Signs of the Times in 2020

Chapter 1: As in the Days of Noah

“But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

—Matthew 24:37

People may wonder why the days of Noah should concern us. What does the flood have to do with us? Wasn’t it thousands of years ago? What is it exactly about those days that God wants us to understand? What was it that the prophets repeatedly warned us about?

It is always profitable for us to know history because it does not have to repeat itself. The lessons of history are fundamental, particularly that we might learn from the mistakes of the past.

End-time prophecy warns us that the last days will be as they were in the days of Noah. In order to gain a complete understanding of this prophecy, we need to first understand what the days of Noah were like. Once we do this, we can gain insight into the one other time God previously judged Earth. From this point, we will be able to better understand how we live today and how it may affect us.

Judgment Comes

In the days of Noah, people lived their lives without regard to God or His statutes. The inhabitants of Earth lived their lives in a very carefree and unchallenged way. According to Genesis 6:3, although Noah had warned the people for 120 years that God’s judgment would come upon them, the people remained in their ungodly ways of life.

People of Noah’s time were drinking, eating, marrying, divorcing, and choosing to live their lives as if they were immortal. Most importantly, they were not repenting. You may ask yourself, what’s wrong with eating, drinking, marrying, and divorcing? In Luke 17:26–27, Jesus explained that they were gluttons, drunkards, polygamous, on-demand divorced, and sexually immoral. They didn’t believe Noah, and they were happy with their wickedness and lifestyles. Their hearts were hardened, and their ears were dull. No one had repented, and no one had sought God. They did not and would not hear God’s warnings. The people of Noah’s generation kept their lives impudent and sinful; they ignored God. God saw that humanity’s wickedness was great on the earth and that every imagination of their hearts was evil. According to Genesis 6:6, the depraved and sinful lifestyles on the earth at that time were enough to make God “regret that He had made man.”

The people of those days did not know the severity of the judgment that was to come. They later realized that the judgments Noah warned them about had come to fruition after Noah and his family entered the ark that God had instructed them to build and the rain began to come down.

According to Genesis 2:5–6, Earth had not known rain until the great flood; the greenery and the vegetation had been hydrated by water that would come up from beneath the surface and submerge the ground. Once the torrential rain and flood began, they realized it was too late for them. I’m confident that many cried out and tried to repent, but God closed the window of opportunity. One dutiful family was saved, but the ungodly were all killed in the floodwaters. Death was the direct result of their sins. They had been warned for years yet would not listen, and then destruction came. “Who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water” (1 Peter 3:20).

Today’s Society

Does this all sound familiar to you? It should. We are now fast-forwarding the warnings of God to our present age. We have read about Earth’s conditions during the time of Noah, before God’s judgment. Biblical prophecy has warned the earth about the end-time’s judgment for more than two thousand years, but many people will not repent. People will laugh and mock others who, like Noah, have tried to warn them of the judgments to come. But, as it was in the days of Noah, some are not going to listen. In our present age, there are gluttons, drunkards, drug users, sexually immoral individuals, and people with multiple divorces. Many are lovers of themselves and lovers of money; many are proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, uneasy, slanderous, uncontrollable, brutal, unloving, evil, treacherous, impudent, and swollen with conceit. They are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. They have the appearance of godliness but deny the power of God.

Today, society is nearing an inclination in the behavior of human beings that cannot be reversed. Corruption has reached levels that have never been seen before. Consider government officials’ recent mad rush to enshrine the legal right to unjustifiably assassinate unborn children. There is a complete and total breakdown of our values in today’s society. We see abortion on demand, alcoholism, drug addiction, pornography, violent crimes, terrorism, selfishness, and more. What’s going on in our world?

Jesus compared the present condition of the earth to what it was in the days of Noah. Just as the rain started to fall during God’s judgment, the rain has started to fall on us. But unfortunately, we don’t see it. Those in today’s society do not realize how close we are to the end of time. People did not believe what Noah said in his day about the coming judgment for sin. It’s the same now. We lead lives without the sense that sin has consequences or that the judgment of God is due because of the increasing rejection of God and His laws by humanity.

We are currently experiencing plagues on Earth, such as COVID-19, locusts, wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, hunger, wars, rumors of war, financial crises, and wildfires—even a fire tornado in California. Severe worldwide persecution against Christians is also happening. These are all the beginnings of the sorrows that I will discuss categorically in later chapters. The signs of the times are all around us, but most do not recognize them.

Warning from Jesus

Jesus issued a stern warning in Matthew 24:37–44:

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

The clock is ticking: ticktock, ticktock …