Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed as it was in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot, with people absorbed in eating and drinking, marrying, buying and selling, planting and building until sudden destruction comes. As the flood came and destroyed them all after Noah entered the ark, and fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all the same day Lot went out of Sodom, so it will be at Christ's revelation. That revealing is His second coming, an open and real return in the clouds of heaven that comes as a thief in the night to those who are not watching. The destruction will fall suddenly and decisively by fire, not by water, while people are given up to pleasure, excess, violence and disregard of God, and those who remain careless will awake too late to have lost the eternal inheritance. Therefore the verse calls for watchful readiness now, to heed God's warning and refuge while mercy still pleads, to live in harmony with His kingdom, to practice temperance and faithful service, and not to put afar off the Lord's coming.
Noah and Lot Parallels
The day when the Son of man is revealed will be just as it was in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot. People will be absorbed in ordinary life — eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, buying and selling, planting and building — until sudden destruction comes. That continuance of daily activity goes on while sin and rejection of God's warnings persist, and the cities and villages of today are permeated with the same principles that prevailed then. The likeness is a warning about the closing scenes of earth's history, calling people to be ready by preparing the soul and living in harmony with the principles and laws of God's kingdom. The people of the world today stand before God in the same condition as the inhabitants of the Noachic world, in spite of all that has been done for them.
As the flood came and destroyed them all after Noah entered the ark, even thus shall it be in the day of Christ's revelation. As fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all the same day Lot went out of Sodom, even thus shall it be in the day of Christ's revelation. The destruction in both cases was total and sudden, falling immediately after God's people were removed to the refuge provided for them. God warned the wicked and provided the ark as a refuge, where those who repented and reformed could be pardoned and saved, and His Spirit pleaded until Noah entered the ark, when mercy ceased to intercede for the guilty.
The revealing of the Son of man is His second coming. It is an open, real, and soon return in the clouds of heaven, belonging to the days of the Son of man leading to the day when He is revealed. That day is the day of the Lord, which comes as a thief in the night to those who are not watching, praying, and working. Those who have light must therefore follow Jesus and work out their salvation with fear and trembling. At that coming, genuine faith will be rare, with people occupied with ordinary life and impenitent and unbelieving until judgment comes.
The setting includes the flight of the saints from cities and villages during the time of trouble. They flee as the wicked pursue them, before Jesus appears on the cloud and gathers His people. The proclamation of the third angel's warning stands before the revelation of the Son of man as the last message to be given before that event. The signs Christ gave show that His coming is near.
Sudden Judgment and Mercy
Even thus shall it be when the Son of man is revealed, as in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot, with ordinary life going on until sudden destruction comes. People will be absorbed in pleasure and work and their own plans, eating and drinking and carrying on business with no thought of His coming, while sin continues and warnings are set aside. Judgment will fall suddenly as the flood did after Noah entered the ark and as fire and brimstone did when Lot left Sodom, and the verse calls for readiness by preparing the soul and living in harmony with the principles and laws of God's kingdom. Those who remain careless and unprepared will awake only when it is too late and will realize they have lost the eternal inheritance they might have received.
Before that judgment God warns the wicked and provides refuge and pardon to all who repent and reform, as the ark stood open and its building drew attention to the coming judgment. His Spirit pleads until probation closes, as it pleaded until Noah entered the ark, when mercy ceases to intercede for the guilty, the door is shut, and every case is eternally decided. Warnings had gone forward for years, yet many did not turn to the Lord, and some who responded at first were mocked by others. Those who believe and obey will find pardon and shelter from the coming wrath, and those who have received grace and truth must make it known as living epistles to an unbelieving world in these latter days.
That judgment is decisive and worldwide, coming again not by water as in the flood but by fire corresponding to the flood, a baptism of fire in which sin and sinners are consumed under God's retributive judgment. Fire and brimstone will fall on cities when not expected, and their visitation will be proportionate to their sins. The earth will disclose the blood it has covered, and those without God will be without hope. Satan will also seek to attract and deceive, leading lawbreakers into widespread iniquity through pleasure, association, temptation, and even parental example that encourages rebellion.
