Some Thoughts on the Days of Noah by Aaron Hecht

Painting of the animals entering the Ark by Bassano (Wikimedia Commons)


I have to start this blog with a disclaimer. The thoughts I express here aren't very original. Almost everything I have to say about this subject has been said by others before me. But I feel the need to write this blog to draw attention to this subject because it's becoming very urgent, in my assessment. Also, there have been some recent developments which I think shed some fresh light on it, so with that in mind, here goes.

The 24th chapter of Matthew's Gospel is dedicated to the answers Jesus gives His disciples to the questions they ask Him about the end of the Age. He lists many prophetic signs, including an increase in "wars and rumors of wars" and "pestilence" and "earthquakes" and so on, saying "These are just the beginning of sorrows."

He also warns that those who identify with Him will face persecution for it. There will be "false prophets" and "false Messiahs" and a great deal of deception and "lawlessness" and so on.

These warnings of Jesus have been much discussed down through the centuries and in modern times, that discussion has been kicked into overdrive for various reasons. The two biggest reasons, I believe, are the invention of nuclear weapons in 1945 and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

The first of these two events caused a lot of people to start thinking about "the end of the world" and the second event gave people an excellent reason to open their Bibles and see what they could find on the subject. Matthew chapter 24, and the beginning of chapter 25, is one of the passages that aroused a lot of interest because it contains many signs Jesus said would be visible in the world just before the time when this Age would be nearing its end. You've probably heard a few sermons, and maybe even read a few books, about these passages.

But there's one passage in Matthew 24 that I've rarely heard any sermons about, although there are a handful of books and movies out there about it. I'm talking about verses 37-39, which say; "But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Most of the commentary about this passage says that this is simply a warning that the return of Jesus Christ to this earth will be unexpected. That's a valid point and certainly, there were plenty of people who ignored Noah's warnings about a coming catastrophe just as there are plenty of people who ignore warnings about it today. But I think there's more to it than that.

What did the "days of Noah" look like?

In Genesis chapter 6, we get a glimpse into what "the days of Noah" were like, and why God sent the Flood upon the earth at that time.

Genesis 6:4-6 says;  There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

We know that one of the reasons God chose Noah to build the Ark was because he was, as verse 9 tells us "pure in his generations" which, in the context of the rest of the chapter, seems to mean that his lineage did not include any demons, but only human beings.

As a side note, I read an article in a secular publication back in the late 1990s that speculated that this passage is describing an alien life form that visited this planet in ancient times and interacted with humans. This article also speculated that this event is what inspired much of Greek mythology, implying that the stories about Zeus, Hercules, Athena, etc. were based on real beings, called in this passage the "mighty men who were of old".

The second part of that theory is an intriguing possibility, especially since some of the Greek myths included "special" people who were the product of sexual intercourse between humans and "gods".

But the first part is just a typical example of the New Age mindset which takes passages from the Bible that describe supernatural activity (especially demons) and attributes it to extra-terrestrials.

In any case, this verse indicates to me that one of the things happening in "The Days of Noah" was that demons were interacting directly with the natural world, trying to corrupt it in ways that would frustrate God's plans and purposes for His creation. This is the first way that the era of human history we're currently in is comparable to "the days of Noah."

The rest of the passage kind of doesn't need any elaboration, nor does verses 11 and 12;

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

I think these passages from Genesis chapter 6 that describe life on this planet "in the days of Noah" also describe life on this planet in the present day.

Demonic activity breaking through from the spiritual to the natural realm is taking place more and more. If you've ever read a biography of Adolf Hitler, not to mention his own book "Mein Kampf" you must have recognized the demonic fingerprints that were all over his life and the ideology of the Nazi Party he created and led. That was an obvious example of the phenomenon, but there have been many other less obvious examples both before and since. 

The current massive increase in anti-Semitism worldwide, including in places like China where it's never been much of an issue, is another example of this. There is NO logical explanation for anti-Semitism to become such a big problem in China unless it's a result of demonic influence in that country, which is officially atheist but has all kinds of pagan idolatry as part of its cultural heritage.

