Beginning of the End

When Probation Closes

As the time for their salvation was closing, the people before the Flood gave themselves up to exciting amusements, filling their lives with mirth and pleasure. In our day the world is absorbed in pleasure-seeking. A constant round of excitement prevents the people from being impressed by the truths that alone can save them from coming destruction. BOE 40.5

In Noah’s day philosophers declared that it was impossible for the world to be destroyed by water. So now scientific minds try to show that the world cannot be destroyed by fire. But when everyone considered Noah’s prophecy a delusion, it was then that God’s time had come. The Lawgiver is greater than the laws of nature. “As it was in the days of Noah ... even so will it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:26, 30). “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise ... both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). BOE 40.6

When religious teachers are pointing forward to ages of peace and prosperity, and the people of the world are absorbed in planting and building, feasting and merrymaking, rejecting God’s warnings and mocking His messengers—then it is that “sudden destruction comes upon them. ... And they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3). BOE 41.1