The Consequences of Sin.
The First Consequence.
Genesis 3:8-13; Adam and Eve were afraid.
The two, who since they had been created could walk in the Garden of Eden with their Creator and God and talk with Him face to face, had now become afraid to meet God. The first consequence of breaking God’s commandment was fear of God. This is clearly stated in verse 8 where it says: And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
The two who had looked forward to their daily conversation with God now hid themselves from Him who had given them everything they could imagine in a perfect world.
When Adam and Eve do not meet God, he called to Adam and said: Where art thou? Then follows Adam’s answer which tells us that the reason they hid was because they were naked, (verse 10). Then follows a strange verse: And he said, Who told thee that thou [wast] naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? (verse 11).
Why did God call to Adam and ask, where art thou? And why did God ask if they had eaten from the tree they were not supposed to eat from? Didn’t God know all this before He came into the garden? I think the reason is that God wanted the people to understand what they had done.
The second consequence.
Genesis 3:12-13; Adam and Eve blame others for the sin they had committed.
The second visible consequence of sin is then seen in the answers that Adam and Eve gave to God’s question in verse 11. Adam answered God this way; the woman whom thou gavest [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Eve answered God this way; the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. We see that neither of them takes responsibility for what they have done, but in reality, blames God for what they have done.
Adam is actually saying that it is God’s fault because it was the woman whom God created who made him sin, and Eve is saying that it is God’s fault because it was the serpent whom God created who made her sin. This has been the case ever since Adam and Eve sinned. People want to blame God for everything that is wrong, but then we should take a look at some verses in Genesis 1 that tell us something about what creation was like. Verse 4: it was good. Verse 10: it was good. Verse 12: it was good. Verse 18: it was good. Verse 25: it was good. God concludes in verse 31 by saying of all creation that it was very good.
Everything God created was perfect, yet Adam and Eve chose to blame God, as all subsequent generations have done.
Curse, judgment, and punishment.
Genesis 3:14-24.
When God had listened to the explanations of Adam and Eve, which we can call an investigative judgment – (ref.: the legal system with investigation, prosecution and judgment), He addresses the serpent and says in verse 14: … Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed … … This raises at least a conditional question: Why did God curse the serpent in the Garden of Eden? Or was it really the serpent that God cursed that day?
Who is God really addressing in Genesis 3:14-15? And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. This is a strange act of God. He does something He has never done before; He curses, judges and punishes. From the first day of creation until the fall, God had only blessed: 1) man (Genesis 1:28) and 2) the Sabbath (Genesis 2:3)
What God does now is curse the serpent, the most beautiful of all creatures, and make it the lowest of all living creatures. This curse is followed by the first Christ prophecy in the Bible, and since this is a prophecy, we have the following choice. Should we interpret the words used literally, or should we see them as symbols of something else? Let’s look at some of the words in these two verses. We find the following words and expressions:
1) The serpent.
2) The woman.
3) I will put enmity between you (the serpent) and the woman.
4) Between your seed and her seed.
5) It shall bruise your head.
6) You will bruise his heel.
Question: Who is your (the serpent’s) seed and who is her (the woman’s) seed?
If we were to interpret verse 14 literally, then:
1) the serpent must be a literal serpent,
2) the woman must be Eve,
3) the enmity between the serpent and the woman must be literal between this serpent and Eve,
4) the enmity must continue between Eve’s literal descendants and this serpent’s literal descendants,
5) he must be any male descendant of Eve who will bruise the literal serpent’s head,
6) finally, the literal serpent must bruise this man’s heel.
However, because this is the first Christ prophecy in the Bible, the question then becomes whether we can interpret the prophecy literal, or whether we should follow sound biblical rules of interpretation. For this is, as I said, a prophecy of Christ, and then:
1) the serpent must be Satan,
2) the woman must be the church,
3) the enmity between you and the woman is a cosmic conflict, between Satan and God,
4) the enmity between your seed and her seed then becomes between Satan’s agents and the people of God (Israel, the church and the church),
5) He shall crush your head shows that Christ triumphs over Satan,
6) and you shall bruise His heel this refers to Jesus’ death on the cross, a death that paved the way for the final victory over Satan and evil.
