We live as if we own tomorrow but we don't even own today.

The time we have left on this fallen planet is ONLY for reaping those “ripe unto harvest,” the ones for whom Jesus prayed in John 17.9: “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.”

Author Paul Washer has said, “With one hand God is motioning man to come to Him. With the other hand He is holding back His wrath. Soon He is going to drop both hands.”

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Yet despite God’s goodness and His desire that none should perish, Jesus exhorted in Mathew 7.13:  “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.”

“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

As It Was in the Days of Noah… so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.  Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.  Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.  Luke 17:26-30

When Jesus spoke here about the end times, He draws the disciples’ attention back to two periods of time in history which His future return would most closely resemble.  He first refers to Noah and the time of the great flood that wiped out all of humanity except eight souls.  What is interesting to me is that it is not the Nephilim, or the great violence that plagued the world then that He mentions.  Nor was His statement a condemnation of marriage or eating and drinking.  Jesus was drawing their attention to the indifference people had pertaining to the warning.  They didn’t care.  They were too busy going about their lives to bother with Noah or his warning of impending doom.  Their hearts were hardened against the message - so much so that NOT ONE person outside of Noah’s family was saved.

The Lord Jesus, after coming to earth, after His baptism, at the beginning of His ministry, in calling the disciples, He says these words,

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:18-19

It’s no coincidence that Jesus uses this imagery when God the Father uses this same imagery here in our passage when He foretells how He will call His people back to Himself.  He says He will use fishers to catch them (v.16), and Jesus fulfills this by literally and figuratively calling fishers to fish back His people.

Lot’s Old Testament résumé wasn’t all that stellar; in fact, if all you had to go on was what is recorded in Genesis, you would be hard-pressed to conclude he was righteous in any sense … or even better than average.  But he grieved over the sin of his culture, and I believe he grieved for the right reason:  because the depravity of men made in God’s image was an affront to God’s holiness, and it grieved the heart of God.

This is where the story of Lot can speak to us.  The global judgment we are facing in our day is not about our so-called “righteousness” at all.  It is about the glory and honor of God, manifested in His Son.

As time continues, we are witnessing a hardening in part, of the heart and soul of a nation; a people who are willingly and foolishly turning their backs on God.  The church is like Noah, preaching and exhorting for all to come to repentance, to be reconciled, and to grow up in all things in Christ.  be like   Lot, living amongst a Christ-rejecting world, vexed to the core that a  nation has fallen into grievous sin.  But you…do not harden your heart after hearing GOD's voice!!

That reminded me of a song that my mum always sings, its a  shona hymn that goes like " kana manzwa inzwi rashe musazo omesawo

moyo yenyu..."

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: spread  the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

..... be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 

            2 Tim 4:1-5