{"id":1765,"date":"2020-10-22T07:21:05","date_gmt":"2020-10-22T07:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/?p=1765"},"modified":"2020-10-30T03:54:06","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T08:54:06","slug":"as-the-days-of-noah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/as-the-days-of-noah\/","title":{"rendered":"As the days of Noah…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u201cFor as were the Days of Noah (\u05d9\u05de\u05b5\u05d9 \u05e0\u05d7\u05b7), so shall be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away (\u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f14\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u1f15\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f26\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u1f41 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03ba\u03bb\u03c5\u03c3\u03bc\u1f78\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f26\u03c1\u03b5\u03bd \u1f05\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2). Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot – they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all – so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed\u201d (Matt. 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-30).<\/p>\n

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…<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So what were these \u201cDays of Noah\u201d like? What can we say about the \u201cGeneration of the Flood\u201d? Yeshua explained that the “days of Noah” were marked by people who were asleep, blind, and unaware (\u1f14\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u201cagnostic\u201d). They went about their business willfully ignorant of the spiritual reality around them. For ten consecutive generations — from the creation of Adam until the generation of Noah — people progressively became more and more ignorant of spiritual reality and truth. Eating and drinking, romantic intrigue and marriage, buying and selling, and other worldly affairs were the preoccupations of the day. In short, people lived their lives entirely oblivious to the spiritual reality all around them. They \u201cforgot\u201d who God was, who they were, why they existed, and where they were going. In short, they were \u201cunaware.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deadening effects of sin leads to moral and spiritual blindness that leads to corruption and unthinking cruelty and violence. Of Noah’s generation it was written that “the whole earth was corrupt before God, and filled with violence” (Gen. 6:11). Rashi understood the word “corruption” (shachat<\/em>) to primarily refer to sexual immorality (i.e., idolatry) and “violence” (chamas<\/em>) to primarily refer to theft and robbery. In general, however, the sages regarded the word chamas<\/em> to refer to lawlessness, that is the denial of Torah, and consequently the benighted condition of living without yirat ha-shamayim<\/em> (fear of heaven). When people are spiritually dead, they are unconscious of the wonder of God; oblivious to what is real; and they are consequently debased into animals… We see that in our world today.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/gen6-11-jjp.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the sages think that God\u2019s judgment came in stages. The Great Flood was preceded by four successive generations of prophets that warned of the coming cataclysmic judgment: Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and finally Noah. It is fascinating to understand that Adam himself was alive when Noah\u2019s grandfather Methuselah was born, so the original message of teshuvah (repentance) was an echo that came from Eden itself; moreover, consider that Abraham personally knew of Noah (Abraham was 58 years old when Noah died), and undoubtedly Noah\u2019s son Shem told him of his grandfather Lamech, who had seen and spoken with Adam who was directly created by God alone. Later, Abraham’s son Isaac also came to know Shem, Noah’s firstborn son, and the legacy of the “gospel of the garden” was thereby passed on…<\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

The first stage was the abandonment of the inherent dignity of others as people created in the image of God. This negation of the divine characteristics of people led to sexual promiscuity that became rampant upon the earth: \u201cThe sons of God saw the daughters of man that they were fair, and they took for themselves wives, whomsoever they chose\u201d (one midrash claims that the Dor HaMabul, the generation of the flood, would regularly exchange marital partners). God then gave mankind 120 years to repent from his sexual corruption or be faced with apocalyptic destruction (Gen. 6:3). Despite Noah\u2019s 120 year public building project and the preaching of his grandfather Methuselah, God\u2019s patience finally ran out (1 Pet. 3:20). God then \u201csaw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually\u201d (Gen. 6:5). Mankind refused to repent and turn to God….<\/p>\n

There is a tragic progression at work here. The practice of \u201ccasual\u201d acts of lawlessness eventually led to the acceptance and practice of sexual promiscuity. This, in turn, resulted in the loss of mankind\u2019s sanctity (kedushah), since this derives from man\u2019s ability to subordinate his instinctual\/emotional desires to his intellectual\/spiritual life. Genuine sanctity refuses to exploit others as means to an end. Disregarding truth cheapens and impairs a sense of self, causing disintegration of spiritual life and depersonalization of others. As humanity became more and more fractured and stupefied, God\u2019s \u201clike for like\u201d judgment resulted in \u201cgiving them over\u201d (paradidomi) to the lusts of their hearts (Rom. 1:26). (In our culture of unbridled pornographic expression and sexual immorality, we mirror this antediluvian world view. Indeed, it is a mark of our age to be enamored with \u201cdegrading passions,\u201d with gender confusion and regularly practiced idolatry (i.e., fornication, adultery, homosexual relationships, and so on)). The final verdict of this practiced chamas (lawlessness) was the bestowal of a \u201cdepraved mind\u201d (\u03b1\u03b4\u03bf\u03ba\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd), a condition of being unable to reason properly at all. Since truth is essentially (and necessarily) grounded in a sense of value, and value is a function of conscience, a depraved mind is literally insane from a spiritual perspective… People devoid of conscience are unable to reason along the lines of ethical truth at all. This promoted a cultural collusion to suppress the truth, to silence the truth-tellers, to kill the prophets, and to gag advocates for justice. Lawlessness squelches the inward voice of right and wrong within the human heart.<\/p>\n

We are in the “Days of Noah…”<\/h3>\n

“But understand this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful (\u1f00\u03c7\u1f71\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2), unholy (\u1f00\u03bd\u1f79\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2), heartless (\u1f04\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03b9), unappeasable (\u1f04\u03c3\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2), slanderous (\u03b4\u03b9\u1f71\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2), without self-control (\u1f00\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u1f75\u03c2), brutal (\u1f00\u03bd\u1f75\u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 ), despisers of what is good (\u1f00\u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u1f71\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2), treacherous (\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b4\u1f79\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2), quick to do evil (\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03b5\u03c4\u1f75\u03c2), swollen with conceit (\u03c4\u03c5\u03c6\u1f79\u03c9), lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the form (\u03bc\u1f79\u03c1\u03c6\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2) of godliness but denying its reality (\u03b4\u1f7b\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9\u03c2).” 2 Tim. 3:1-5<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor as were the Days of Noah (\u05d9\u05de\u05b5\u05d9 \u05e0\u05d7\u05b7), so shall be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-dvar","category-hebrew-reading-practice","category-torah"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1765"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1939,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions\/1939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}