[EDITOR’S NOTE: My pastor, Pat Kleitz preached this sermon a few weeks back. It was the third installment of a series he has been sharing. Pastor Pat was kind enough to allow me to publish directly from his sermon notes. It is an interesting follow-up to the series I finished not long ago titled RETURN OF THE DAYS OF NOAH. Pastor’s perspective is unique and insightful, putting a needed touch on the subject. Now, with the Holy Spirit there are no coincidences. Both of us having been led to tackle this same subject, I believe what God is saying, is that we are indeed living in the Days of Noah. [Rob P.] ]
Pat Kleitz
Luke 17:26–30 (NLT) “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. 27 In those days, the people enjoyed banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 “And the world will be as it was in the days of Lot. People went about their daily business—eating and drinking, buying and selling, farming and building—29 until the morning Lot left Sodom. Then fire and burning sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 Yes, it will be ‘business as usual’ right up to the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”
From the Time of Cain’s murder of his brother to the time of Noah was about 1500 years… sin increased dramatically… exponentially without restraint…
Genesis 6:5 (NLT) describes those times: “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.” Verse 11: “The earth had become corrupt and filled with violence… for everyone on earth was corrupt.”
It’s been 2000 years since the out pouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the birth of the church …This out pouring of the Holy Spirit and the church has restrained evil over the past 2,000 years: …it has held it back….because the Holy spirit brings conviction of sin righteous and judgment to come…with the church being actively a part of the culture there is sense of morality…. and this is a restrainer against evil.
In recent years, our culture has become unrestrained and has moved rather rapidly towards the times of NOAH and Sodom and Gomorrah… as Jesus said would happen.
- On June 24, 2011, the New York State Legislature passed and the Governor signed into law the Marriage Equality Act, which grants same-sex couples the right to marry in New …I remember, Gov. Cumo…saying that the passing of this bill would be like throwing a boulder in a pond…the ripples of it would be felt across the nation…
The next day, after he said this, the rains came. It rained so hard that parts of NYC flooded: The rains continued for a week; then the Hudson River, the Susquehanna and Chenango rivers, and Binghamton flooded: The whole southern tier of New York up to Jamestown flooded: the water backed up into Vermont and the fertile lands of Schoharie Valley, which was known as the bread basket of the Civil War.
- Cuomo spoke prophetically over this Nation and America was flooded with sexual changes and economic changes, and corruption, a pandemic that took countless lives through sickness and isolation…. and the increase of wickedness is still on the rise…like the waters of Noah’s flood and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
This bill, the Marriage Equality Act,” was passed on a Friday night in the quiet hours of the evening. On Saturday morning we heard about it. I didn’t respond to it on that Sunday morning but I took the next week to prepare a 4 week series on the “Sin of Sodom and Gamorrah.”
On Sunday, July 3rd I preached the first sermon in the series and Monday the 4th of July I woke with my face swollen: My front tooth was infected…. I called my dentist and on July 4th early in the morning he did an emergency root canal…. I remember thinking to myself it was like Satan punched me in the mouth to shut me up. But what really left me baffled was that the Church was silent. No one was talking about it, no one was raising up a standard of righteous anger. There was silence in the church.
- The restrainer was not restraining, and evil was on the rise, like the flood of Noah and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Look at how far we have come in just 13 years…. we now celebrate sexual immorality of sorts, and worse yet, because of our sexual confusion, we mutilate our children, trying to accommodate their sexual confusion … We are rapidly approaching the times of NOAH and Sodom and Gomorrah….
Pastor Alberto 38 years as a Methodist pastor has left the denomination because they fully support Gov Cuomo’s Marriage Equality Act as “sound doctrine.” Doctrine the Bible God supports and approves of….
We are living in the fulfillment of Romans 1: Romans 1:28–32 (ESV) “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval (and even celebrate ) with to those who practice them.”
- God gave them over to a corrupt mind to do what ought not to be done: This is called the PASSIVE WRATH of God …when God says, ok, have your way, do it your way, go your way…because I am out of the way…
Listen carefully:
- Active Wrath of God is different: it is when God says , “Enough!” And He brings judgment. You see the Active Wrath of God in the Old Testament: plagues, raises up nations to conquer Israel … that’s the ACTIVE wrath of God. In the New Testament, he warns us that his wrath is coming, and it is described vividly in the book of Revelation…
- The Passive wrath of God…is Romans 1 …He “GAVE THEM OVER”….
- Make note of this: Passive Wrath of God comes first then the Active wrath with all of the consequences of sin.
You may be doing something right now that you are fully aware of is against the will of God; …but you still keep on doing it… thinking to yourself, God, noticed it, he has not disciplined me for it ….so you ignore the potential consequences…..and “go right on…” like nothing will change and God will continue to ignore your behavior. Remember Romans 1: don’t you know that those who do such things deserve death.
- Consider this : You may be living in the PASSIVE wrath of God because he is giving you over to the desires of your flesh, but one day you will experience the ACTIVE WRATH of God and the consequence of your action…. be careful, be warned, that God will not be mocked… He is righteous and He will judge with righteousness.
The End times will come. Scripture describes them in the Book of Revelation as “terrible times, unlike anything the world has ever seen, worse than times of NOAH and LOT: Impossible times – The church will be gone…the door will be shut and God will allow wickedness to increase exponentially on the earth…there will be nothing to stop it….
2 Thessalonians 2:7–12 (NIV84) (Describes the end times and what happens when the restrainer is removed just before judgment begins) “For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10 and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness”
- During the judgment of this time, wickedness will be so great that in their pain and suffering, people will curse God and want to die, but they will be unable to…it will be hell on earth. It will be a window of their future state in the fires of hell…
For now, the DOOR is open, and there is time for those who are living in rebellion against God to repent, change the direction of their lives, and become servants of the Lord Jesus. But one day soon, that DOOR will close. Have you made a decision to follow Jesus…to become a disciple of Jesus and learn about Him and servehhim…..HAVE YOU? If not why not? What’s holding you back? Pride, fear, discouragement, disappointment, anger at God.
[EDITOR: In concluding this section of the sermon, Pastor Pat laid out a clear challenge to those who still hesitate to surrender totally to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. In PART II, Pastor Pat will begin to unpack THE TIMES OF NOAH.]
Leave a Reply