I cannot build even a dog house, but God equips people. We do not know what Noah’s skills were, but God would have equipped him to build this boat. Maybe Noah hired help. There would have been nothing wrong with him doing this. Maybe he hired some of the people around him to assist him.
Noah would have been a very busy man because no one was paying him to build this ship and this would have taken a lot of time to work on. He certainly had other responsibilities if he was living on a farm or on a ranch or whatever his living circumstances were in order to make enough money to feed his family and to give him time to build this ship, and so Noah would have been building this slowly and it began to come together over the course of time.
Turn to 1 Peter 3. We find in 1 Peter 3:18-20:
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he…
This is referring to Christ. It continues:
…he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
This is referring to those in their sins and under the spiritual bondage that sin brings. They are in the dungeon, in a way, of the kingdom of darkness.
It continues:
…he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime…
This word “sometime” is better translated “aforetime.”
Which [aforetime] were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
Noah was a “preacher of righteousness.” Christ is said here to have “preached unto the spirits in prison” prior to the flood. How did He do this? He did this through Noah, which is the same way that this works out today because we are “ambassadors for Christ.” We beseech others “in Christ’s stead” and on His behalf and in His place, “Be ye reconciled to God”; and so Noah would have been building the ark, constructing this ship, and preaching. This was a physical illustration itself that was preaching to the people of the world.
What would this have been preaching? If we go back to Hebrews 11, we again read in Hebrews 11:7:
…Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world…
This says that Noah “condemned the world.” Why? Why would building a ship condemn the world? He was not doing this quietly to where no one knew about this, like some people think today. Some people think that the people of Noah’s day were caught off-guard as if suddenly, without any warning, like a thief in the night, the world was deluged and everyone drowned except for Noah and his family. This is what people say.
How then were they condemned? They were condemned because the building of the ark was for a reason. The reason was because of man’s sinfulness. Due to man’s sinfulness, God intended to destroy them, to bring judgment upon them, to complete the condemnation that was already accomplished by His Word, as it says in John 3.
In John 3:17, it says:
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world…
Why not? We read in the next verse, in John 3:18:
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already…
Any unsaved person is already condemned. The Word of God has pronounced the judgment, “For the wages of sin is death,” and people will be condemned if they remain unsaved.
So the construction of the ark, especially as it began to take shape and form and people could see what it was more and more, was a constant reminder of their sinfulness and of the fact that God’s wrath was upon them for it and that they would be destroyed. It is likewise today as people hear about May 21, 2011. They, very much, can feel condemned because this is a condemnation.
Why? Why is May 21, 2011 going to be Judgment Day? It is because of our sin. This will be the day of wrath, the day of God’s vengeance, the day of His judgment against man for their rebellion and their transgressions against His Law.
Through T-shirts, tracts, vans, hats, verbal communication with a neighbor or a family member or a friend, we share this information in whatever way we can. When it comes down to it, our responsibility is to just share the information that God has given us concerning Judgment Day. We are to share this just as far and as wide as we can with everyone. As we do, this information is a source of condemnation; therefore, this is not something that is easily received by people.
People do not like to feel like they are being condemned, nor do we like to feel like we are condemning anyone; but we are not condemning them. The Bible tells us that we are to “judge no man.” God is the One who is condemning them. He is the One who came out with this date, if anyone wants to blame someone. As Acts 17 tells us, He is the One who has “appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world.” He is also the One who “now commandeth all men every where to repent.”
So God’s people share this information, as it says here of Noah in Hebrews 11:7:
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house…
The building of the ark was instrumental as God did use it. God testified through it. It was a source of condemnation to the world and also to the people in Noah’s own home.
Remember what I just read in 1 Peter 3:20:
Which [aforetime] were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
God was longsuffering in waiting while the ark was prepared. What does “longsuffering” mean? It means to be patient. He was patiently waiting. Actually, God tells us why He waits. Why does He not just destroy the world today? Why did He not destroy the world a long time before the flood?
In 2 Peter 3:15, God gives us information concerning His patient and longsuffering nature. We read here:
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation…
What does God mean by “account”? As we read about this in James 5, we can understand that God is the husbandman who “waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.” The implication is that once He receives the rain and the fruit comes forth, He will no longer be longsuffering. Therefore, we can “account” that His longsuffering nature is for the reason of salvation. It equals salvation.
In other words, God is saving people today. He is still saving people today and He will all the way up until the set date. He is holding off, just like He did prior to the flood. This means that God waited even for eight people! Today, He is waiting for about 200 million, and people think that God must hold off because of these many who need to be saved. Well, God would hold off even if there was only one because He has guaranteed to save all of His elect.
So there were only eight prior to the flood, and yet He waited for all of them to become saved. Noah, his wife, and his three sons and their wives all became saved. It says in 1 Peter 3 that they were “saved by water.” They were delivered, and God patiently waited until then.
Was Noah’s work in vain as he hammered and hammered away? It does not seem that he had any other children, and maybe his sons were just like children today. Maybe they were thinking at first, “Why does my dad have to act like a nut? Why does he have to be loony? Why does he have to be this way? Why can he not be like all of the other dads out there?” I am sure they thought this and I am sure that children think this today. I am sure that you do. I would have also thought this long ago.
But, you see, there is a difference here. Noah really did know. He really did have precise and accurate information. He really knew the day of judgment. He knew when the flood was coming. His children, his sons, were not very young by the time that the flood finally came. One of them was about one hundred years of age just a little while after the flood. Regardless of their age, they were witnessed to. They heard the words, but more importantly they saw this action, this work. They saw that Noah was not just saying it; he was doing it. You do not spend that period of time building a boat and not believe it with all of your heart. This impacted Noah’s children and God used this to the saving of his house.
I am sorry in some ways that things have to be like this. It would be nice if the world was as the world says it is, but the world is not as the world says it is. The world lies and the world deceives, but the world is passing away and we know when.
So just think of this because we speak now in very definite terms. It is Judgment Day, but I understand some who may not be sure. Just think, “What if Mom and Dad are right? What if they are right like Noah and his wife were right?” This is not because of anything in them or in us. Our children know us. We do not have great brains. We are not the best people, yet God is capable, which He has done, of hiding His Word and then opening up His Word. Now He has revealed these things to His people and He has blessed us. He has blessed us with this advance information.
Let me just look at one more verse in Hebrews 11. We read in Hebrews 11:20:
By faith [by Christ] Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
Isaac was Jacob and Esau’s father. Isaac knew the Gospel. He was a true child of God, and he blessed his sons, Jacob and Esau, twin sons, “concerning things to come.” Jacob and Esau, although twins, were as unalike as anyone because one was elect and the other was not. God says, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Esau never became saved, “though he sought it carefully with tears.”
In other words, a father shared all of the information that he knew to be true “concerning things to come” and he blessed both sons. The saved one and the unsaved one were both informed.
At the end of the day, a father’s responsibility ends there. We share what we know “concerning things to come.” We pray very much that our children might become saved, but we also know that this is in God’s hands and that He will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy.
Let us stop here.