As for violence, there have always been wars and there has always been crime. But the decades since the US Civil War started in 1861 have seen more violence, and more intense violence, than any other period of time in the preceding centuries of recorded human history. There were years when it was in the news more or less than other years, but taken as an aggregate whole, it's been the most violent period in all of human history. Also, although large-scale industrial wars between nation-states slowed down for awhile before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 brought that phenomenon roaring back, civil strife, rioting, and violent crime within countries and across national borders have increased steadily, more than making up for the less frequent wars involving uniformed soldiers and armies.

Riots (Wikimedia Commons)

Corruption of all kinds is also getting worse, and it's appearing in areas that no one could even have predicted. For thousands of years, no one anywhere, in any culture, political ideology, religion, economic system, or whatever, questioned the fact that there were only two genders and that every single human being was either of one gender or the other from the moment they were born until the moment they died. Anyone who would have suggested otherwise wouldn't have been taken seriously by anyone else.

Now, somehow, we've arrived at a place where suggesting otherwise is not only taken seriously, it's become mandatory. It's become completely unacceptable to say that there are only two genders and that God created the world this way. A very large percentage of the human race has decided to start believing catastrophically absurd ideas and demanding that everyone else believe them as well.

This is a "corruption" of reality itself, and it's something that we've never seen before.

For all of these reasons, I believe it's reasonable to believe that we are indeed in the time just before Jesus' Second Advent on this earth, and we need to be URGENTLY about the business of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. If you (or I) have been saving anything, whether it's time, money, effort, energy, attention or whatever, for the right time, I think that's a mistake.

There might not be much "later" for us to save up for, and the time to invest what we have in the Kingdom is right now.

Some Thoughts on Demographics by Aaron Hecht

 


World population map (Wikimedia commons)

A few days ago we had municipal elections here in Israel. If you're reading this blog, I would imagine you're aware of the fact that there was a heartbreakingly low turnout for these elections. There was, however, a massive number of Israelis who took advantage of the fact that election days are paid days off from work (and school) by flocking to the malls and other leisure venues for a day of shopping and fun.

In other words, they didn't stay home, they just didn't go to the polls.

Turnout for municipal elections is usually lower than for national elections, but this was low even by those standards. Most commentators said it was probably because people are just upset and tired about the war and they'd rather take the opportunity of a paid day off from work to go have some fun rather than vote.

As for me and my wife, we both voted in this election. It was easy to cast a ballot because our polling place is a short walk from our home, in the school our children attend. My eldest son might have wanted to sleep in that morning but he woke up at the usual time because his dog was whining and begging him to get up and play with her before school like he usually does. She didn't know it was a day off from school, she just wanted someone to throw the tennis ball for her.




I was also awake early because my body just woke up at the usual time whether I wanted to or not. My wife doesn't have an internal alarm clock like that and my youngest son can sleep for as long as he wants, so it was just me and my eldest that morning. After several minutes of playing with the dog, I told my son to get dressed and come with me to help me vote. He protested that it was a day off from school so he didn't want to go there (on principle since he likes going to school most of the time) but I told him to stop complaining and come with me.

We arrived at the school almost at exactly the same time we usually get there every morning and walked inside to discover that the room where I'd be casting my ballot was actually his very classroom. He made some more ritualistic complaints about having to be there on a day off from school, but then he cheerfully accompanied me inside. I told the crew that was checking ID's (yes, a person must present their ID to vote in Israel, and no one complains about it being "racist" or otherwise inappropriate) that it was his classroom and they laughed and then one of them said "not today" but I impulsively replied, "today there's a different lesson."

Then we went behind the screen, put the little slips of paper into the envelopes, went back out and together we put them into the big cardboard box. 



On the short walk home, I told him a few more things about the process of voting and how it all works. He listened attentively, asked a few questions, and we had a good discussion. When we got home, his little brother was eating breakfast and he was very upset that we'd gone without him. So I told him that he could go help his mommy vote as soon as she was ready.