Warnings are rejected, prophecy is made light of, and scoffing and unbelief cannot prevent the word from being fulfilled, for as the flood came despite unbelief so the predicted day will come despite rejection. Step by step the Spirit is resisted until spiritual blindness takes the place of light once enjoyed, evidence becomes questioning and doubt, every appeal and reproof becomes meaningless, and the most solemn warnings of Scripture are laughed at and ridiculed. Entreaties of the Spirit are despised, commandments once vindicated are disobeyed, Satan stands close beside to misapply and pervert every word spoken, Christ is rejected and Barabbas chosen, yet the end comes. As Lot was counted a fanatical enthusiast by his family and they were found unprepared, so farmers, merchants, lawyers and tradesmen wholly engrossed in business will be taken as by a snare, and all must watch.
Sudden destruction falls after God's people are removed, as the flood destroyed the wicked after Noah entered the ark and fire destroyed Sodom after Lot left. It comes the same day Lot went out of Sodom, amid great blessing on a rich land resembling Eden to which people do not respond and by which they are not brought to repentance. In that city not even ten righteous can be found.
Moral Condition Foretold
The day when the Son of man is revealed will find the world in the moral condition of the days of Noah and the days of Lot, marked by depravity and sin, widespread wickedness, violence, crime, cruelty, infidelity, impurity, rebellion and social impurity, with people disregarding God, His commands and eternal realities. Religious apostasy and sensuality will prevail, human wickedness and evil thoughts will dominate, and the world will become ripe for destruction under retributive judgment as the signs show that day is near and call for wakefulness and preparation rather than indifference. The Spirit of God will not always strive with humanity as sin and corruption increase rapidly toward the point of the last-day crisis for which people must be spiritually prepared.
Genuine faith will then be rare, for people will be impenitent and unbelieving, absorbed in ordinary life and revelry until judgment comes. They will dismiss warnings, reject the warning and mock the expectation of judgment, confident that judgment will not come, while skepticism and attacks unsettle faith. As the flood came despite unbelief, the predicted day of unexpected divine judgment will come despite rejection, calling believers to prepare through repentance, righteous character and lives shaped by professed truth.
That time will be marked by gluttony and drunkenness and indulgence of perverted and unnatural appetite carried to excess, dulling moral sense, inflaming passions and leaving passion in control. Excess weakens moral powers until sin no longer appears sinful, crimes are tolerated or seem delightful and pleasing, base passions control the mind, good principles and impulses are rooted out, and God is blasphemed. As such indulgence benumbed the moral sensibilities of Sodom and corrupted morals before fire fell, so the same sins now bring general corruption that calls for the wrath of God and sudden destruction by fire at Christ's return.
The warning is not against proper business, daily life, or eating and drinking to sustain life, which are not sinful, but against indulgence and carrying lawful activities to excess and making them life's chief concern until they crowd out concern for eternal life and shut the mind against it. Ordinary activities become sinful when carried to excess, when they displace God and eternity from reckoning, and when worldly self-indulgence in gratification of desire leads toward ruin from which followers of Christ must separate themselves. Overeating and drinking pervert the whole person, waste time, money and strength, lessen vitality, bring suffering, disease and decay, make it impossible to present the body as a living sacrifice, and bring condemnation for which watchfulness, prayer, temperance and spiritual readiness are required.
A selfish passion to accumulate possessions and retain power will prevail, with money-making carried on without regard to principle and money-hoarders becoming co-partners in robbing the poor. Men will buy up wheat and goods so the needy must buy at whatever prices are demanded, with unfair and grasping practices warning against robbery, selfishness and dishonesty, and with failure to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. The poorer classes keenly feeling this robbery will be led to stubborn resistance, the robbed becoming exasperated, so that selfishness and violence of man over fellow man produces violence, wickedness and cruelty in the world as beforehand declared, opposite to God's design that brotherhood be considered and entrusted means be used to turn men from sin to righteousness and seek first the kingdom of God. That corruption is the iniquity of Sodom — pride, fullness of bread and abundance of idleness — now reached in a society corrupt in every phase and absorbed in eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building until sudden destruction by fire from heaven.
Sacred institutions ordained in Eden, the Sabbath and marriage, will be disregarded and set at naught, with God's law disregarded and His power and love lost sight of. Adultery will be a grievous and widespread sin, with infatuation with pleasure, gratification of desire for pleasure, yielding to temptation through associations, and rebellion encouraged even by parental example bringing worldwide destruction again, not by water but by fire. Failure of parents to educate children to reverence God's law has let wickedness reach great proportions and meets youth with special peril in the cities in these last days, requiring fathers and mothers to awake, youth to be withdrawn from corrupting associations into physical and mental culture, and every effort to bring them to Jesus through Christian schooling. The church will share in the transgression by taking the world into fellowship, giving affection to the enemies of holiness, standing on the same ground as the world, and preferring to assimilate to its customs and vanities rather than separate from them, through disobedience by which the foretold condition is fast becoming reality.