If we choose sound rules of interpretation, it is Satan who is cursed by God in verse 14, not the literal serpent.
Other consequences.
Because humans had transgressed God’s commandments, some punishments also followed them. God had created humans equal, but now we read in verse 16 that the woman’s desire should be for the man and that he should rule over her. However, this does not mean that the woman should be treated as property or be the man’s slave as many have interpreted this throughout history, but a hierarchy is set up between equal people. As the relationship is in heaven where the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are equal, it is still the Father who is the highest in the hierarchy, so it is also on earth between man and woman. In verse 17 God tells us that the ground will be cursed for Adam because he followed his wife’s voice and ate from the forbidden tree.
Man’s second list of food.
Everything that God created, not just humans, was to live forever. But because of sin, death also entered the world, and gradually the flowers began to wither, the leaves fell from the trees, the animals died, and with death also came degeneration. It says that thorns and thistles were to grow on the earth, and the magnificent flowers that God created, the harmony that God planted between all living beings, the all-encompassing love that existed in the entire universe were destroyed by man eating from the forbidden tree. What we see around us today is not nearly as magnificent and beautiful as it was from the hand of God. 6,000 years of degeneration of all living plants, animals and people have left their mark. There is enmity between animals and people, between animals and animals, and between people and people. Yet we see from time to time what it could have been like when animals we consider natural enemies take care of each other.
Until Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they could pick anything they wanted to eat from the trees that grew in the Garden of Eden. After they ate the forbidden fruit, the earth began to decay, and Adam had to work hard to get food. Gradually, the earth has become depleted, and today there is not enough nutrition left in the soil where food is grown, and we have to add artificial fertilizers and/or natural fertilizers to get crops that are relatively poor compared to how it was in the beginning. This is evident in what God says in verses 17-19. Man was now to cultivate the earth and eat the plants of the field, and cultivating the earth would involve toil and give a poor yield.
Life expectancy of man 1.
God told man that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would die. Adam did not die immediately, he actually lived to be 930 years old, and most people who lived before the flood lived to be 800-900 years old until the flood. Noah lived to be 950 years old, his eldest son Shem lived to be 600 years old. After this we see that life expectancy goes down drastically, which I believe is connected to what God says in Genesis 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also [is] flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. After the flood it only takes 2-300 years before life expectancy drops to 200 years. Terah, Abraham’s father, who was born while Noah was still alive, lived to be 205 years old. Abraham 175 years old, Isaac 180 years old, Jacob 147 years old, Moses 120 years old, Joseph 110 years old, and in our days, there is no evidence that people live longer than 120 years old. We will return to the human lifespan later.
The first lesson in God’s plan of salvation.
As a consequence of man’s sin, they saw that they were naked, in other words, they lacked God’s righteousness. In order not to be naked and not feel this shame, they tried to make themselves garments from fig leaves. This is the same as justifying themselves, but it is not enough in relation to God. God, in this case Jesus Christ, made coats of skins for Adam and Eve, and He clothed them. We can safely assume that they finally expressed sincere repentance for what they had done. And now the Creator took an innocent lamb, slaughtered it, skinned it, and made coats for them, and Christ covered their nakedness—that is, their guilt of sin—with His righteousness.
This was, as mentioned, the first lesson in God’s plan of salvation. Adam and Eve learned that sin costs. It costs the life of someone who is innocent, someone who has never done anything wrong, because as Paul says, the wages of sin is death. But instead of humans facing eternal death, God the Son, Jesus Christ, was willing before the foundations of the earth were laid to take the sins of humans upon Himself and die for us. When I was condemned to death, Christ took my place.
