Noah's Ark in the Flood with Fountains BurstingBible World
24:39Matthew 24:39
And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Christ spoke this of the end of the world as well as of Jerusalem's fall, and its plain sense is that as the flood took the unwarned world suddenly away, so His coming will be sudden, unexpected and unrecognized until judgment has arrived. Their unknowing was willful, for Noah warned for 120 years and built the ark before them, yet they closed eyes and ears, mocked the message as idle enthusiasm, and went on careless and pleasure-loving until God shut the door and fixed their doom. Their daily eating and drinking, marrying, planting, building, buying and selling were lawful in themselves but became ruinous when made supreme, pursued to excess without gratitude, and allowed to crowd out God, while the earth was also filled with violence, drunkenness, lust, greed, oppression and contempt for His law. The present age is exactly as those days were, which proves the end is near and that He will come soon in power and great glory in earth's darkest moral hour, with no thousand years of worldwide conversion before it, but with multiplying calamities, deceptions and city wickedness as warnings. Therefore, since no one knows the day or hour and probation will close silently while life outwardly goes on, all must watch and be ready as faithful servants, living in temperance, self-denial and wholehearted consecration, and lifting the last warning voice like Noah to turn others from transgression to obedience.
Discourse Setting and Scope
Matthew 24:39 belongs to Christ's discourse in which the destruction of Jerusalem and His coming at the end of the world are described together, given for those living in the final scenes of earth's history. The great prophecy briefly covers the whole Christian dispensation and the present dispensation with its closing scenes, placing His coming after the history of the world and the church spanning from His first advent to His second. The destruction of Jerusalem set forth in the chapter serves as a type of the world's final destruction by fire, and as people in Noah's day remained unaware until destruction overtook them, so Jerusalem's apparent strength did not make its doom less certain because its sins and stubborn unbelief ensured the warning would come to pass even though public prediction could seem like the alarm of a madman. Its closing parable presents two classes of servants looking for His appearing, and the same last-day church and its experience are pictured in the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25.
The coming of the Son of man is still future and did not take place at the destruction of Jerusalem. As the flood came and took them all away while they knew not, so that coming will come upon the unprepared, and therefore men must turn from sin and seek preparation for it. The comparison with Sodom likewise shows people absorbed in business and pleasure, continuing ordinary pursuits and dismissing warnings until destruction arrives suddenly with judgment. That coming is a real, soon event, not merely spiritual nor to be postponed to the distant future, and skepticism and rejection of the warning will not prevent it.
The predictions of Matthew 24, including this verse, are to be studied and brought by ministers and teachers to the attention of all, believers and unbelievers, above matters of lesser consequence. Today is the time when these predictions are being fulfilled, and their unmistakable fulfilment shows that Christ's coming is at hand. The truths of this chapter decide the eternal destiny of souls and call the church to arouse to questions of eternal importance, to discern the time, to reach a higher standard in view of dangers, and to prepare for the great conflict, for they were foretold to the disciples on earth to instruct those who would believe afterward at this age of the world. Although no one knows the day or hour, Christ's signs instruct when His coming and judgment are near and require watching for it, so that disregard of the warning and failure to recognize nearness brings fatal loss and leaves people unaware until sudden destruction and reckoning overtake them as in Noah's day. The flood taking away those who knew not shows the perils of the last days now present, when those perishing in sin must be warned with the last message of mercy. The verse therefore calls everyone entrusted with means to act as God's helping hand by investing money lent by the Lord in gospel work, as in New York City, instead of spending it in self-gratification and effort to gain worldly riches that will crumble into dust and bring eternal loss, since only through self-denial, sacrifice of earthly riches, much tribulation, and warring the good warfare without laying down weapons until Christ bids rest can the eternal riches and inheritance enduring through all eternity be secured.
Sudden Unawareness and Judgment
The verse means that as the generation before the flood remained unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so the coming of the Son of man will be sudden, unexpected and unrecognized. People will be absorbed in ordinary life — eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage — and will carry on as usual until judgment arrives, which does not mean the coming is far off or that they are ready. Despite warning and time given for repentance only one family was ready to enter the ark, and the rest continued without recognizing the danger; the flood is thus a picture of sudden judgment overtaking the unprepared and unwary who neglect to watch.
