Page 385 - Humble Hero (2009)

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Signs of the Second Coming of Christ
381
The Overwhelming Wickedness of the Last Days
Christ continues, “As the days of Noah were, so also will the
coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood,
they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,
until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the
flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the
Son of Man be.”
How was it in Noah’s day? “The Lord saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually.”
Genesis 6:5
. The inhabitants of
the world before the Flood followed their own unholy imagination
and perverted ideas. Because of their evil, they were destroyed.
Today the world is going the same way. Those who break God’s law
are filling the earth with wickedness. Their gambling, drunkenness,
lustful practices, and untamed passions are quickly filling the world
with violence.
Christ said, “Because lawlessness will abound, the love of many
will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And
this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a
witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” Before the
fall of Jerusalem, Paul declared that the gospel had been preached
to “every creature under heaven.”
Colossians 1:23
. Similarly now,
the everlasting gospel is to be preached “to every nation, tribe,
tongue, and people.”
Revelation 14:6
. Christ does not say that all the
world will be converted, but that “this gospel of the kingdom will
be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then
the end will come.” By giving the gospel to the world it is in our
power to speed our Lord’s return. We are not only to look for but to
hasten the coming of the day of God. See
2 Peter 3:12
. If the church
had done her appointed work as the Lord intended, before now the
whole world would have been warned, and Jesus would have come.
Something to Live For!
Because we do not know the exact time of His coming, Jesus
has commanded us to watch. See
Luke 12:37
. Those who watch
for the Lord’s coming are not waiting in idle anticipation. They