As In The Days of Noah
Pastor Leslie Chua
“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”
Jesus could have used many images to describe His return. He chose the days of Noah.
That choice was not random. Noah's story is a story of judgement and rescue. It is the story of a world that laughed and of a family that listened. It is the story of a door that stood open for years until God shut it.
When Jesus says, "As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man," He gives us a lens. To understand the days before His return, we must look back to the days before the Flood. When we look carefully, we find that this one phrase carries more than one layer of meaning.
The Context: Christ Comes for His Church
Matthew 24 contains the Olivet Discourse. The disciples asked Jesus about the end of the age, and He answered at length. But at verse 36, the tone shifts.
So far, Jesus has spoken about the signs of the end – wars, famines, earthquakes, false prophets, and the abomination of desolation. These are events people can see coming.
Now Jesus speaks of a day no one knows. A day that comes without warning. A day when life is going on as normal – and then, suddenly, "one will be taken and one left".
This is a description of the rapture of the church – the moment Christ comes for His people and catches them up to meet Him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). 2 people are working side by side. One is taken to be with the Lord, while the other is left behind to face what follows.
Bible-believing Christians have interpreted this passage in various ways. Whatever our view of the rapture’s timing, the main point remains the same: Jesus is coming, the moment is unknown, and the only safe posture is readiness.
The World Will Be Taken by Surprise
Look closely at what Jesus says about Noah's generation. They were "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage."
There is nothing sinful about eating. Nothing wrong with marriage. Jesus is not listing their crimes. He is describing normal life. They were living as if tomorrow would be exactly like today, planning weddings, hosting banquets, building houses, and planting crops.
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For years, perhaps decades, Noah's Ark stood as a public sermon. Peter calls Noah "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5). The people heard the warning, saw the ark rising, yet did nothing.
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And all the while, a man down the road was building a boat.
For years, perhaps decades, Noah's Ark stood as a public sermon. Peter calls Noah "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5). The people heard the warning, saw the ark rising, yet did nothing.
Jesus says they "knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away." The Greek word indicates they did not know – not because no one told them, but because they refused to take Noah’s warning of judgement seriously. Their ignorance was a choice.
So, it will be when Christ returns. The world will be busy. Markets will be open. Plans will be made. Then, in a moment, everything will change.
The Church Should Not Be Surprised – But Many Will Be
Here is the other side of the story. The world was surprised by the Flood, but Noah was not.
God spoke to Noah. He told him what was coming, what to build, and how to build it. Noah believed, obeyed, and prepared. Hebrews 11:7 says, “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.”
Paul makes the same point to the church: "But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief" (1 Thessalonians 5:4). The return of Christ will surprise the world, but it should not surprise the church.
Yet Jesus ends this passage with a warning addressed to His own people: "Keep watch." He goes on in the following parables – the Faithful Servant and the 10 Virgins – to describe believers who are caught off guard. 5 of the 10 virgins were asleep and without oil when the bridegroom arrived.
Why will so many Christians be unprepared?
Some do not know that He is coming. Many churches rarely preach about Christ's return. Whole congregations have never heard a sermon on it. A hope that is never taught is soon forgotten.
Some know but do not care. They believe it in theory, but they do not long for it. Paul speaks of a crown laid up for "all who have longed for his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:8). Do we love His appearing, or do we quietly hope He waits until we have finished our plans?
Some are distracted. Jesus warned that hearts can be "weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life," so that the day comes "suddenly like a trap" (Luke 21:34). It is not always great sins that put Christians to sleep. Often, it is ordinary busyness – family, careers, entertainment, possessions and worries.
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Noah's generation had the longest warning in history, yet they still missed it. Long warnings can make people careless.
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Some have grown weary of waiting. Peter foresaw scoffers asking, "Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?” (2 Peter 3:4). 2,000 years have passed. Many believers have quietly concluded that it will not happen in their lifetime – so it need not shape how they live.
Some have mistaken God's patience for His absence. In Noah's day, God waited – 120 years, according to some readings of Genesis 6:3. But patience is not cancellation. Peter tells us that God's delay is an act of mercy, "not wanting anyone to perish" (2 Peter 3:9). The delay is an open door, not a closed promise.
Noah's generation had the longest warning in history, yet they still missed it. Long warnings can make people careless.
A Deeper Layer about the Days of Noah
Jesus' words about the days of Noah mean more than most Christians realise.
What were the days of Noah like? Genesis 6 tells us: “The sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose... The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown”(Genesis 6:2, 4).
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The days of Noah were not merely days of ordinary sin. They were days when people deliberately crossed the boundaries God had set. Heavenly beings mingled with humans. The result was a hybrid race – the Nephilim – and the human gene pool corrupted at its root.
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Then the text says: "Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence... for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways" (Genesis 6:11-12).
The days of Noah were not merely days of ordinary sin. They were days when people deliberately crossed the boundaries God had set. Heavenly beings mingled with humans. The result was a hybrid race – the Nephilim – and the human gene pool corrupted at its root.
Who were the "sons of God"?
For many centuries, the church has taught that the "sons of God" were the godly descendants of Seth, while the "daughters of humans" were the ungodly descendants of Cain. On this reading, Genesis 6 concerns mixed marriages between believers and unbelievers.
But the New Testament points in a different direction.