After Noah entered the ark God shut him in and shut the ungodly out, yet for seven days the doomed continued their careless, pleasure-loving life, mocking the warnings without knowing their doom was fixed. So the decisive hour, the final decision in the heavenly sanctuary and the withdrawal of mercy's offer, the close of probation and shutting of the door of mercy, will come silently and unnoticed while righteous and wicked are still living on earth. Amid worldwide agitation, ominous signs, calamity by sea and land, and the withdrawing of the Spirit of God, men will still go on eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage, buying and selling, jostling for the highest place and crowding to theaters, horse-races and gambling with the highest excitement prevailing, while the crisis steals gradually as a thief and every case is about to be eternally decided. Satan, knowing his time is short, sets all his agencies at work to keep men deceived, deluded, occupied and entranced until probation ends, so the verse warns against growing weary of watchfulness and being absorbed in worldly pursuits.
Their failure to know was willful, not for lack of warning and opportunity to learn. They chose not to know and did not recognize the time they were living in, closing their eyes and ears and shutting out calls to repentance, trusting the earth's beauty and apparent permanence and strengthening one another in unbelief. For 120 years they were called to repent, believe and find refuge in the ark, yet many resisted, ridiculed, and continued in wickedness, and even some who were convicted refused to reform and became defiant scoffers; human nature apart from the Spirit of God remains unchanged and Satan works to make warnings ineffective. As water then cleansed the earth, so the same self-chosen ignorance leaves people unprepared when judgment brings sudden destruction at the Son of man's appearing, while those who heed the warning and show repentance in their lives will be sheltered and shown salvation.
Noah's Worldly Corrupt Life
In the days until Noah entered the ark people kept on eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, planting and building, buying and selling, dressing and accumulating means, and the coming of the Son of man will find men absorbed in the same round of ordinary life. These pursuits were lawful in themselves and not sin, for God had given the fruits of the earth in abundance to supply physical wants, and marriage was ordained by Him as a sacred institution. They became sinful when made the supreme aim of life, when gifts were received without gratitude to the Giver, when appetite was indulged without restraint and marriage perverted to serve passion, and when eating and drinking were carried to intemperate excess. In that excess blessing is turned to a curse, the mind is engrossed so spiritual blessings cannot be discerned, and God and heaven are crowded from thought by self-gratification and selfish accumulation. Against hoarding and grinding gain God designed brotherhood to be remembered, with means used to turn men from sin to righteousness, with the worth of men purchased by Christ's life recognized, and with the kingdom of God and His righteousness sought first.
Their condition was great wickedness, with every imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually, until all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth and corruption and violence filled it. The sins that brought judgment were drunkenness, gluttony and sensual passions, dissipation, lustful practices and untamable passions, with excessive eating and drinking dulling the moral sense so sin did not appear sinful and passion and corruption prevailed. To this belonged betting, horse-racing, gambling, money-getting and measuring manhood by wealth, selfish retention of power, buying up wheat and goods to charge what price was desired, robbing the poor and oppressing them until the robbed grew exasperated and resistant, with injustice, crime, murder, lawlessness and disregard for God's commandments. Such transgression of God's law fills the earth with wickedness and violence, and because of that wickedness its inhabitants are destroyed, as the flood swept away the unprepared and as the Son of man's coming will bring judgment on a like world.
They lived without the influence of God's Spirit, wholly absorbed in this life, forgetting the claims of their Maker and the future. They turned from God and refused to do His holy will in order to follow unholy imagination and perverted ideas. In the antediluvian world men cast aside the authority of God's law because it interfered with their schemes, devising ways to make it of no effect, and the same defiance is now proclaimed from pulpit and press where the law is declared done away, null and void. That claim that the world is growing better is a terrible deception, for rejection of the law brings the same careless unbelieving condition, with minds diverted from eternal realities by worldly business, sports, fashions, amusements and unprofitable reading, with reveling and drunkenness, and with confederacy against Heaven to make void the divine standard of righteousness.
Warning Given Then Rejected
Matthew 24:39 means that the flood swept men away unrecognized until it came, though Noah had warned them for 120 years, preaching repentance and building the ark as a refuge for believers. His work as well as his words warned the world, for his faith in building the ark testified against all who resisted, and Enoch and angels labored with him in the warning. The ark was built on dry land when rain had never fallen, and the message was mocked as an idle tale and parable and enthusiasm. It was opposed by great men and by human wisdom, science and philosophy, yet unbelief did not hinder the appointed judgment. They had a period of probation in which they could choose to obey and find refuge, but they chose disbelief and destruction, so that only eight were saved, while even some who helped build or who at first believed apostatized through association with unbelievers.
