It's just an ordinary average day. As with all ordinary average days, there are adults working and children playing. Nothing out of the ordinary.
As with every generation, there are mostly good people. Of course there are always a few rotten grapes, but that too is normal. Who would ever expect otherwise? The good people mostly mind their own business and keep themselves occupied with work, education, and rearing children. Good families usually go to church on Sundays. A variety of churches exist to suit most people's fancy. After church, families usually rest or work in their gardens or go shopping - the usual stuff.
So it is today, so it has always been, and probably always will be. Of course, every generation has its own peculiar and unique variety of nuts. But the religious kooks are the worst. They're always the most fanatical, the most opinionated, and they don't keep their opinions to themselves. I'm not talking about the ordinary religious folks - the ones that go to church and mind their own business. I mean the kooks. You know, the ones who stand on street corners and shout at people as they go by. The ones who stand out in every crowd with their strange ideas, odd manners, and strange attitudes. They're the ones who think anyone who doesn't agree with them is damned to hell. Who can get along with such people? They should be jailed or worse! They cause nothing but problems.
Mostly such people are just ignored. They are rarely listened to by anyone. Of course, occasionally one of them shows up quoted in a newspaper or is mimicked by some actor. Occasionally one of them turns up on some broadcast shouting his or her doomsday message. Certain times in history, such characters seem to proliferate and their doomsday message again rings the repetitious chimes of imminent death and destruction to humanity. Admittedly, sometimes such fanatics are correct and see something coming that everyone else misses. I can't deny that. But who can endure these nuts who are so often wrong?
They don't fit in with the rest of society. For example, I know this family. People laugh about them whenever their name is mentioned. These folks are really extreme. They warn people that the end of the world is coming. The father stands on a street corner and yells at people. "Repent, for God is going to bring destruction and you're all going to die!" Imagine that! I don't know what kind of vindictive hateful God this guy worships, but I don't think a good and loving God would ever even consider such a thing. I wish the police would lock up these nuts more often. They just go about disturbing the peace, putting guilt trips on people, and annoying everyone. People talk about freedom of speech, but that liberty can be taken too far. Rights end where public nuisance begins!
I'm not trying to be critical, but there should be limits to a person's rights when those rights violate another's dignity. These religious kooks with their bigoted attitudes turn their own paranoia into public spectacle. They want everyone to stop living normal lives and join their fanatic group. They want people to prepare themselves for imminent disaster. They want people to stop having sex -- as though the world could continue with no babies born! They want people to store up food for when all the food is supposedly destroyed. They want people go to some place up on a mountain and build a shelter because some nightmarish horror of death is going to rain down from the sky or the oceans are going to violate their boundaries or some such craziness.
Sure earthquakes, lightening strikes, and tidal waves sometimes do occur. But who can prepare for such events? Who can disrupt normal life for some one in a billion possibility on the basis of what one of these nuts say? Certainly not me!
Who really knows what is going to happen? Even if they knew what, how can anyone possibly know when? These nuts always respond with the same scientifically unverifiable proclamation. "God spoke to me," they say. Well, why has God never spoken to me? Why does He only speak to these nuts? I ask you that!
You know this same crazy family I told you about, they've gone up into the highest mountain around. They are storing up supplies and building some great shelter. Every now or then one comes to town to trade or buy something they need. Often when the father comes to town, he tries to spread his fear mongering and get everyone else worked up and paranoid like he is. Of course, it never works. Everyone knows he is a nut and pays him no attention.
Imagine someone thinking that water could actually fall from the sky! I've never heard anything more ridiculous in my life!
To tell you how much of a nut this guy is; you should see this huge monstrosity he has built. It's so big! You could probably fit a whole city inside this thing. Unbelievable! Just totally insane is this guy! Imagine building a huge boat on top of a mountain over a hundred miles from any water? Now, that's crazy! This Noah is a fanatical, dangerous religious nut. Fortunately there aren't many like him. =======================================================================================
"As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man."
Only Noah and his family and those creatures on the ark survived. All the earth is today populated by descendants of this religious nut -- the only family to obey God and survive the destruction. Furthermore, Noah faith saved him. Noah's faith enabled him to believe God who had informed him of what was coming in the holy books, such as the Book of Enoch. God also made it clear when this deluge would occur; so Noah knew that he lived in the days when this would occur. How did he know? By the books, just as we today know that we are living at the time of the return of Jesus Christ.
Noah sought the Lord and God commanded him to build his ark of safety. What are you doing to prepare for the coming of the Son of Man? Time is very short as God has again informed us in His holy book. Are you ready? Is your ark of safety built? Your ark of safety that you have built is your reasonable service, the evidence of your faith.
Don't be foolish like those good, but faithless people who perished in Noah's time. Lots of people who considered themselves good and sensible failed to prepare spiritually and physically. They drowned in the flood. They were lost. Only Noah and his family were saved. And Noah's family did not behave sensibly. They did not assume that life would continue as it always had. They did not concern themselves only with the daily struggle to survive. They did not enjoy the luxuries of life, the pleasures of entertainment, and the idleness of leisure.
They did what was inconvenient. They toiled to build an ark that would endure the violent storm and waves that would soon overtake all of humanity. They were prepared. Their ark was built and all flesh would have only one religious fanatic to thank for their survival.
They did not care that no-one listened. They did not stop preparing, because they were scorned and ridiculed. They did not flinch at persecution, name calling, or arrest. They endured the hardship, the rejection, and the ostracism. For years this family toiled alone, while their neighbors and relatives added to their troubles by making life as difficult and unpleasant as they could. No-one likes someone who is different.
But consider this. You are alive today because Noah dared to be different.
Those who followed the majority, the sensible way of doing things, all perished and even their memorial has vanished, their faithlessness washed only by the torrential water that covered their foolish, lifeless carcasses. Today, will you be wise like Noah or foolish like Noah's neighbors?
Noah preached warning after warning and set a supreme example by building the ark, a giant memorial to God's awesome power. Most of you have, like Noah's neighbors, ignored warning after warning. Now you have only a few months remaining. The deluge is coming and your time is quickly running out.
Your faith alone will not save you, fool, just as the faith of Noah's neighbors did not save them. Only Noah's efforts and faithfulness in the foolishness of building that ark saved him. Faith always appears foolish and always builds an ark.