My eldest son sat down to eat his breakfast and we continued our discussion, with my youngest asking some questions too (I had to repeat the entire lesson for his benefit) and that discussion took about a half hour.

As it was concluding, I reflected on the fact that despite this not being a school day, it had probably been very educational for my sons, and that made it a good day. By the time the younger one was ready to go help his mother cast her ballot about an hour later, he was bubbling over with excitement, telling her all about what he'd learned about the democratic process. It was very cute and heartwarming.

However, I'm not just telling you this story because it's so cute and heartwarming.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says; “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up."

Being a parent is one of the most important roles anyone can have. Raising up the next generation so that they will become emotionally, psychologically, and physically healthy, as well as spiritually mature, is immeasurably important. Success in this area is vastly more important than success in one's career, ministry, or anything else.

No one says on their deathbed that they wish they'd spent more time at the office but MANY people express regret that they didn't spend more time with their children and families. But it's not just time, every single resource one has should be directed at this all-important task.

Of course, the most important lessons we must teach our children are about the Kingdom of God, the Word of God, the Body of Christ, and the roles and responsibilities each one of us has in all this. But there are also more pedestrian things we need to teach them, like the importance of etiquette, manners, and common courtesy. It also includes the basics of civilized behavior, things like eating with utensils instead of picking up food with our hands, wiping our mouths with a napkin rather than on our clothes, etc.

It also includes taking opportunities to teach them more sophisticated lessons about voting, managing money, making sacrifices for the community, setting a good example for younger people, being a good Witness for the Kingdom, etc.

In other words, if we want our children to grow up to be functional adults, contributing to both society and the Church, it won't just happen by itself. They won't learn what they need to know at school or even at the congregation. Most of the input that will go into forming them into what they will become as adults will be "caught" at home, rather than "taught" to them somewhere else.

That's the good news, and it's also the bad news. It's good because it gives us hope that our children will become what we hope they'll become despite all the negative influences they might be exposed to out there in the big, bad, scary world. But it's also bad news because it means we've got to work VERY hard and be VERY intentional to make that happen. The other bad news is that we're competing against a lot of other forces that would like our children to grow up and become something very different from what we're trying to help them become.

With all that in mind, let's zoom out and take a look at what this means for the broader societies in which we live.

Demographics is destiny

There's an old saying that "demographics is destiny". Another old saying among anthropologists and social scientists says "Civilizations will endure as long as everyday people continue to do everyday things every day."

Teaching children the things they'll need to know to carry on with a political, cultural, economic, and even religious framework when they're old enough to do so is one of those "everyday things". But for children to be taught, they must first be born.

If you want to know what the situation in a country, or a people group, will be like in a few years, all you have to do is look at the birth rate. If the birth rate is below 2.25 babies per woman, that country is in demographic decline. The lower the birth rate drops and the longer it stays low, the less of a chance that this country, culture, or entire civilizational group, will recover.

Almost every day, there's a story in my news feed about the precipitously declining birth rate in one country after another all over the world. This is true in Western democracies such as Canada and France and it's also in autocracies such as Russia and China. Some countries, notably Japan and South Korea, are simply disappearing as the number of babies born declines every single month and the number of older people who die of natural causes skyrockets.

Governments all over the world are trying all kinds of incentives to try and get young people to marry and have more children, but it's not working. Israel is the only country in the entire OECD where the birth rate is above 2.25 babies per woman.

But it's not just the OECD. The birth rate is below 2.25 babies per woman in many developing countries as well. In fact, almost the only countries in the world where it's higher than 2.25 are in highly dysfunctional places, where poverty is rampant, crime is high, educational frameworks are weak and the economic outlook is bleak.

In other words, the places in the world that export stability are shrinking demographically while the places that need help are exploding demographically. This does not bode well for the future of our planet.

How do you know if you've got a demographic problem?