As Noah's warning of the flood was laughed to scorn, so Miller's warning of the nearness of the final judgment was treated with scorn. The same unbelief will meet the last warning before the coming of the Son of man, which will be widely rejected and mocked. Even many of the professed people of God will scoff at the chosen messengers, uniting with the world, living as the world lives and joining in forbidden pleasure, until the luxury of the world becomes the luxury of the church. Then while marriage bells are chiming and all look forward to many years of worldly prosperity, the end will come suddenly as lightning, and mockery and absorption in ordinary pursuits cannot prevent the event. Yet the warning must still be proclaimed as the first concern of God's people, for it warns and tests and proves the world and decides destiny, turning hearers from transgression to obedience and sheltering all who heed it in repentance.
As the rain descended the flood drowned one after another while the ark the mockers had made sport of rode safely upon the waters preserving Noah and his family. So the people of God who faithfully warn of coming wrath will be delivered when destruction comes, and the wicked who mocked will witness their glorious deliverance. The same pattern is seen in Sodom, whose people mocked Lot's fears and warnings and continued in business and pleasure until fire consumed them. The coming of the Son of man is a real, soon event that brings judgment in the same way, destroying the careless and unprepared while preserving the faithful. That destruction will not be by another flood by water, but by fire for the ungodly, by fire from heaven and forces in the earth.
Last Days Repeat Prophecy
The present age is exactly as the days before the flood were, and that likeness fulfills prophecy and proves the end is near and Christ is soon to come in the clouds with power and great glory. As people went on eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until Noah entered the ark and knew not until the flood came and took them all away, so the coming of the Son of man will find the same self-indulgent, unaware condition now existing in this period of earth's history. There will be no temporal millennium of a thousand years in which all prepare for eternity, no flattering signs of millennial glory and no prior worldwide conversion, but wickedness, violence and unbelief will continue until He comes. That wickedness is great, with every imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually, because inhabitants turn from God and refuse His holy will to follow unholy imagination and perverted ideas until all flesh has corrupted its way, and it is because of that they are destroyed as all flesh wherein is the breath of life was destroyed by waters. Today the world follows the same way, an age of spiritual declension and infidelity marked by transgression of God's law, social impurity and defilement of youth and age, crime, murder, suicide, divorce, struggle between capital and labour, betting, horse-racing, gambling, dissipation, lustful practices, untamable passions and preparation for Armageddon, with evil men waxing worse and worse toward the harvest of evil and the day of earth's desperate sorrow. Had men cooperated with God after Abel's example of obedience, worked out His expressed will and obeyed His law, they would have found safety and salvation, retained the divine likeness with the help of God and the heavenly universe, preserved longevity, and God would have delighted in the work of His hands. The condition of the world before Christ's first appearing is a picture of the condition just before His second advent, when men are destroyed because they reject the message of salvation sent from heaven, and those in this generation given great light and wonderful opportunities must not follow that course to their ruin.
Christ will come in the darkest period of earth's history, when moral darkness covers the earth and apostasy fills the world. That darkness is Satan working with all power and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, revealed by rapidly increasing darkness and multitudinous errors, heresies and delusions, leading the world captive and leavening even the professed churches until the great apostasy develops into darkness deep as midnight. God removes His restrictions from the earth, so soon there is death and destruction, increasing crime, cruel evil working against the rich who exalted themselves against the poor, human inventive power operating the most powerful machinery to wound and kill, and those without God's protection finding no safety in any place or position. Calamities by sea and land, wars, famines, earthquakes, fires and floods multiply as warnings, while a power from beneath leads men to war against heaven and human beings confederate with satanic agencies to make void the law of God and declare the divine standard of righteousness of no effect. Minds are diverted from eternal realities to suit his purposes through worldly business, sports, fashions, amusements and unprofitable reading that spoil the judgment, while theories are taught that the Lord delays His coming and the world filled with violence, reveling and drunkenness converts the church, so a long procession walks the broad road to eternal ruin on the very verge of the time of trouble. To God's people this is a night of trial, weeping and persecution for truth's sake, but out of that night God's light will shine, and the faithful commandment-keeping people who know the times are to become better prepared day by day to let their light shine through active missionary service for Christ.