It was God’s plan that humans would live in the Garden of Eden forever, but because of the sin they had committed, they had to leave this beautiful garden. It was also God’s plan that humans would not know evil, they would only know what was good. It is in God’s nature that He gives His children everything that is good. When they ate the forbidden fruit, God said: … Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever, (Genesis 3:22).
The final consequence that befell Adam and Eve after they had broken God’s command was that they had to leave their home where they had lived with their Creator since they were created. They were led out of the most beautiful garden that has ever been seen on earth, for within the Garden of Eden stood the tree of life, and if they had eaten of the tree of life after they had sinned, sin would have become immortal. The way into the Garden of Eden was closed by a cherub so that no one would enter the tree of life. Until the graet flood, Eden was closed to humans, and when it began to rain for the first time, this entire beautiful garden was taken up to heaven.
Outside the Garden of Eden.
According to the spirit of prophecy, Adam and Eve continued to come daily to the entrance of Eden to offer their sacrifices and prayers. Through the plan of salvation that had been explained to them, God had said that one of the seed of the woman would come and save mankind. They probably believed that it was Cain, their first son, who was this savior. Eventually they had more children, and Abel was born. Abel became the first shepherd in history, while Cain, the eldest, became a farmer like his father. We can assume that Adam had taught his children about the plan of salvation and about the sacrifices they had to make on a regular basis. They were probably with their parents when these sacrifices were made.
Sin develops.
After a few years, when the boys were old enough to offer sacrifices on their own, we read in Genesis 4:3-4: And in process of time, it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering.
What is the difference between these two offerings? Abel brought a lamb, and it was in harmony with the lesson that God had given to man. A lamb, without blemish or defect, has been a type of Jesus Christ who in the fullness of time would come to save mankind. Abel seeks God’s righteousness. Cain also brought the best he had to offer to God, but this was the same thing that Adam and Eve tried to do right after they sinned. They took the best leaves they found in the garden and covered themselves with them.
What is wrong with Cain’s offering?
The mistake is that Cain tries to justify himself by bringing to God’s altar something that he himself had caused to grow. We can assume that Cain was very pleased with his offering, but God did not look favourably on it, because it did not point to the Savior who was to come some 4,000 years later. We should note what God says in verse 7: If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee [shall be] his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
Because God looked with favour on Abel’s offering, Cain became jealous of his brother. It is now that we see the development of sin. Cain had no good in mind, sin was lurking, and finally he killed his brother. From that day on, the world would never be the same.
More and more sin.
Immediately after Cain had killed his own brother, he also began to lie. When the Lord asked Cain where his brother was, he answered: I know not, (Genesis 4:9), and followed up with the question: Am I my brother’s keeper?
After this, Cain was driven away from his parents, and he took one of his sisters with him. How many children Adam and Eve had at this time the Bible does not say, but they had at least one daughter in addition to Cain (and Abel), otherwise Cain would not have had a «wife» (Genesis 4:17). Cain had a son, Enoch, who in turn had a son, Irad, who had a son, Mehujael, who had a son, Methusael, and Methusael had a son, Lamech. Lamech became the first to take more than one wife. We see that within a short time, sin had become widespread, and it continued to develop in the years to come.
The Bible says that Adam lived to be 930 years old (Genesis 5:5), Methuselah lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27), and is the longest-lived human mentioned in the Bible. It is possible that many lived to be over a thousand years old.
The fact that humans lived for hundreds of years, at least until they were almost a thousand years old, helps to make human sin more perverse than anyone today can imagine. Because of long life spans and a healthy diet that kept the brain healthy, combined with an incredibly good memory, humans accumulated all the sin and misery they had developed. It is perhaps no wonder that God said that He repented * that he had made man on the earth, (Genesis 6:6), and said that it grieved him at his heart.
