Matthew 24:37-39

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.

2 Peter 3:3-6

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

Genesis 6:1, 2

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Now we come to a major turn in Genesis.

The first section has dealt with creation. Now we move into the destruction of that created world, save for one family and a boatload of preserved animals. And as we step into it, Jesus tells us plainly that the days before His return will be like the days before the Flood. That means Genesis 6 is not merely ancient history. It is also a warning to our own generation.

The chapter opens by saying men began to multiply on the face of the earth. That is worth noticing. When you read the genealogy in chapter 5, you realize people lived incredibly long lives, nine hundred years and more. So the multiplication of mankind would have been staggering. If a man has four kids and lives to see his kids have kids, in five generations his family will number ninety six. In ten generations, the population jumps to 3,070. In twenty generations, it soars to 3,120,000. And in thirty generations, it skyrockets to 3,220,000,000.

That is remarkable.

If a generation is forty years, and with at least forty generations listed in Genesis 5, the population in Noah’s day would conservatively have been billions and billions of people. In other words, Noah did not live in some tiny primitive village world. He lived in a world full of people, noise, motion, activity, business, weddings, families, and all the ordinary stuff of life.

And that is exactly what Jesus said.

They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark. Life just kept rolling on. The world was busy. The world was crowded. The world was full. Yet it was blind. They knew not until the flood came.

That sounds familiar.

We’re experiencing a similar population growth in our own last days. You see, from the time Noah got off the ark, it took until 1867 for the world to reach the one billion mark. But it only took from 1867 to 1935, less than one hundred years, for the population to reach two billion. And from 1935, it only took until 1965 to reach over six billion. The point is that growth accelerated dramatically. Ours is a heavily populated world, just as Noah’s was. We are living in a crowded, busy, multiplied age, and that makes the parallel Jesus gave all the more striking.

But the real issue was not merely population.

It was spiritual blindness.

Jesus did not say the problem in Noah’s day was that people were doing unusually bizarre things every moment. He said they were living normal lives with no thought of judgment, no fear of God, and no readiness for His intervention. They were carrying on as if history would just keep repeating itself forever.

Peter says the same mentality will mark the last days. Scoffers will come. They will mock the promise of His coming. They will say everything continues as it always has. That is the spirit of this age. Keep living. Keep building. Keep planning. Keep indulging. And laugh at the idea that God might actually step into history in judgment.

But Peter says that kind of thinking is willing ignorance.

They choose not to remember.

They choose not to see that the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. God has intervened before. He will intervene again.

Then Genesis adds another troubling detail. The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. You can see the pattern right there. They saw. They desired. They took. That is the language of lust, appetite, and self will. No waiting on God. No submission to His order. No restraint. Just taking what they wanted.

That sounds a lot like our world too.

We live in a culture driven by sight, ruled by desire, and obsessed with personal choice. Men do what seems right in their own eyes. They take what they want and call it liberty. But that spirit did not lead to freedom in Noah’s day. It led to ruin.

So when Jesus says His coming will be like the days of Noah, He is telling us something serious. The last days will not necessarily look strange to the world. They will look normal. Busy. Prosperous. Crowded. Distracted. Sensual. Scoffing. Spiritually asleep.

That is why we must stay awake.

The danger is not only wickedness out there somewhere. The danger is drift. The danger is getting so wrapped up in the routine of life that we stop hearing the warning of God. The danger is becoming so familiar with the noise of this age that we no longer live with any awareness that the Lord really is coming.

Beloved, we must not live like the people outside the ark. We must not scoff. We must not drift. We must not let the ordinary business of life dull our hearts to eternal realities. Jesus did not give us this comparison to satisfy curiosity. He gave it to wake us up.

One day Noah entered the ark.

One day the flood came.

And one day the Son of Man will return.

That is not meant to terrify the child of God. It is meant to steady us. It is meant to loosen our grip on this age and make us walk more closely with the Lord while there is still time.