Cities especially have become as wicked as the inhabitants of the world before the flood and as Sodom, fast reaching that condition of wickedness. They are full of excitement, revelry, intemperance, impurity, fraud, labor strife and oppression, with people absorbed in eating and drinking, dressing, gambling, liquor, marrying and giving in marriage, and games and contests for supremacy in inferior matters, while Satan contends for their souls, with no thought of peril, no concern for eternal interest, and no knowledge that the day of God hastens upon them. Corruption and crime, murder for gain, robbery, wicked bribery, misappropriation of means, fraudulent transactions by men with power to release the guilty and condemn the innocent, confusion, perplexities, want, famine, earthquakes, floods, fires destroying thousands and selfishly hoarded property gained by oppression of the poor, passion bearing sway over reason and terrible outrages fulfill the warnings about events near the close of history. San Francisco is a sample of what the whole world is becoming, and Greater New York and other large cities of America are being filled with the same iniquity, which is only the beginning of what will be revealed in the future, permitted so all can see the last days have come and the last crisis is at hand. Yet even there many honest souls remain who will feel the conviction of the Spirit when they hear the startling truths of the advent message, so the message is still to go forth in them as a burning lamp with the power of God, with laborers and means called for and angels going before them.
The same sins that brought destruction on the antediluvians now exist both in the wider world and among those professing to look for the Son of man's coming, as a warning to them.
Call to Watch Ready
Because the day and hour are known to the Father only, and outward life will go on as usual until the crisis steals gradually as a thief, all are to watch continually and be ready at all times, for the Son of man comes in an hour not thought of with power and great glory to gather His elect. As those before the flood were occupied with eating and drinking and marrying until Noah entered the ark and did not recognize the danger until the flood took them all away, so His coming will overtake the unready unexpectedly with sudden destruction, and readiness of life and character is required. The call is to be the faithful and wise servant made ruler over the household to give meat in due season, who will be blessed and made ruler over all goods when his lord comes, and not the evil servant who says in his heart his lord delays his coming and begins to smite fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunken and will be visited in a day and hour he is not aware of and cut asunder and appointed his portion with the hypocrites where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Although no one knows the day or hour, the given signs instruct when the coming is near and require watching for it, and only wholehearted consecration, repentance, prayer and discernment of truth will prepare to meet Him in peace, while disregard of the warning and failure to recognize its nearness brings fatal loss.
Excessive eating and drinking dulled moral sense in Noah's time so that sin did not appear sinful, inflamed passion, enfeebled moral powers, and contributed to corruption, violence, crime and blasphemy, and the same unprepared absorption in ordinary life and sinful indulgence will mark the coming of the Son of man and take people by surprise. The sins that brought judgment on the people before the flood — drunkenness, gluttony and sensual passions — are leading sins of the present age, for eating and drinking are blessings when kept within temperate bounds, but excess is intemperance that harms the whole person, brings disease and suffering, and will not always be tolerated by God. Intemperance in particular can occupy the mind with ordinary pursuits while spiritual realities go unseen and keep people from discerning spiritual blessings, until rejected light gives way to increasing moral darkness lasting until Christ's return. Therefore the warning calls for temperance, self-denial, self-control, a clean healthful diet, and refusal of gluttony, drunkenness, tobacco, liquor, excess dress and harmful indulgence, that the body may be presented as a living sacrifice and sudden destruction not find people unaware.
Those who know the truth are to lift the voice like Noah and warn that the end of all things is at hand, bearing aloft the gospel standard and giving the warning to the world rather than cloaking the truth and leaving people in ignorance and deception. As the warning of the flood was sent to startle men in wickedness and call them to repentance, so the message of Christ's soon coming is designed to arouse men from absorption in worldly business, pleasure and money-getting and awaken them to eternal realities, that they may give heed to the invitation and turn from transgression to obedience. This last message of mercy for the perils of the last days now present is to go through preaching, publications and city work such as in New York City, with means lent by the Lord invested in gospel work as God's helping hand instead of spent in self-gratification and effort to gain worldly riches that will crumble into dust and bring eternal loss. Only through self-denial, sacrifice of earthly riches, much tribulation, separation from the world, loyalty to God's commands including the Sabbath, careful training of workers to do justice to the work, lifting the standard higher and still higher with no condescension to foolishness or frivolity, warring the good warfare without laying down weapons until Christ bids rest, and guarding youth from corrupting marriages, amusements and excitement, can the eternal riches and inheritance enduring through all eternity be secured and the faithful be delivered while the wicked are destroyed.
