Some may question what Noah and Lot have to do with people living in these modern times? The answer is that the social and spiritual conditions of people living in the times of Noah and Lot serve as harbingers of what we are seeing today. Jesus Christ tells us exactly how the two times and conditions are connected.

In the 17th chapter of the Gospel of Luke we find Jesus talking to His disciples about the end of the age and His return to earth to establish the Kingdom of God. He tells them that there will be both physical and spiritual signs which His saints would understand. In Matthew 24:4-8 He goes into detail concerning signs that would alert even the unchurched that something was about to happen. In Luke 17, just as He did in Matthew 24, Jesus warned the disciples and some Pharisees about false prophets who would try to deceive the people about the time of His return (Lk. 17:20-24). This in spite of Him stating that He, being a man like all other men, did not know.

In the Scriptures we are told about wars, plagues, famines, trumpet blasts, lightning, the voice of an angel, etc. that would accompany the Lord’s descent to the Mount of Olives. In Luke 17 He tells the disciples about the spiritual condition of the world’s population during the period leading up to His return. He tells them that men will be behaving exactly as they did during the times of Noah and Lot. In verses 26,27 He says that people “… were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.” There is nothing wrong with consuming food and drink and joining together in matrimony. However, He sent a flood and drowned every one of them. What was it that caused Him to pour out His merciless wrath on those people? The answer is found in Genesis 6:5,11 where we find that the people of Noah’s day exhibited a soul-destroying characteristic–violence: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great and that his thoughts were evil continually.” The earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence. People hated one another for any and all reasons, or no reason at all. Recall that many years earlier Adam and Eve’s first-born son had killed his righteous brother simply because Abel had pleased God and he, Cain, had failed to do so. The die had been caste. Violence would only increase throughout the world from that time forward.

Following His reference to the days of Noah, Jesus again reached into the past to identify a sign that would indicate that His future second coming was near: “Likewise as it was in the days of Lot, they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built.” There is nothing wrong with eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting and building. But “… it rained fire and brimstone down from heaven and destroyed them all. EVEN THUS SHALL IT BE IN THE DAY WHEN THE SON OF MAN IS REVEALED (AT HIS SECOND ADVENT)” (Lk. 17:28,29). L.J.