People will be selfishly engrossed in pleasure-seeking and self-gratification, asleep in carnal security, full of rioting and godless pleasure, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, not caring for anything serious and dying without thought of preparation for eternity. They will spend money for liquor and tobacco that destroy physical, mental and moral power, benumb the mind, confuse the senses and make men incapable of acting sensibly, and will be absorbed in amusements such as theaters, horse-races, cricket and baseball matches, gambling-hells, and eating, sleeping, dressing and every vanity, with the highest excitement prevailing and with passions stimulated to intense activity and moral prostration meaning death to the soul. Like those who knew not until the flood came and took them all away, they will not know their danger, while merchants keep buying and selling and men jostle for place, and this worldly, intemperate, pleasure-seeking condition testifies that the end of all things is at hand.
Christ's coming will take place in the darkest period of earth's history, pictured by the days of Noah and Lot as the world's condition just before the Son of man comes. Satan's deceptions, errors, heresies, delusions and apostasy will deepen the darkness, and for God's people that time will bring trial, weeping, grief and persecution for the truth. Yet God's light will shine through that darkness.
Signs of Present Nearness
The likeness foretold is already present and fast becoming reality, for the cities and villages of today are permeated with the same principles that marked Noah's world and Lot's day. The time described has been reached, with people absorbed in eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, and in buying and selling and planting and building, until sudden destruction comes. As the flood came and destroyed them all after Noah entered the ark, and as fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all the same day Lot went out of Sodom, even so it will be when the Son of man is revealed. That corruption is the iniquity of Sodom — pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness, with failure to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy — alongside widespread wickedness, violence, infidelity, and social impurity showing the warning reaches beyond what has yet been seen.
Outward life goes on as usual while the crisis steals gradually upon the world and probation's hour fast closes. The sun keeps its usual round and the heavens still declare glory while men keep eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage, merchants keep buying and selling, men jostle and contend for the highest place, and pleasure-lovers crowd theaters, horse-races and gambling-hells with the highest excitement prevailing. At that very time every case is about to be eternally decided, yet many remain unaware as the crisis approaches like a thief. Satan sees his time is short and sets all his agents at work so men will be deceived, deluded, occupied and entranced until the day of probation ends and the door of mercy is forever shut, bringing sorrow upon them.
The church and the world approach this most solemn and momentous period of earth's history wholly unconscious of their condition and peril. The time is marked by worldliness, backsliding, and careless security, with those who refuse to arouse dead while claiming life and to be come upon as by a thief without knowing the hour. Its nearness was already declared by the promised signs of the sun clothed in darkness by day and the moon by night. The fulfilling signs of Christ's coming call for discerning the times in the similarity of society at the end to Noah's day and Lot's day, and for readiness before the day arrives while ordinary pursuits continue and deception keeps people occupied until probation ends.
The last-time condition includes the withdrawal of God's Spirit and the removal of His restrictions, with judgments such as sickness, disasters at sea and on land, destruction by fire and floods, earthquakes, death, increasing crime, and cruel violence marking the earth near the close of its history. As the Lord removes His restrictions, people without His protection will find no safe place in any place or position. Human skill will be turned to making powerful machinery to wound and kill, and self-indulgence and excess along with violence and calamities make preparation for the second coming urgent.
The lawlessness and crime of the present time are evidence that the world is becoming like those days and that the end is near. Widespread wickedness with ordinary life continuing until judgment falls shows the revealing will come in conditions like the days of Noah and Lot, when widespread wickedness brought the Flood and the destruction of Sodom. This evil is traced to disregard for God's commandments, including setting aside the Sabbath and losing sight of God's power and love. The cities are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah and as in the days of Noah, the world is growing worse and worse with violence and crime already developing there, and the growing prevalence of Sodom-like practices is a sign of the times to be discerned. These conditions warn that Christ's coming is near, that cities may quickly become ruins through God's judgment with mountainous regions sought as refuge, and that none should move without God's counsel to make large plants and establish business interests in large cities.