Christ spoke this of the end of the world as well as of Jerusalem's fall, and its plain sense is that as the flood took the unwarned world suddenly away, so His coming will be sudden, unexpected and unrecognized until judgment has arrived. Their unknowing was willful, for Noah warned for 120 years and built the ark before them, yet they closed eyes and ears, mocked the message as idle enthusiasm, and went on careless and pleasure-loving until God shut the door and fixed their doom. Their daily eating and drinking, marrying, planting, building, buying and selling were lawful in themselves but became ruinous when made supreme, pursued to excess without gratitude, and allowed to crowd out God, while the earth was also filled with violence, drunkenness, lust, greed, oppression and contempt for His law. The present age is exactly as those days were, which proves the end is near and that He will come soon in power and great glory in earth's darkest moral hour, with no thousand years of worldwide conversion before it, but with multiplying calamities, deceptions and city wickedness as warnings. Therefore, since no one knows the day or hour and probation will close silently while life outwardly goes on, all must watch and be ready as faithful servants, living in temperance, self-denial and wholehearted consecration, and lifting the last warning voice like Noah to turn others from transgression to obedience.
Discourse Setting and Scope
Matthew 24:39 belongs to Christ's discourse in which the destruction of Jerusalem and His coming at the end of the world are described together, given for those living in the final scenes of earth's history. The great prophecy briefly covers the whole Christian dispensation and the present dispensation with its closing scenes, placing His coming after the history of the world and the church spanning from His first advent to His second. The destruction of Jerusalem set forth in the chapter serves as a type of the world's final destruction by fire, and as people in Noah's day remained unaware until destruction overtook them, so Jerusalem's apparent strength did not make its doom less certain because its sins and stubborn unbelief ensured the warning would come to pass even though public prediction could seem like the alarm of a madman. Its closing parable presents two classes of servants looking for His appearing, and the same last-day church and its experience are pictured in the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25.
The coming of the Son of man is still future and did not take place at the destruction of Jerusalem. As the flood came and took them all away while they knew not, so that coming will come upon the unprepared, and therefore men must turn from sin and seek preparation for it. The comparison with Sodom likewise shows people absorbed in business and pleasure, continuing ordinary pursuits and dismissing warnings until destruction arrives suddenly with judgment. That coming is a real, soon event, not merely spiritual nor to be postponed to the distant future, and skepticism and rejection of the warning will not prevent it.
The predictions of Matthew 24, including this verse, are to be studied and brought by ministers and teachers to the attention of all, believers and unbelievers, above matters of lesser consequence. Today is the time when these predictions are being fulfilled, and their unmistakable fulfilment shows that Christ's coming is at hand. The truths of this chapter decide the eternal destiny of souls and call the church to arouse to questions of eternal importance, to discern the time, to reach a higher standard in view of dangers, and to prepare for the great conflict, for they were foretold to the disciples on earth to instruct those who would believe afterward at this age of the world. Although no one knows the day or hour, Christ's signs instruct when His coming and judgment are near and require watching for it, so that disregard of the warning and failure to recognize nearness brings fatal loss and leaves people unaware until sudden destruction and reckoning overtake them as in Noah's day. The flood taking away those who knew not shows the perils of the last days now present, when those perishing in sin must be warned with the last message of mercy. The verse therefore calls everyone entrusted with means to act as God's helping hand by investing money lent by the Lord in gospel work, as in New York City, instead of spending it in self-gratification and effort to gain worldly riches that will crumble into dust and bring eternal loss, since only through self-denial, sacrifice of earthly riches, much tribulation, and warring the good warfare without laying down weapons until Christ bids rest can the eternal riches and inheritance enduring through all eternity be secured.
Sudden Unawareness and Judgment
The verse means that as the generation before the flood remained unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so the coming of the Son of man will be sudden, unexpected and unrecognized. People will be absorbed in ordinary life — eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage — and will carry on as usual until judgment arrives, which does not mean the coming is far off or that they are ready. Despite warning and time given for repentance only one family was ready to enter the ark, and the rest continued without recognizing the danger; the flood is thus a picture of sudden judgment overtaking the unprepared and unwary who neglect to watch.
