Are you mad?! (Micah 1-4; Psalm 10; Matthew 24)

Do people think you’re crazy for believing that Jesus will come back? When you try and encourage people to trust Jesus so that they will be safe from the coming judgement, do people look at you as if you have two heads?! Imagine what it was like for Noah, building a boat for years and years, nowhere near the sea, with no tractor or trailer to pull it.

You can imagine the conversation:

“what are you doing Noah?”

“Building a boat”

“Why?”

“God has told me that He is going to judge the earth with a flood and has told me this is the only way to be safe.”

(Laughing) “Come off it Noah, you must have just eaten something funny and imagined it, there’s no danger of a flood here, stop wasting your time, start enjoying yourself.”

You can imagine how the same people banged on the door for him to open up when the floods started rising, but it was too late, for God had shut him in safety and His judgment was coming.

Jesus tells us “as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as is those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them away all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:37)

Jesus is warning that His return will be sudden, unexpected and unavoidable. He is urging people to be ready. Jesus’ teaching that “one will be taken and one left” (Matthew 24:40) has led to strange ideas about a rapture. But just in the days of Noah, those taken, were those swept away in the flood, it is more likely that Jesus is saying unbelievers will be swept away to judgement, while believers will be preserved through judgment.

For Noah and the people of His day, there was only one way to be safe through God’s judgement, that was to take God at His Word and trust in the rescue He provided. It’s the same today, the only way to be safe from the coming judgment is to take God at His Word and trust in the rescue He offers us in Jesus. People may think you are crazy for urging them to do the same, but it matters not what people think, the important thing is to be ready and urge others to be. For a day is coming when those who have refused Jesus will face a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24:51)

So you are not crazy to believe in Jesus and in His return, nor are you crazy to urge others to believe. In the light of the certain future, it is the most wise thing anyone can do.