Call to Watchful Readiness
The verse calls for readiness by preparing the soul and living in harmony with the principles and laws of God's kingdom, since the day of revelation will come suddenly while people are absorbed in pleasure, work and their own plans as in the days of Noah and Sodom. That day comes as a thief in the night to those who are not watching, praying and working, while those who have light must follow Jesus and work out their salvation with fear and trembling. The warning is not against proper business or other lawful activities, but against carrying them to excess and indulging appetite until the mind is shut against eternal life, and it especially warns men in positions of responsibility whose defects of character and officiousness blind judgment to the work to be done for this time of peril. Wakefulness and preparation rather than indifference are required because the signs predicted show that day is near.
No one is to put afar off the coming of the Lord, boast that all things remain as from the beginning and that tomorrow shall be as today only much more abundant, laugh at warnings as fanaticism and enthusiasm, or deny, spiritualize or postpone Christ's return to a distant future while pursuing pleasure and wealth. As the inhabitants of Noah's world forgot admonition and as dwellers in Sodom awoke with all their plans and inventions of iniquity only to be suddenly consumed by fire from heaven, so lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, asleep in carnal security and full of rioting and godless pleasure, will be taken unawares and awakened only when too late to realize the eternal inheritance is lost. When the scorner and rejecter of truth has become presumptuous, when money-making is carried on without regard to principle, when students seek knowledge of everything but the Bible, and when men go deeper into pleasure-loving with no thought of His coming, Christ comes as a thief, leaving every passing hour one hour less to make preparation of character and causing many to miss their visitation.
Eating and drinking to sustain life are not sinful, but excess becomes sin when eternity is lost from the reckoning, and the day of revelation will come amid ordinary eating and drinking carried on without regard for eternity. Making eating and drinking paramount and giving up to indulgence of appetite to excess enfeebles moral powers so that sin does not appear sinful, crimes are winked at, base passions control the mind, until general corruption roots out good principles and impulses and God is blasphemed, with uncontrolled indulgence, disease and degradation recurring with intensified evil before the second coming. Those who heed the warning must therefore practice temperance, bring appetites and passions under God's will, learn from Christ's fast that unrestrained indulgence is profoundly evil and that eternal life is possible only on those terms, and instead labor earnestly after His example of self-denial, diligence, perseverance, industry and economy rather than indolence.
Because sudden judgment by fire and brimstone will fall on cities when not expected, with visitation proportionate to their sins as in Sodom, God's people are called to leave the cities and not return to build homes there after a city is destroyed. Calamity in one place is to warn others to repent and flee without delay, for judgment comes suddenly after warning as before the Flood, and most will not accept the gospel before Christ returns in power and glory. The violence and crime already developing show the cities may quickly become ruins through God's judgment and are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah, which is a sign of the times to be discerned; people should consider leaving the cities for what is happening now, seek the mountainous regions, and not move without God's counsel to make large plants and establish business interests in large cities.
As Noah gave God's warning message before the flood while people went on eating and drinking and planting and building and marrying and giving in marriage unrepenting until taken away, so that same condition belongs to the latter days now when those who have received grace and truth must make it known as living epistles to an unbelieving world. Multitudes do not regard life as serious but are selfishly engrossed in pleasure seeking, eating and sleeping and dressing and pursuing every vanity, pride and selfish indulgence, dying without thought of preparation for eternity, and those who have had the light must live the truth before them as a living testimony because they will meet those souls in the judgment. With human probation limited while God offers a way back to loyalty through Christ's saving power and grace, and with inhabitants sunk in stupid lethargy as under a powerful poisonous drug and dead in trespasses and sins, there is urgent call to work while the day lasts because time is short and the night comes in which no man can work, giving the message of warning, introducing the leaven of truth, proclaiming the healing fountain and presenting the balm of a Saviour's love with the quickening, recuperative, transforming energies of the Holy Spirit to heal sin-bruised, palsy-stricken souls, laboring together with Jesus Christ to save those in darkness and error for whom He died, especially in unworked cities, by medical missionary work.
The present age resembling those times exposes people to moral dangers comparable to Noah's time and Sodom, calling Christians to greater refinement in thought, relationships, speech and conduct. The likeness includes infatuation with pleasure, gratifying desire for pleasure, yielding to temptation through associations, and rebellion encouraged even by parental example, bringing worldwide destruction again, not by water as before but by fire. Because this peril meets youth in the cities in these last days, fathers and mothers must awake to responsibility, youth must be withdrawn from corrupting associations into physical and mental culture, and every effort must be made to bring them to Jesus through Christian schooling.
Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed as it was in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot, with people absorbed in eating and drinking, marrying, buying and selling, planting and building until sudden destruction comes. As the flood came and destroyed them all after Noah entered the ark, and fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all the same day Lot went out of Sodom, so it will be at Christ's revelation. That revealing is His second coming, an open and real return in the clouds of heaven that comes as a thief in the night to those who are not watching. The destruction will fall suddenly and decisively by fire, not by water, while people are given up to pleasure, excess, violence and disregard of God, and those who remain careless will awake too late to have lost the eternal inheritance. Therefore the verse calls for watchful readiness now, to heed God's warning and refuge while mercy still pleads, to live in harmony with His kingdom, to practice temperance and faithful service, and not to put afar off the Lord's coming.
Noah and Lot Parallels
The day when the Son of man is revealed will be just as it was in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot. People will be absorbed in ordinary life — eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, buying and selling, planting and building — until sudden destruction comes. That continuance of daily activity goes on while sin and rejection of God's warnings persist, and the cities and villages of today are permeated with the same principles that prevailed then. The likeness is a warning about the closing scenes of earth's history, calling people to be ready by preparing the soul and living in harmony with the principles and laws of God's kingdom. The people of the world today stand before God in the same condition as the inhabitants of the Noachic world, in spite of all that has been done for them.
As the flood came and destroyed them all after Noah entered the ark, even thus shall it be in the day of Christ's revelation. As fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all the same day Lot went out of Sodom, even thus shall it be in the day of Christ's revelation. The destruction in both cases was total and sudden, falling immediately after God's people were removed to the refuge provided for them. God warned the wicked and provided the ark as a refuge, where those who repented and reformed could be pardoned and saved, and His Spirit pleaded until Noah entered the ark, when mercy ceased to intercede for the guilty.
The revealing of the Son of man is His second coming. It is an open, real, and soon return in the clouds of heaven, belonging to the days of the Son of man leading to the day when He is revealed. That day is the day of the Lord, which comes as a thief in the night to those who are not watching, praying, and working. Those who have light must therefore follow Jesus and work out their salvation with fear and trembling. At that coming, genuine faith will be rare, with people occupied with ordinary life and impenitent and unbelieving until judgment comes.
The setting includes the flight of the saints from cities and villages during the time of trouble. They flee as the wicked pursue them, before Jesus appears on the cloud and gathers His people. The proclamation of the third angel's warning stands before the revelation of the Son of man as the last message to be given before that event. The signs Christ gave show that His coming is near.
Sudden Judgment and Mercy
Even thus shall it be when the Son of man is revealed, as in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot, with ordinary life going on until sudden destruction comes. People will be absorbed in pleasure and work and their own plans, eating and drinking and carrying on business with no thought of His coming, while sin continues and warnings are set aside. Judgment will fall suddenly as the flood did after Noah entered the ark and as fire and brimstone did when Lot left Sodom, and the verse calls for readiness by preparing the soul and living in harmony with the principles and laws of God's kingdom. Those who remain careless and unprepared will awake only when it is too late and will realize they have lost the eternal inheritance they might have received.
Before that judgment God warns the wicked and provides refuge and pardon to all who repent and reform, as the ark stood open and its building drew attention to the coming judgment. His Spirit pleads until probation closes, as it pleaded until Noah entered the ark, when mercy ceases to intercede for the guilty, the door is shut, and every case is eternally decided. Warnings had gone forward for years, yet many did not turn to the Lord, and some who responded at first were mocked by others. Those who believe and obey will find pardon and shelter from the coming wrath, and those who have received grace and truth must make it known as living epistles to an unbelieving world in these latter days.
That judgment is decisive and worldwide, coming again not by water as in the flood but by fire corresponding to the flood, a baptism of fire in which sin and sinners are consumed under God's retributive judgment. Fire and brimstone will fall on cities when not expected, and their visitation will be proportionate to their sins. The earth will disclose the blood it has covered, and those without God will be without hope. Satan will also seek to attract and deceive, leading lawbreakers into widespread iniquity through pleasure, association, temptation, and even parental example that encourages rebellion.