Jude 6-7 says: "And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion…”
Notice the phrase "In a similar way." Jude compares the sin of these angels to the sin of Sodom – sexual sin that transgressed natural boundaries. These angels "abandoned their proper dwelling." They abandoned the realm God assigned them and entered the human realm, engaging in forbidden sexual relationships with women.
2 Peter 2:4-5 says: "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah...”
Peter places the sin of these angels alongside the Flood. They belong to the same story.
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So, the days of Noah were marked by forbidden mixture. Throughout Scripture, God hates the confusion of what He has made distinct. Israel was not to sow a field with 2 kinds of seed, or breed 2 kinds of animal, or weave 2 kinds of material into one garment (Leviticus 19:19). These were living pictures of a deeper principle: God made things "according to their kinds," and He guards the boundaries He set.
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1 Peter 3:19-20 speaks of "the imprisoned spirits—to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.” Again, this refers to a group of disobedient spirits tied directly to Noah's generation.
The phrase "sons of God" (bene ha-elohim) is used elsewhere in the Old Testament to refer to heavenly beings (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). The earliest Jewish interpreters – before the time of Christ – read Genesis 6 in this way. The apostles also appear to have read it this way.
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This does not mean the exact rebellion of Genesis 6 will be repeated. But it does mean we should watch for the same pattern: deliberately crossing the boundary that defines what a human being is.
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The days of Noah were marked by forbidden mixture. Throughout Scripture, God hates the confusion of what He has made distinct. Israel was not to sow a field with 2 kinds of seed, or breed 2 kinds of animal, or weave 2 kinds of material into one garment (Leviticus 19:19). These were living pictures of a deeper principle: God made things "according to their kinds," and He guards the boundaries He set.
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We now live in the era of transhumanism – a movement that openly seeks to move humanity beyond its biological limits.
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What will this look like in the last days?
This does not mean the exact rebellion of Genesis 6 will be repeated. But it does mean we should watch for the same pattern: deliberately crossing the boundary that defines what a human being is.
And that is precisely where our age is headed.
We now live in the era of transhumanism – a movement that openly seeks to move humanity beyond its biological limits. Its tools are not hypothetical: gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR allow scientists to rewrite DNA. In 2018, a Chinese scientist created the first gene-edited babies. The world condemned the act – but the door is now open.
Brain-computer interfaces are being implanted in people, linking the mind directly to machines.
Technology leaders openly describe the human-AI merger as the next stage of evolution.
Synthetic biology and human-animal chimera research are already underway in laboratories.
The stated goal is a new kind of being, enhanced, upgraded, and partially engineered. In a word – a hybrid.
The Danger: Becoming "Unhuman"
Why does this matter so deeply?
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The genetic corruption of Noah's day threatened the very generational line through which the Redeemer would come. The Flood preserved that line. The danger of our day is similar in kind: humanity, in its pride, would remake itself into something God did not create – and, in doing so, place itself outside the nature that Christ assumed and came to save.
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Because the gospel is addressed to human beings. The eternal Son of God did not become an angel or a machine. He became a man. "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity" (Hebrews 2:14). He took on our nature to redeem it.
The genetic corruption of Noah's day threatened the very generational line through which the Redeemer would come. The Flood preserved that line. The danger of our day is similar in kind: humanity, in its pride, would remake itself into something God did not create – and, in doing so, place itself outside the nature that Christ assumed and came to save.
We must be careful here. Medicine that heals is not rebellion. A pacemaker, a prosthetic limb, or a therapy that cures a genetic disease restores what was broken; it does not redesign what God made. And God's grace in Christ reaches every person who calls on Him. No believer should fear that a medical treatment has placed them beyond His reach.
But a line exists between healing humanity and replacing it. When the goal becomes creating a new species, abolishing human limits, or merging human identity with machines, we are no longer repairing the image of God. We are trying to rewrite it. That is the spirit of Genesis 6 and of Babel – humanity reaching beyond its place to become like God on its own terms.
Other Prophetic Lessons from Noah's Day
Here are several prophetic lessons from Noah’s time.
Violence filled the earth. Genesis 6:11 says the earth was "full of violence." Look at the world today – war, terrorism, abortion, crime, and cruelty, both online and offline. The pattern is familiar.
Enoch was taken before the judgement. Before the Flood came, God took Enoch: "he was no more, because God took him away" (Genesis 5:24). Many see in Enoch a picture of the church caught up before the wrath falls, and in Noah a picture of the faithful remnant preserved through it.
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Only a few were saved. 8 people. Jesus said the road to life is narrow, and few find it (Matthew 7:14). Popularity has never been a measure of truth.
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The door was shut by God. "Then the LORD shut him in" (Genesis 7:16). For years, the ark's door stood open. Anyone could have entered. Then one day God closed it. The day of grace does not last forever.
Only a few were saved. 8 people. Jesus said the road to life is narrow, and few find it (Matthew 7:14). Popularity has never been a measure of truth.
Conclusion: Stay Awake
Jesus did not give us the story of Noah to frighten us. He gave it to wake us up.
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So, build your ark. Not of wood, but of faith, obedience, and readiness. Keep your lamp full. Love His appearing. Warn your neighbours while the door is still open.
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The world will be surprised. The church need not be. God has spoken, as He did to Noah. The signs are all around us – the busyness of a world that does not look to God, the violence that fills the earth, and the growing ambition to remake humanity itself.
So, build your ark. Not of wood, but of faith, obedience, and readiness. Keep your lamp full. Love His appearing. Warn your neighbours while the door is still open.
"So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him" (Matthew 24:44).