OUR WATCHFULNESS TAKES GREATER URGENCY

The Message Is Preached

The fourth point of similarity between the present day and the pre-Flood world is seen  in the work that Noah was commissioned to do.  Noah constructed a huge ark.  He was also  "a preacher."  (2 Peter 2:5)  What message did he preach?  Noah's preaching evidently included a call for repentance and a warning of coming destruction.  Jesus said that the people of Noah's day "took no note until the flood came and swept them all away." -Matthew 24:38, 39.

Similarly, as Jehovah's Witnesses diligently fulfill their commission to preach, the message of God's Kingdom is being declared worldwide.  In almost every part of the globe, people can hear and read the Kingdom message in their own language.  The Watchtower magazine, announcing Jehovah's Kingdom has a circulation of over 25,000,000 and is printed in more than 140 languages.  Indeed, the good news of God's Kingdom is being preached  "in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations."  When that work is completed to God's satisfaction, the end is certain to come. -Matthew 24:14.

Given the spiritual and moral bankruptcy of the days preceding the Flood, it is not hard to imagine how Noah's family became the laughingstock of incredulous neighbors and the object of abuse and ridicule. The end did come though.  Similarly, "ridiculers with their ridicule" abound in the last days.  "Yet Jehovah's day will come as a thief," states the Bible.  (2 Peter 3:3, 4, 10)  Come it will at the appointed time.  It will not be late.  (Habakkuk 2:3) How wise we are to keep on the watch!

Next time: OUR WATCHFULNESS TAKES GREATER URGENCY- Only a Few Survive

The Watchtower, 2003