Asher Intrater: Same Sins, Different Era
When Yeshua taught about His Second Coming, He compared it to the flood of Noah and the destruction of Sodom. Those were real historical events, yet they also serve as patterns for what will come upon the earth in the end times:
“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man. …
Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot” (Luke 17:26, 28).
In both of those events, there was total destruction as a punishment from God. In both, the people were totally caught by surprise. In the case of Noah, the destruction was worldwide by flood of water. In the case of Lot, the destruction was by fire in the area of Sodom. We can conclude from this that at the Second Coming, the punishment will be worldwide not local, but of fire not of water (2 Pet. 3).
If the punishment will be similar, we can imagine the sin will be similar. The circumstances that prevailed in those days will prevail once again in the end times. In the case of Noah, the most prevalent sin was violence: “The earth also was corrupt … and … filled with violence” (Gen. 6:11).
(Interestingly, the word for “violence” in this text is hamas, which sounds in Hebrew the same as the name of the terrorist organization, Hamas, even though there is no etymological connection.) Is it possible to think of a world overrun with crime, financial corruption and terrorist violence?
This week as I write this article, citizens were bombed with chemical weapons in Syria, an unmanned surveillance aircraft (drone) from Hezbollah was shot down by the Israeli Air Force as it approached the Haifa harbor, and missiles were shot into southern Israel from the Egyptian border. A similar worldwide violence as in the days of Noah could be fulfilled by the spread of Islamic jihad in our day.
In Sodom, the sin was homosexuality. The kind of homosexuality then was aggressive and violent (Gen. 19:4-11). France passed a same-sex marriage law this week. There is an aggressive movement pushing homosexual values across the Western world. Anyone who speaks against them is attacked. The Messianic kibbutz in Israel, Yad Hashmonah, was sued this year for not allowing a lesbian marriage at its synagogue site.
Even believers who are not engaged in this kind of sin will be affected by it. Lot was a righteous man, but he was unable to do any righteous works. All his spiritual effort was spent in simply surviving and overcoming the torment of his soul (2 Pet. 2:7). Let us not be paralyzed by spirits of sexual perversion in the end times, but rather overcome them and go on to victory in faith.
As in the days of Noah and Lot, the dominating sins of our generation are jihad and homosexuality.
Asher Intrater, along with his wife, Betty, is the director of Revive Israel Ministries, an apostolic ministry team dedicated to revival in Israel. The Intraters are committed to world evangelism, the power of the Holy Spirit, personal integrity, the lordship of Yeshua, the unity of the Church and the restoration of the nation of Israel.
For the original article, visit reviveisrael.org.