The changes to a country from a low birth rate don't take long to be seen and felt. It starts when governments realize they don't need as many schools, so they start shutting schools down and laying off teachers and staff. Before long, there are not enough young people graduating from school to take job vacancies caused by older people retiring. This leads to economic contraction, which makes young couples more cautious about having babies, and so on.

This has all kinds of ripple effects.

The decline in economic activity which follows a decline in population means there's less tax revenue for governments, which means governments must either become less active or borrow more money to maintain essential functions. The longer they operate in this way, the more debt they accrue, and eventually, this debt makes everything more difficult for everyone.

(Here's a link to a website that tracks the debt burden that some of the world's biggest economies have accumulated. Make sure you're sitting down when you click on this link, and if you have heart and/or blood pressure issues maybe just don't even click on it at all.)

Some countries try to solve the problem of not enough babies being born by importing immigrants from other countries. If managed properly, this can work. If it's barely managed at all, which is what we see in most countries today which are experiencing a large influx of immigrants from other countries, then it just leads to additional pressure on the system. Soon, all kinds of things start changing, mostly for the worse as the system becomes more and more dysfunctional. If this goes on long enough, it can lead to the system collapsing.

This has happened several times throughout human history, on every continent where human beings have built civilizational units. There is absolutely nothing special about the period of history we're living in that makes it impossible for this to happen to us.

What is to be done?

It's easy to feel helpless in the face of this demographic train wreck which now seems all but inevitable. But as is true with so many other things, most of us can't do much about the big-picture stuff. All we can (and MUST) do is pray for those who DO have some power over these issues.

But we CAN (and MUST) take responsibility for our own immediate surroundings, especially our own children. As Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, we must always be on the lookout for opportunities to teach our children, to give them an identity, to let them know who they are (and just as importantly, who they are NOT) and what God wants and expects from them. This includes teachable moments about both spiritual and secular subjects.

Most of all, we need to simply spend time with our children, acting the way we want them to act, speaking the way we want them to speak, and showing them how it's done.

If your children have friends, make sure those friends know they're welcome in your home, and be as kind to them as you can. They might be from a broken and/or dysfunctional home, so being in your home might be the only opportunity they will ever have to see what a functional home and family look like.

Volunteer to coach sports teams, lead scout troops, go to PTA meetings, and otherwise be intentional about helping the next generation. The kids you help by doing this will be the adults your own children live with when they're grown up. One of them might even be the person your child marries someday.

To sum up brothers and sisters, demographics is destiny. In order for your country, your city, your church, your community, and even your own family, to have a good destiny, it will take a consistent and intentional effort on your part to invest your time, money, effort, and energy into helping the next generation. It won't happen by itself, and you can't leave this work to someone else. You have to be in daily prayer and do as much more beyond that as you possibly can.

Look for opportunities to teach the young, nurture them, and help them in every way you can. Everyone can do something.

I'll end with a footnote on this topic.

A year ago my son wanted a dog for his birthday. I had resisted the idea for a long time because I didn't want the hassles and expense. But my son had been praying earnestly for over two years that I would let him have a dog, and when my wife told me that I couldn't say no anymore.

It has ended up being one of the best decisions I ever made. This little dog has been a huge blessing to everyone in our family. My sons are enjoying their childhoods much more because of her, my wife loves having another girl around the house and I've just simply fallen head over heels in love with my furry little four-legged daughter.

So if you want to bless your children, a good place to start is by getting a dog.




Some thoughts after four months of War by Aaron Hecht

 


IDF troops on the move (IDF Spokesperson's Office)

When I was in college, I was at the mall one day and I saw a man wearing a T-shirt that said "Life's tough, get a helmet!"

I'm not sure what point the man who was wearing that T-shirt was trying to make, but this bit of wisdom always stuck with me. It's taken on added urgency in the last few days as the government issued a formal statement to the general public that, in light of the escalating violence on the northern border, there is a need to prepare for the very real possibility of catastrophic damage to civilian infrastructure all over the country.

