YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET!

Babies being slaughtered in their mother's womb, bombs exploding at the Boston Marathon, letters laced with ricin sent to politicians, a fertilizer plant exploding and leveling most of a small Texas town, North Korea threatening everybody, Iran threatening Israel and the U.S., Christians being slaughtered around the world for trusting in Christ; one has to wonder how bad things were in Noah's day! 

Jesus told His disciples, "But as the days of (Noah) were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Mt. 24:37-38).  The "days of Noah" are described in Genesis 6:5-6, which says, "And GOD saw that the wickedness of (mankind) was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart."  Looking at the news, you would think that it couldn't get any worse than it is today. 

But believe it or not, what we are seeing in the news everyday is nothing compared to what lies ahead!  There is coming a time when the entire world will be enslaved by the Beast of Revelation 13:1-10.  During the Tribulation (aka. "the Time of Jacob's Trouble, and Daniel's Seventieth Week - Jer. 30:7; Dan. 9:24-27), the penalty for refusing to worship him will be death.  The Tribulation is best described in Matthew 24:3-29 and Revelation Chapters Six through Nineteen.   

You might ask, "How do you know we are not already in the Tribulation?"  The answer is that as long as there are born again believers in this world, things are not as bad as they were in Noah's day.  We are the "salt" that prevents total decay, and the "light" that causes evil to hide in the shadows.  Until the Church is removed, the world is nowhere near as bad as it was in Noah's day.  Scripture tells us:

"And now ye know what withholdeth that he (Antichrist) might be revealed in his time.  For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only He who now letteth will let, until He be taken out of the way.  And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming:  even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved" (2 Thes. 2:6-10)!

Jesus said, "All these are the beginning of sorrows" ("birth pangs" - Mt. 24:3-8).