* Repented. Personally, I do not believe that God repented in the sense we use the word, because everything God does is perfect. This is the translation in King James Version 1611/1769. If we look at other Bible translations such as the New American Standard Bible, the text is as follows: So the LORD was sorry that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
The Hebrew text is as follows: Yah·weh vai·yin·na·chem vai·yin·na·chem ha·’a·dam ba·’a·retz; vai·yit·’a·tzev lib·bov. It is the word vai·yin·na·chem that is translated as regret in KJV. This word is translated into English as follows: to sigh, breathe strongly, to be sorry, to pity, console, rue, to avenge. In the New American Standard Bible, sorry is used where the King James Version 1611/1769 says repented. To be sorry is probably a more correct translation.
When we come to chapter 6 of Genesis we understand that sin had assumed enormous proportions. In verse 3 God says that My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also [is] flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years, and in verse 5 it says: And God saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.
All men were concerned with one thing, and that was to satisfy themselves and their lusts. It is true that there were a few who stood out as some stand out in our day, and those who stood out in Noah’s day were ridiculed as those who dare to stand out in our day are ridiculed.
When man had existed for 1656 years God decided to try again, and we read in verse 8 that Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. Noah was commissioned to proclaim the pending judgment that God had decreed, and to build a boat that would take with it a pair of all unclean animals and seven pairs of all clean animals, (Genesis 7:2), along with all the people who accepted Noah’s message.
When the ark was finished, the order came from God to Noah to enter the ark, but no one else but Noah, his wife, their three sons and three daughters-in-law went aboard, and God brought into the ark the animals He said would be with them. Then the rain came, and the flood broke loose from the sky and from the depths of the sea. All living creatures that did not enter the ark perished in the waters.
After the flood.
The Bible tells us which day the flood began. It was in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month … (Genesis 7:11), and the Bible tells us when the flood was over and the earth was dry: And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first [month], the first [day] of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, the earth dried, (Genesis 8:13-14). That is, the entire flood lasted one year and seventeen days. Then Noah and his family went out of the ark and released all the animals, except those that were to be sacrificed to God.
But there was an invisible guest on board the ark who soon became visible. It was the learned opposition to God. We will come back to this in a moment. First, let’s look at some other things.
God’s covenant with the people, and the rainbow.
When Noah came out of the ark, the first thing he did was to think of God, and he built an altar to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to the Lord. When the Lord smelled the pleasant aroma, He said that He would never again curse the ground for man’s sake, nor destroy every living creature, nor destroy the earth with a flood of water. This is because the first thing Noah did was to thank the Lord for His great mercy. (Genesis 8:21).
As in the Garden of Eden, God blessed the people again, and in the same way that God said to Adam and Eve, God also said to Noah and his family: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, [(Genesis 9:1); see also Genesis 1:28)]. In verse 9, God repeats that people are to be fruitful and fill the earth.
Then we come to an important moment in history. God makes a new covenant with mankind, and we read the following in Genesis 9:8-13: And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, and I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; And with every living creature that [is] with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there anymore be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This [is] the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that [is] with you, for perpetual generations; I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
God told Noah and his family that whenever He brings clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear, and God says He will remember the covenant He made with all the earth. I think of this too every time I see the rainbow, and I praise God for His promises and that He keeps His promises.
Man’s third list of food.
Before the flood, humans were given two lists of food. The first consisted of every plant that produces seed, and every tree that produces fruit with seed in it. After the fall, the list of food was expanded to include all plants that humans cultivated themselves. This was the list of food for humans right up until the great flood. After the great flood, a third list of food was added. Now meat is included in the diet, and we read in Genesis 9:3-4: Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all these things, just as I have given the green plants. But you shall not eat flesh with its soul in it, that is, its blood. These were clean animals, the kind of animals that could be offered to God as sin offerings, peace offerings, and all other types of sacrifices that God’s people have made since the time of Adam and Eve. Clean and unclean animals were certainly explained to the first humans, and they are explained again to Noah before the flood, (see Genesis 7:2).