This is because the IDF estimates that in the event of a large-scale war, Hezbollah might be able to make incursions across the border and there would likely also be a rise in terrorist attacks, including here in Jerusalem where I live. But the biggest threat comes from Hezbollah's ability to launch up to 8,000 rockets a day into Israeli territory, and this bombardment could continue for several days or even weeks. This would include some very large rockets with precision guidance systems which would likely be used to target the electrical power grid.

In light of this, the government is urging Israeli citizens to have enough non-perishable food and water in their homes for at least three days, because if there's no electrical power there won't be any way to pump water into homes and it won't be safe to go out to the grocery stores.

But beyond that, the rockets which might be exploding in the air as they are intercepted above my head, or even impacting the ground near me if the interceptors don't get them, will be throwing off a lot of hot shrapnel. I obviously need to try and avoid getting hit by such shrapnel myself, and also protect my wife and children from getting hit by it. That means making sure our bomb shelter is in good shape, which is something I have been spending a lot of time on in the past couple of weeks. It also means having the tools to put out a fire, because debris from intercepted rockets falls to the ground and causes many fires.

I have no doubt Israel will defeat Hezbollah in any potential conflict, but I also agree with the IDF estimates of massive damage to Israel's civilian infrastructure from such a conflict. So I'm doing what I can to be as prepared as possible, and the focus has been on getting tools and equipment that will be useful in taking care of myself and my family if the things we usually count on, especially electricity, suddenly become unavailable.

It also included getting a helmet.

At first, I went looking for a ballistic helmet made of Kevlar. Large numbers of such helmets have been brought into Israel in the past four months, many of them purchased by private organizations and donated to soldiers. Others were donated to civilian emergency first responders, security teams and others who might have to be out in the open while bullets and/or shrapnel are flying around.

But what I quickly discovered is that such helmets are kind of expensive (and I have limited funds that I need to use for many different things that are at least as important as a helmet) and the cost of having it shipped to Israel would add a lot on top of the purchase price. In addition to that, a friend of mine who is a police officer told me that if the cops see a civilian like me wearing such a helmet but who isn't working for any kind of emergency first response team or as a security guard or whatever, they'll probably think I stole it from somewhere and they might confiscate it. I asked my friend what to do and he said "don't worry about it, you probably won't need one."

I love the guy, but that answer didn't reassure me one bit.

So, not knowing what else to do, I went to Amazon and did a search for "military helmets" and to my amazement, something showed up. It was a reproduction M1 GI helmet like the one Grandpa wore when he was hitting the beach at Normandy. There were actually a couple of them, made by different companies, and they only cost around $70 including shipping to Israel.

I asked a man who had been in the US Army National Guard with my father back in the day if such a helmet would be worth getting. He told me, with a sense of humor typical of his generation, that as long as I don't make the mistake of getting shot in the head at close range this kind of helmet would probably protect me from most shrapnel and flying debris as I was likely to face in the event of a rocket barrage.

I thanked him and bought the helmet. It arrived a few days later and of course, I took a picture to post on Facebook, making a joke that I'd finally found the perfect hat to go with my favorite jacket.


Aaron wearing his WWII GI helmet from Amazon.

But jokes aside, my search for a helmet included the calling to mind of Paul's famous exhortation from Ephesians 6:14-17; Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 

This passage has been the subject of countless sermons and commentaries over the centuries and my personal favorite is from Derek Prince, who said, referring to the "helmet of salvation" that it made the point about protecting the head, or the mind, with the "hope of salvation" which would produce optimism. So the way you guard your head from gloomy thoughts that might lead to despair is to always be optimistic, and the way for a Believer to maintain that optimism is by never forgetting that they are saved and their future with the Lord is assured. No matter how bad this current life might be, a better future is coming.

And that, brothers and sisters, is one of the most important and at the same time most difficult commands in the entire Bible, at least for me personally.

A need to feel safe and secure is one of the strongest compulsions that human beings have. It has been a driver of human behavior and activity, both individual and collective, down through the ages. In fact, for many people and even entire societies, the things we look to for our security can become idols.