After Noah entered the ark God shut him in and shut the ungodly out, yet for seven days the doomed continued their careless, pleasure-loving life, mocking the warnings without knowing their doom was fixed. So the decisive hour, the final decision in the heavenly sanctuary and the withdrawal of mercy's offer, the close of probation and shutting of the door of mercy, will come silently and unnoticed while righteous and wicked are still living on earth. Amid worldwide agitation, ominous signs, calamity by sea and land, and the withdrawing of the Spirit of God, men will still go on eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage, buying and selling, jostling for the highest place and crowding to theaters, horse-races and gambling with the highest excitement prevailing, while the crisis steals gradually as a thief and every case is about to be eternally decided. Satan, knowing his time is short, sets all his agencies at work to keep men deceived, deluded, occupied and entranced until probation ends, so the verse warns against growing weary of watchfulness and being absorbed in worldly pursuits.
Their failure to know was willful, not for lack of warning and opportunity to learn. They chose not to know and did not recognize the time they were living in, closing their eyes and ears and shutting out calls to repentance, trusting the earth's beauty and apparent permanence and strengthening one another in unbelief. For 120 years they were called to repent, believe and find refuge in the ark, yet many resisted, ridiculed, and continued in wickedness, and even some who were convicted refused to reform and became defiant scoffers; human nature apart from the Spirit of God remains unchanged and Satan works to make warnings ineffective. As water then cleansed the earth, so the same self-chosen ignorance leaves people unprepared when judgment brings sudden destruction at the Son of man's appearing, while those who heed the warning and show repentance in their lives will be sheltered and shown salvation.
Noah's Worldly Corrupt Life
In the days until Noah entered the ark people kept on eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, planting and building, buying and selling, dressing and accumulating means, and the coming of the Son of man will find men absorbed in the same round of ordinary life. These pursuits were lawful in themselves and not sin, for God had given the fruits of the earth in abundance to supply physical wants, and marriage was ordained by Him as a sacred institution. They became sinful when made the supreme aim of life, when gifts were received without gratitude to the Giver, when appetite was indulged without restraint and marriage perverted to serve passion, and when eating and drinking were carried to intemperate excess. In that excess blessing is turned to a curse, the mind is engrossed so spiritual blessings cannot be discerned, and God and heaven are crowded from thought by self-gratification and selfish accumulation. Against hoarding and grinding gain God designed brotherhood to be remembered, with means used to turn men from sin to righteousness, with the worth of men purchased by Christ's life recognized, and with the kingdom of God and His righteousness sought first.
Their condition was great wickedness, with every imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually, until all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth and corruption and violence filled it. The sins that brought judgment were drunkenness, gluttony and sensual passions, dissipation, lustful practices and untamable passions, with excessive eating and drinking dulling the moral sense so sin did not appear sinful and passion and corruption prevailed. To this belonged betting, horse-racing, gambling, money-getting and measuring manhood by wealth, selfish retention of power, buying up wheat and goods to charge what price was desired, robbing the poor and oppressing them until the robbed grew exasperated and resistant, with injustice, crime, murder, lawlessness and disregard for God's commandments. Such transgression of God's law fills the earth with wickedness and violence, and because of that wickedness its inhabitants are destroyed, as the flood swept away the unprepared and as the Son of man's coming will bring judgment on a like world.
They lived without the influence of God's Spirit, wholly absorbed in this life, forgetting the claims of their Maker and the future. They turned from God and refused to do His holy will in order to follow unholy imagination and perverted ideas. In the antediluvian world men cast aside the authority of God's law because it interfered with their schemes, devising ways to make it of no effect, and the same defiance is now proclaimed from pulpit and press where the law is declared done away, null and void. That claim that the world is growing better is a terrible deception, for rejection of the law brings the same careless unbelieving condition, with minds diverted from eternal realities by worldly business, sports, fashions, amusements and unprofitable reading, with reveling and drunkenness, and with confederacy against Heaven to make void the divine standard of righteousness.
Warning Given Then Rejected
Matthew 24:39 means that the flood swept men away unrecognized until it came, though Noah had warned them for 120 years, preaching repentance and building the ark as a refuge for believers. His work as well as his words warned the world, for his faith in building the ark testified against all who resisted, and Enoch and angels labored with him in the warning. The ark was built on dry land when rain had never fallen, and the message was mocked as an idle tale and parable and enthusiasm. It was opposed by great men and by human wisdom, science and philosophy, yet unbelief did not hinder the appointed judgment. They had a period of probation in which they could choose to obey and find refuge, but they chose disbelief and destruction, so that only eight were saved, while even some who helped build or who at first believed apostatized through association with unbelievers.
