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Worldwide Flood

Sins of Noah‘s Time

“Through the scriptures we have a fairly clear picture of the fate of the people of Noah‘s day who, like many people today, ignored the testimonies of written scripture and of living prophets…. They were drowned in their sins. Their marriages were for time. They reveled in worldliness.” ¹

“They were possibly like many in the world today who place no curb upon their eating, drinking and licentiousness. Their ignoring the laws of God and the warning of the prophets continued until the very day when Noah and his family entered the ark. Then it was too late. Too late! What finality in that phrase!” ²

Purpose and Divine Justification for Annihilation

“[God] destroyed the antediluvian world … because they were not filling the measure of their creation. They had corrupted themselves to such an extent that it would have been an injustice to the spirits in the eternal worlds if they had to come through such a corrupt lineage to be subject to all the trouble incident thereunto. And therefore God destroyed them.” ³

“[I]s it right that a just God should sweep off so many people? Is that in accordance with mercy? Yes, it was just to those spirits that had not received their bodies, and it was just and merciful too to those people guilty of the iniquity. Why? . . . Because by taking away their earthly existence he prevented them from entailing their sins upon their posterity and degenerating them, and also prevented them from committing further acts of wickedness.” (⁴

“Being a loving Father, though deeply devoted to our … agency, there are times in human history when He simply could not continue to send spirits to this earth who would have had virtually no chance.” ⁵

God intervened “when corruption had reached an agency-destroying point that spirits could not, in justice, be sent here.” ⁶

Type of the Latter-day

“In striving to prepare a people who are ready to meet the Lord for His impending second coming, we are faced with wickedness which has never been as well organized, extensive, and subtle. Our day is becoming comparable to the days of Noah, when the Lord had to cleanse the earth by flood—only in our day it will be cleansed by fire.” ⁷

“The wicked will be destroyed, according to the words of all the Prophets, and the righteous only will survive. There will be a cleansing of the earth from the wicked as great in its place as the cleansing of the earth by the flood that came in the days of Noah, though this time it will be by fire.” ⁸

“Jan. 1, 1892–(At a stake conference at Brigham City) President Snow reported that on one occasion Joseph Smith was once asked who he was: “The Prophet smiled kindly upon his interlocutor and replied, ‘Noah came before the flood; I have come before the fire.’” ⁹

“We live in a day of evil and wickedness…. Crime, immorality, abortions, and homosexual abominations are fast becoming the norm of life among the wicked and ungodly. The world will soon be as corrupt as it was in the days of Noah.” ¹⁰