It's something that can happen to any one of us.

I tell myself that my search for a helmet (not to mention the fire extinguishers, hand tools, water containers, and other stuff I've bought in the past few months to try and protect my family from possible dangers the current situation presents) was motivated by prudence. But there were moments when I had to stop and think about whether I might be putting too much trust in this stuff and forgetting that my real source of safety and security is nothing other than God Himself.

As Psalms 20:7 reminds us, Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.

That act of trusting in a God that we can't see has been difficult for people going all the way back to the very beginning. That's why idolatry was and still is the default human reaction. Putting one's faith, trust, and hope in something tangible, whether it's a statue of a "god" called Dagon in ancient Canaan, the statue of Artemis in ancient Greece, or the statues of Zeus and Apollo in Rome a few centuries later, is the most natural thing for humans to do. In the 21st century, few people bow down to statues but they DO put their faith, trust, and hope, not to mention finding their identity in ideas such as "feminism" or "the Alt-Right" or "Antifa" or any one of dozens of other similar phenomena around which cults are built. This is no less idolatry than what the ancients practiced.

These things give people identity and a sense of communal belonging, which leads to a false sense of security because they all fail at some point.

Having any kind of traumatic experience can shake a person's faith in whatever it was that they thought was providing them with security. This includes surviving a natural disaster (I've survived more than my fair share) or a car wreck, a workplace accident (I've survived one of those too) or being physically attacked during some kind of criminal incident or in a war, or even losing a job or a loved one unexpectedly. Any of these types of situations, where something changes without warning and leaves you in worse shape than you were a short time ago can shatter one's illusions of safety and security and leave one with the realization that one's existence is quite fragile.

This is usually a great shock and almost everyone who goes through such an experience will experience some measure of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD.)

I know a lot of people who read blogs like this one aren't going to like this part, but it must be said that Benjamin Netanyahu was an idol for many Israelis and many Israel-supporting Christians as well. The IDF was too, and there's no point in denying it.

Netanyahu's image as "Mr. Security" won him a lot of support and it's probably the one factor that best explains his long tenure in office. The October 7th massacres badly damaged that image, and by extension, it damaged the entire right-wing in Israeli politics. Polls show that a solid majority of Israeli voters are now ready to give a more centrist political movement a chance. For better or for worse, the automatic electoral majority that the Right in Israel has enjoyed for a generation can no longer be taken for granted.

The IDF and the security establishment in general has also taken a severe hit in terms of the faith that the general public put in it. Once again, for better or for worse, the people of this country no longer automatically believe their legendary armed forces and intelligence services can protect them from everything all the time.

This has made Israelis more open than at any time in living memory to hear about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and if you're praying for Israel at this time, please include prayers for the ministries and organizations that are sharing the Gospel with Israelis. While you're at it, pray for those ministries and organizations who are NOT sharing the Gospel with Israelis, that they will see their error and correct it.

Getting back to trauma and losing faith in false gods, in a world that has always been unstable and dangerous but which is rapidly getting even more out of control, every single human being walking this earth's surface is likely to have such an experience sooner or later, maybe more than once.

This is making people more desperate and unpredictable, but it's also making them more open to the Gospel.

For those who already have faith in the Gospel, it nonetheless can be difficult to "put on the helmet of salvation" and have an optimistic attitude about the future.

That is why I covet your prayers, for myself and my family and for the entire nation of Israel. Developments in the past week especially have made it more and more likely that a big war with Hezbollah in the north is a matter of when not if. I feel like I've done all I can to prepare myself, my family, and the building I live in for that eventuality. 

I'm asking anyone reading this blog to help me out by praying for protection for us and wisdom for the government of Israel and all the other countries that are part of this drama. If you can do more than pray by sending some kind of support to a ministry you trust that's working here in the Land to assist people in this crisis, please keep sending that support. This is not going to be over any time soon, and we're going to need your help for a long time, even after the shooting stops.