Now there may be several reasons why God expanded the list of food for humans after the great flood. One reason may be that there was no vegetation on the earth when the waters receded, and before they could harvest the fruit of what they sowed just after the flood, they were given meat to eat, because they had to have food to eat.
Life expectancy of man 2.
Man was created to live forever, and God told man that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would die. Because of sin, they were not allowed to access the tree of life, but we see that man still lived to be almost a thousand years old until the great flood. Then, just before God unleashed the great flood, He said that man’s days would be a hundred and twenty years, (Genesis 6:3). However, this did not happen overnight. As mentioned, Noah, who was born 600 years before the flood, lived to be 950 years old. After the flood, we see that Shem, Noah’s son, lived to be 600 years old. If we jump ahead to Terah, Abraham’s father, he was 205 years old, Abraham was 175 years old, Isaac was 180 years old, Jacob was 147 years old, Joseph was 110 years old, Moses was 120 years old. In our time, no one can prove that they are older than 120 years old.
Sin is flourishing again.
As mentioned, there was an invisible passenger on board the ark. Noah and his family had lived for a long time among people who had made it a way of life to find new ways to sin against God, and sin had taken on perverse forms. Noah became a farmer, it says, and he planted a vineyard, and drank himself drunk from the wines he made. This in itself is not in harmony with God’s word, nor is what happened in the aftermath of this story. We can read about this in Genesis 9:20-25.
Then life goes on, and everyone has more children. Ham, Noah’s son, had a son, Cush, and Cush had a son, Nimrod, (Genesis 10:8), and with Nimrod the opposition to God started again with full force.
Genesis 10,8 tells us that Nimrod was the first to be a mighty one in the earth. Furthermore, verse 9 says that he, Nimrod, Noah’s great-grandson, was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Wherefore it is said: Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter* before the LORD. Verse 10 tells us where he had his kingdom: His kingdom began in Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh in the land of Shinar.
Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh were four cities on the plain called the land of Shinar. It was Nimrod who founded all these four cities, for as the text of verse 10 says, And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. In verse 11 it is said that Nimrod went to Ashur and founded the city of Nineveh, and it is assumed that this city eventually grew together with the other three cities mentioned in conjunction with Nineveh in verses 11 and 12; Rehobot, Calah and Resen, and the city eventually got the name a great city. Asshur was located where Mosul is in present-day Iraq, quite far to the north by the river Tigris. Babel / Babylon was where Baghdad lies, midway between Mosul and the Persian Gulf on the Euphrates River.
If we see what Jonah says about Nineveh, we can well understand that it was called the great city: So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey, (Jonah 3:3).
* A mighty hunter before the Lord must be understood in an evil sense, firstly because he was a mighty hunter and secondly because Nimrod defied God by building the first city after the great flood, and later at least four more cities.
When God created man, He said to them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, that is, do not dwell in clusters or cities, but spread out over the entire earth (see Genesis 1:27-28). This was passed down from generation to generation, and we can assume that when Noah went out of the ark and the people again began to become many, this was passed on to the first generations after the great flood. But it was as we know a person who opposed this, and it was the hunter Nimrod. A hunter in this context is not an ordinary hunter who hunts animals for food, but a warrior or warrior chief. The fact that Nimrod was the first mighty man on earth tells us one thing. When people become powerful, something happens to them. They become ambitious and power-hungry, and power corrupts. When Nimrod founded the first cities, we can assume that he was also the first king of the earth, and this is how we might understand that he became a mighty hunter before the Lord. Instead of allowing humans to spread across the earth, Nimrod opposed God’s plan for humans. He gathered them together in cities, and set himself over them
Babylon in opposition to God.
When God created man, he asked them to fill the whole earth, (Genesis 1,27-28). They were not supposed to settle in cities in the first place. After the fall when sin had developed and infected almost all of humanity, God sends a great flood over the earth. After the flood had receded, God said to Noah: And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there anymore be a flood to destroy the earth, (Genesis 9:11).