Warnings are rejected, prophecy is made light of, and scoffing and unbelief cannot prevent the word from being fulfilled, for as the flood came despite unbelief so the predicted day will come despite rejection. Step by step the Spirit is resisted until spiritual blindness takes the place of light once enjoyed, evidence becomes questioning and doubt, every appeal and reproof becomes meaningless, and the most solemn warnings of Scripture are laughed at and ridiculed. Entreaties of the Spirit are despised, commandments once vindicated are disobeyed, Satan stands close beside to misapply and pervert every word spoken, Christ is rejected and Barabbas chosen, yet the end comes. As Lot was counted a fanatical enthusiast by his family and they were found unprepared, so farmers, merchants, lawyers and tradesmen wholly engrossed in business will be taken as by a snare, and all must watch.
Sudden destruction falls after God's people are removed, as the flood destroyed the wicked after Noah entered the ark and fire destroyed Sodom after Lot left. It comes the same day Lot went out of Sodom, amid great blessing on a rich land resembling Eden to which people do not respond and by which they are not brought to repentance. In that city not even ten righteous can be found.
Moral Condition Foretold
The day when the Son of man is revealed will find the world in the moral condition of the days of Noah and the days of Lot, marked by depravity and sin, widespread wickedness, violence, crime, cruelty, infidelity, impurity, rebellion and social impurity, with people disregarding God, His commands and eternal realities. Religious apostasy and sensuality will prevail, human wickedness and evil thoughts will dominate, and the world will become ripe for destruction under retributive judgment as the signs show that day is near and call for wakefulness and preparation rather than indifference. The Spirit of God will not always strive with humanity as sin and corruption increase rapidly toward the point of the last-day crisis for which people must be spiritually prepared.
Genuine faith will then be rare, for people will be impenitent and unbelieving, absorbed in ordinary life and revelry until judgment comes. They will dismiss warnings, reject the warning and mock the expectation of judgment, confident that judgment will not come, while skepticism and attacks unsettle faith. As the flood came despite unbelief, the predicted day of unexpected divine judgment will come despite rejection, calling believers to prepare through repentance, righteous character and lives shaped by professed truth.
That time will be marked by gluttony and drunkenness and indulgence of perverted and unnatural appetite carried to excess, dulling moral sense, inflaming passions and leaving passion in control. Excess weakens moral powers until sin no longer appears sinful, crimes are tolerated or seem delightful and pleasing, base passions control the mind, good principles and impulses are rooted out, and God is blasphemed. As such indulgence benumbed the moral sensibilities of Sodom and corrupted morals before fire fell, so the same sins now bring general corruption that calls for the wrath of God and sudden destruction by fire at Christ's return.
The warning is not against proper business, daily life, or eating and drinking to sustain life, which are not sinful, but against indulgence and carrying lawful activities to excess and making them life's chief concern until they crowd out concern for eternal life and shut the mind against it. Ordinary activities become sinful when carried to excess, when they displace God and eternity from reckoning, and when worldly self-indulgence in gratification of desire leads toward ruin from which followers of Christ must separate themselves. Overeating and drinking pervert the whole person, waste time, money and strength, lessen vitality, bring suffering, disease and decay, make it impossible to present the body as a living sacrifice, and bring condemnation for which watchfulness, prayer, temperance and spiritual readiness are required.
A selfish passion to accumulate possessions and retain power will prevail, with money-making carried on without regard to principle and money-hoarders becoming co-partners in robbing the poor. Men will buy up wheat and goods so the needy must buy at whatever prices are demanded, with unfair and grasping practices warning against robbery, selfishness and dishonesty, and with failure to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. The poorer classes keenly feeling this robbery will be led to stubborn resistance, the robbed becoming exasperated, so that selfishness and violence of man over fellow man produces violence, wickedness and cruelty in the world as beforehand declared, opposite to God's design that brotherhood be considered and entrusted means be used to turn men from sin to righteousness and seek first the kingdom of God. That corruption is the iniquity of Sodom — pride, fullness of bread and abundance of idleness — now reached in a society corrupt in every phase and absorbed in eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building until sudden destruction by fire from heaven.
Sacred institutions ordained in Eden, the Sabbath and marriage, will be disregarded and set at naught, with God's law disregarded and His power and love lost sight of. Adultery will be a grievous and widespread sin, with infatuation with pleasure, gratification of desire for pleasure, yielding to temptation through associations, and rebellion encouraged even by parental example bringing worldwide destruction again, not by water but by fire. Failure of parents to educate children to reverence God's law has let wickedness reach great proportions and meets youth with special peril in the cities in these last days, requiring fathers and mothers to awake, youth to be withdrawn from corrupting associations into physical and mental culture, and every effort to bring them to Jesus through Christian schooling. The church will share in the transgression by taking the world into fellowship, giving affection to the enemies of holiness, standing on the same ground as the world, and preferring to assimilate to its customs and vanities rather than separate from them, through disobedience by which the foretold condition is fast becoming reality.
