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.”HH 296.2

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.HH 296.3

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.HH 296.4