As Noah's warning of the flood was laughed to scorn, so Miller's warning of the nearness of the final judgment was treated with scorn. The same unbelief will meet the last warning before the coming of the Son of man, which will be widely rejected and mocked. Even many of the professed people of God will scoff at the chosen messengers, uniting with the world, living as the world lives and joining in forbidden pleasure, until the luxury of the world becomes the luxury of the church. Then while marriage bells are chiming and all look forward to many years of worldly prosperity, the end will come suddenly as lightning, and mockery and absorption in ordinary pursuits cannot prevent the event. Yet the warning must still be proclaimed as the first concern of God's people, for it warns and tests and proves the world and decides destiny, turning hearers from transgression to obedience and sheltering all who heed it in repentance.
As the rain descended the flood drowned one after another while the ark the mockers had made sport of rode safely upon the waters preserving Noah and his family. So the people of God who faithfully warn of coming wrath will be delivered when destruction comes, and the wicked who mocked will witness their glorious deliverance. The same pattern is seen in Sodom, whose people mocked Lot's fears and warnings and continued in business and pleasure until fire consumed them. The coming of the Son of man is a real, soon event that brings judgment in the same way, destroying the careless and unprepared while preserving the faithful. That destruction will not be by another flood by water, but by fire for the ungodly, by fire from heaven and forces in the earth.
Last Days Repeat Prophecy
The present age is exactly as the days before the flood were, and that likeness fulfills prophecy and proves the end is near and Christ is soon to come in the clouds with power and great glory. As people went on eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until Noah entered the ark and knew not until the flood came and took them all away, so the coming of the Son of man will find the same self-indulgent, unaware condition now existing in this period of earth's history. There will be no temporal millennium of a thousand years in which all prepare for eternity, no flattering signs of millennial glory and no prior worldwide conversion, but wickedness, violence and unbelief will continue until He comes. That wickedness is great, with every imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually, because inhabitants turn from God and refuse His holy will to follow unholy imagination and perverted ideas until all flesh has corrupted its way, and it is because of that they are destroyed as all flesh wherein is the breath of life was destroyed by waters. Today the world follows the same way, an age of spiritual declension and infidelity marked by transgression of God's law, social impurity and defilement of youth and age, crime, murder, suicide, divorce, struggle between capital and labour, betting, horse-racing, gambling, dissipation, lustful practices, untamable passions and preparation for Armageddon, with evil men waxing worse and worse toward the harvest of evil and the day of earth's desperate sorrow. Had men cooperated with God after Abel's example of obedience, worked out His expressed will and obeyed His law, they would have found safety and salvation, retained the divine likeness with the help of God and the heavenly universe, preserved longevity, and God would have delighted in the work of His hands. The condition of the world before Christ's first appearing is a picture of the condition just before His second advent, when men are destroyed because they reject the message of salvation sent from heaven, and those in this generation given great light and wonderful opportunities must not follow that course to their ruin.
Christ will come in the darkest period of earth's history, when moral darkness covers the earth and apostasy fills the world. That darkness is Satan working with all power and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, revealed by rapidly increasing darkness and multitudinous errors, heresies and delusions, leading the world captive and leavening even the professed churches until the great apostasy develops into darkness deep as midnight. God removes His restrictions from the earth, so soon there is death and destruction, increasing crime, cruel evil working against the rich who exalted themselves against the poor, human inventive power operating the most powerful machinery to wound and kill, and those without God's protection finding no safety in any place or position. Calamities by sea and land, wars, famines, earthquakes, fires and floods multiply as warnings, while a power from beneath leads men to war against heaven and human beings confederate with satanic agencies to make void the law of God and declare the divine standard of righteousness of no effect. Minds are diverted from eternal realities to suit his purposes through worldly business, sports, fashions, amusements and unprofitable reading that spoil the judgment, while theories are taught that the Lord delays His coming and the world filled with violence, reveling and drunkenness converts the church, so a long procession walks the broad road to eternal ruin on the very verge of the time of trouble. To God's people this is a night of trial, weeping and persecution for truth's sake, but out of that night God's light will shine, and the faithful commandment-keeping people who know the times are to become better prepared day by day to let their light shine through active missionary service for Christ.