People will be selfishly engrossed in pleasure-seeking and self-gratification, asleep in carnal security, full of rioting and godless pleasure, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, not caring for anything serious and dying without thought of preparation for eternity. They will spend money for liquor and tobacco that destroy physical, mental and moral power, benumb the mind, confuse the senses and make men incapable of acting sensibly, and will be absorbed in amusements such as theaters, horse-races, cricket and baseball matches, gambling-hells, and eating, sleeping, dressing and every vanity, with the highest excitement prevailing and with passions stimulated to intense activity and moral prostration meaning death to the soul. Like those who knew not until the flood came and took them all away, they will not know their danger, while merchants keep buying and selling and men jostle for place, and this worldly, intemperate, pleasure-seeking condition testifies that the end of all things is at hand.
Christ's coming will take place in the darkest period of earth's history, pictured by the days of Noah and Lot as the world's condition just before the Son of man comes. Satan's deceptions, errors, heresies, delusions and apostasy will deepen the darkness, and for God's people that time will bring trial, weeping, grief and persecution for the truth. Yet God's light will shine through that darkness.
Signs of Present Nearness
The likeness foretold is already present and fast becoming reality, for the cities and villages of today are permeated with the same principles that marked Noah's world and Lot's day. The time described has been reached, with people absorbed in eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, and in buying and selling and planting and building, until sudden destruction comes. As the flood came and destroyed them all after Noah entered the ark, and as fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all the same day Lot went out of Sodom, even so it will be when the Son of man is revealed. That corruption is the iniquity of Sodom — pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness, with failure to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy — alongside widespread wickedness, violence, infidelity, and social impurity showing the warning reaches beyond what has yet been seen.
Outward life goes on as usual while the crisis steals gradually upon the world and probation's hour fast closes. The sun keeps its usual round and the heavens still declare glory while men keep eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage, merchants keep buying and selling, men jostle and contend for the highest place, and pleasure-lovers crowd theaters, horse-races and gambling-hells with the highest excitement prevailing. At that very time every case is about to be eternally decided, yet many remain unaware as the crisis approaches like a thief. Satan sees his time is short and sets all his agents at work so men will be deceived, deluded, occupied and entranced until the day of probation ends and the door of mercy is forever shut, bringing sorrow upon them.
The church and the world approach this most solemn and momentous period of earth's history wholly unconscious of their condition and peril. The time is marked by worldliness, backsliding, and careless security, with those who refuse to arouse dead while claiming life and to be come upon as by a thief without knowing the hour. Its nearness was already declared by the promised signs of the sun clothed in darkness by day and the moon by night. The fulfilling signs of Christ's coming call for discerning the times in the similarity of society at the end to Noah's day and Lot's day, and for readiness before the day arrives while ordinary pursuits continue and deception keeps people occupied until probation ends.
The last-time condition includes the withdrawal of God's Spirit and the removal of His restrictions, with judgments such as sickness, disasters at sea and on land, destruction by fire and floods, earthquakes, death, increasing crime, and cruel violence marking the earth near the close of its history. As the Lord removes His restrictions, people without His protection will find no safe place in any place or position. Human skill will be turned to making powerful machinery to wound and kill, and self-indulgence and excess along with violence and calamities make preparation for the second coming urgent.
The lawlessness and crime of the present time are evidence that the world is becoming like those days and that the end is near. Widespread wickedness with ordinary life continuing until judgment falls shows the revealing will come in conditions like the days of Noah and Lot, when widespread wickedness brought the Flood and the destruction of Sodom. This evil is traced to disregard for God's commandments, including setting aside the Sabbath and losing sight of God's power and love. The cities are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah and as in the days of Noah, the world is growing worse and worse with violence and crime already developing there, and the growing prevalence of Sodom-like practices is a sign of the times to be discerned. These conditions warn that Christ's coming is near, that cities may quickly become ruins through God's judgment with mountainous regions sought as refuge, and that none should move without God's counsel to make large plants and establish business interests in large cities.