The token of this covenant was the rainbow: And God said, This [is] the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that [is] with you, for perpetual generations; I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which [is] between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that [is] upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This [is] the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that [is] upon the earth, (Genesis 9,12-17).
When Nimrod had built Babylon, he said to the people: Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens … (Genesis 11,4). The reason for this is twofold.
1) they wanted to make a name for themselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth, and …
2) they would have a way of escaping God’s wrath if He were to flood the earth again with a devastating flood of water.
God said, spread all over the earth, but Nimrod said they should build cities and make a name for themselves so they wouldn’t be scattered all over the earth.
God said, never again will a flood destroy the earth, but Nimrod and his people said they would
save themselves from a new flood by building a tower that reached all the way to the heavens.
Since then, sin has continued to develop, and fewer and fewer people sought the Lord, as it was before the great flood. Noah lived, as we have said, 350 years after the flood and died in the year 2006 after creation. Abraham was born in the year 1948 after creation, or 58 years before Noah died. Abraham therefore lived a few years at the same time as Noah, and we can safely assume that Abraham had heard Noah tell about what God had done for him and all mankind, and that it was only Noah and his family that God saved.
This must have made a deep impact on Abraham’s heart so that he felt a longing for God. Abraham’s family were sun worshippers, which was almost all people at that time, and they worshipped many different Gods. Idolatry eventually assumed such forms that God had to do something to preserve a small remnant on earth who would worship Him.
God sees all people, and He sees their hearts and what they want. Abraham had been influenced by Noah, and this had kindled a longing for God. God saw this and He took advantage of Abraham’s longing and called him out of the darkness that surrounded him. Abraham became the ancestor of all who belong to God as God’s special people, be it his fleshly descendants in Old Testament times or the Christians after Jesus died on the cross.
Noah’s Day and Ours Day
In our time it is perhaps worse than it was in the time of Noah, and worse than it was in Sodom and Gomorrah and their sister cities. Ellen G. White says this about the relationship between the time of Noah and the time of Lot, and at the same time draws a parallel to our time. Ellen G. White writes in Counsels on Diet and Foods the following:
Jesus, seated on the Mount of Olives, gave instruction to His disciples concerning the signs which should precede His coming: “But as the days of Noe [were], so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so, shall also the coming of the Son of man be”. (Matthew 24:37-39). The same sins that brought judgments upon the world in the days of Noah exist in our day. Men and women now carry their eating and drinking so far that it ends in gluttony and drunkenness. This prevailing sin, the indulgence of perverted appetite, inflamed the passions of men in the days of Noah, and led to widespread corruption. Violence and sin reached to heaven. This moral pollution was finally swept from the earth by means of the flood. The same sins of gluttony and drunkenness benumbed the moral sensibilities of the inhabitants of Sodom, so that crime seemed to be the delight of the men and women of that wicked city. Christ thus warns the world: “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed [them] all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” [Lucas 17:28-30. (145.3)].
As we see, the time of Noah is compared to the time of Abraham (Sodom and Gomorrah). In the Bible we find, among other things, these two verses:
Matthew 24:38: For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
Jude 1:7: Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
If we dare to look out our window and see what the world has become in our time, it seems as if we have ended up in the middle of a psychedelic movie where the participants are spray-painted with, not just all the colors of the rainbow, but absolutely every color and in every shade. I can’t bring myself to believe that it was worse in the days of Noah or in Sodom and Gomorrah. And what did Jesus tell his disciples would happen when the world became like the old world? In Matthew 24:27, Jesus said: But as the days of Noe [were], so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Dear reader. Jesus is coming soon, and if you are not prepared, I implore you to seek the Lord and receive the salvation He will give you for free. All you need to do is reach out and receive the most precious gift anyone can receive. God is calling you, for you are the most important person to the ruler of the universe, and He says to you: … … behold, now [is] the accepted time; behold, now [is] the day of salvation), (2 Corinthians 6:2).