Cities especially have become as wicked as the inhabitants of the world before the flood and as Sodom, fast reaching that condition of wickedness. They are full of excitement, revelry, intemperance, impurity, fraud, labor strife and oppression, with people absorbed in eating and drinking, dressing, gambling, liquor, marrying and giving in marriage, and games and contests for supremacy in inferior matters, while Satan contends for their souls, with no thought of peril, no concern for eternal interest, and no knowledge that the day of God hastens upon them. Corruption and crime, murder for gain, robbery, wicked bribery, misappropriation of means, fraudulent transactions by men with power to release the guilty and condemn the innocent, confusion, perplexities, want, famine, earthquakes, floods, fires destroying thousands and selfishly hoarded property gained by oppression of the poor, passion bearing sway over reason and terrible outrages fulfill the warnings about events near the close of history. San Francisco is a sample of what the whole world is becoming, and Greater New York and other large cities of America are being filled with the same iniquity, which is only the beginning of what will be revealed in the future, permitted so all can see the last days have come and the last crisis is at hand. Yet even there many honest souls remain who will feel the conviction of the Spirit when they hear the startling truths of the advent message, so the message is still to go forth in them as a burning lamp with the power of God, with laborers and means called for and angels going before them.
The same sins that brought destruction on the antediluvians now exist both in the wider world and among those professing to look for the Son of man's coming, as a warning to them.
Call to Watch Ready
Because the day and hour are known to the Father only, and outward life will go on as usual until the crisis steals gradually as a thief, all are to watch continually and be ready at all times, for the Son of man comes in an hour not thought of with power and great glory to gather His elect. As those before the flood were occupied with eating and drinking and marrying until Noah entered the ark and did not recognize the danger until the flood took them all away, so His coming will overtake the unready unexpectedly with sudden destruction, and readiness of life and character is required. The call is to be the faithful and wise servant made ruler over the household to give meat in due season, who will be blessed and made ruler over all goods when his lord comes, and not the evil servant who says in his heart his lord delays his coming and begins to smite fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunken and will be visited in a day and hour he is not aware of and cut asunder and appointed his portion with the hypocrites where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Although no one knows the day or hour, the given signs instruct when the coming is near and require watching for it, and only wholehearted consecration, repentance, prayer and discernment of truth will prepare to meet Him in peace, while disregard of the warning and failure to recognize its nearness brings fatal loss.
Excessive eating and drinking dulled moral sense in Noah's time so that sin did not appear sinful, inflamed passion, enfeebled moral powers, and contributed to corruption, violence, crime and blasphemy, and the same unprepared absorption in ordinary life and sinful indulgence will mark the coming of the Son of man and take people by surprise. The sins that brought judgment on the people before the flood — drunkenness, gluttony and sensual passions — are leading sins of the present age, for eating and drinking are blessings when kept within temperate bounds, but excess is intemperance that harms the whole person, brings disease and suffering, and will not always be tolerated by God. Intemperance in particular can occupy the mind with ordinary pursuits while spiritual realities go unseen and keep people from discerning spiritual blessings, until rejected light gives way to increasing moral darkness lasting until Christ's return. Therefore the warning calls for temperance, self-denial, self-control, a clean healthful diet, and refusal of gluttony, drunkenness, tobacco, liquor, excess dress and harmful indulgence, that the body may be presented as a living sacrifice and sudden destruction not find people unaware.
Those who know the truth are to lift the voice like Noah and warn that the end of all things is at hand, bearing aloft the gospel standard and giving the warning to the world rather than cloaking the truth and leaving people in ignorance and deception. As the warning of the flood was sent to startle men in wickedness and call them to repentance, so the message of Christ's soon coming is designed to arouse men from absorption in worldly business, pleasure and money-getting and awaken them to eternal realities, that they may give heed to the invitation and turn from transgression to obedience. This last message of mercy for the perils of the last days now present is to go through preaching, publications and city work such as in New York City, with means lent by the Lord invested in gospel work as God's helping hand instead of spent in self-gratification and effort to gain worldly riches that will crumble into dust and bring eternal loss. Only through self-denial, sacrifice of earthly riches, much tribulation, separation from the world, loyalty to God's commands including the Sabbath, careful training of workers to do justice to the work, lifting the standard higher and still higher with no condescension to foolishness or frivolity, warring the good warfare without laying down weapons until Christ bids rest, and guarding youth from corrupting marriages, amusements and excitement, can the eternal riches and inheritance enduring through all eternity be secured and the faithful be delivered while the wicked are destroyed.