Call to Watchful Readiness
The verse calls for readiness by preparing the soul and living in harmony with the principles and laws of God's kingdom, since the day of revelation will come suddenly while people are absorbed in pleasure, work and their own plans as in the days of Noah and Sodom. That day comes as a thief in the night to those who are not watching, praying and working, while those who have light must follow Jesus and work out their salvation with fear and trembling. The warning is not against proper business or other lawful activities, but against carrying them to excess and indulging appetite until the mind is shut against eternal life, and it especially warns men in positions of responsibility whose defects of character and officiousness blind judgment to the work to be done for this time of peril. Wakefulness and preparation rather than indifference are required because the signs predicted show that day is near.
No one is to put afar off the coming of the Lord, boast that all things remain as from the beginning and that tomorrow shall be as today only much more abundant, laugh at warnings as fanaticism and enthusiasm, or deny, spiritualize or postpone Christ's return to a distant future while pursuing pleasure and wealth. As the inhabitants of Noah's world forgot admonition and as dwellers in Sodom awoke with all their plans and inventions of iniquity only to be suddenly consumed by fire from heaven, so lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, asleep in carnal security and full of rioting and godless pleasure, will be taken unawares and awakened only when too late to realize the eternal inheritance is lost. When the scorner and rejecter of truth has become presumptuous, when money-making is carried on without regard to principle, when students seek knowledge of everything but the Bible, and when men go deeper into pleasure-loving with no thought of His coming, Christ comes as a thief, leaving every passing hour one hour less to make preparation of character and causing many to miss their visitation.
Eating and drinking to sustain life are not sinful, but excess becomes sin when eternity is lost from the reckoning, and the day of revelation will come amid ordinary eating and drinking carried on without regard for eternity. Making eating and drinking paramount and giving up to indulgence of appetite to excess enfeebles moral powers so that sin does not appear sinful, crimes are winked at, base passions control the mind, until general corruption roots out good principles and impulses and God is blasphemed, with uncontrolled indulgence, disease and degradation recurring with intensified evil before the second coming. Those who heed the warning must therefore practice temperance, bring appetites and passions under God's will, learn from Christ's fast that unrestrained indulgence is profoundly evil and that eternal life is possible only on those terms, and instead labor earnestly after His example of self-denial, diligence, perseverance, industry and economy rather than indolence.
Because sudden judgment by fire and brimstone will fall on cities when not expected, with visitation proportionate to their sins as in Sodom, God's people are called to leave the cities and not return to build homes there after a city is destroyed. Calamity in one place is to warn others to repent and flee without delay, for judgment comes suddenly after warning as before the Flood, and most will not accept the gospel before Christ returns in power and glory. The violence and crime already developing show the cities may quickly become ruins through God's judgment and are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah, which is a sign of the times to be discerned; people should consider leaving the cities for what is happening now, seek the mountainous regions, and not move without God's counsel to make large plants and establish business interests in large cities.
As Noah gave God's warning message before the flood while people went on eating and drinking and planting and building and marrying and giving in marriage unrepenting until taken away, so that same condition belongs to the latter days now when those who have received grace and truth must make it known as living epistles to an unbelieving world. Multitudes do not regard life as serious but are selfishly engrossed in pleasure seeking, eating and sleeping and dressing and pursuing every vanity, pride and selfish indulgence, dying without thought of preparation for eternity, and those who have had the light must live the truth before them as a living testimony because they will meet those souls in the judgment. With human probation limited while God offers a way back to loyalty through Christ's saving power and grace, and with inhabitants sunk in stupid lethargy as under a powerful poisonous drug and dead in trespasses and sins, there is urgent call to work while the day lasts because time is short and the night comes in which no man can work, giving the message of warning, introducing the leaven of truth, proclaiming the healing fountain and presenting the balm of a Saviour's love with the quickening, recuperative, transforming energies of the Holy Spirit to heal sin-bruised, palsy-stricken souls, laboring together with Jesus Christ to save those in darkness and error for whom He died, especially in unworked cities, by medical missionary work.
The present age resembling those times exposes people to moral dangers comparable to Noah's time and Sodom, calling Christians to greater refinement in thought, relationships, speech and conduct. The likeness includes infatuation with pleasure, gratifying desire for pleasure, yielding to temptation through associations, and rebellion encouraged even by parental example, bringing worldwide destruction again, not by water as before but by fire. Because this peril meets youth in the cities in these last days, fathers and mothers must awake to responsibility, youth must be withdrawn from corrupting associations into physical and mental culture, and every effort must be made to bring them to Jesus through Christian schooling.