WARNING-THE CHECKLIST — JESUS, THE DOOR, AND THE SIGNS Seven signs. One warning. One Door. One decision. Jesus told us: “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day.” — Matthew 24:37 So what were the days of Noah actually like? And more importantly… Could we recognize those days if we were living in them? Let’s build the checklist. ⸻ SIGN 1 — EXPLODING POPULATION On November 15, 2022, the world’s population reached 8 billion people. Now go back and look at the timeline. Humanity reached approximately 3 billion around 1960. One human lifetime. We went from roughly 3 billion people to 8 billion in the span of a single lifetime. Jesus didn’t give us a population number to calculate. But Scripture tells us that Noah lived in a world where humanity was multiplying rapidly. The first sign isn’t about proving a date. It’s about recognizing the unprecedented scale of the world we now inhabit. Check. ⸻ SIGN 2 — VIOLENCE FILLING THE EARTH Genesis 6:11 says: “The earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.” Look around. Wars. Weapons. Terror. Political hatred. Tribalism. People who have never met each other learning to hate entire categories of human beings because of a label. Sometimes all it takes is one comment online to turn a conversation into rage. But Scripture takes us deeper than headlines. Because violence isn’t merely what happens between nations. It begins in the human heart. The wars are symptoms. The hatred is a symptom. The rage is a symptom. God sees what is happening inside the human chest. And that brings us to the third sign. ⸻ SIGN 3 — EVIL CONTINUALLY IN THE HEART Genesis 6:5 says: “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Think about that. The human imagination is where ideas begin. Before an action becomes reality, it usually begins as a thought. Genesis describes a civilization whose inner world had become corrupted. And look at our world. Human beings haven’t simply repeated ancient forms of evil. We’ve developed new ways to engineer it, organize it, scale it, and monetize it. According to a 2021 estimate by the International Labour Organization and partners, nearly 50 million people were living in modern slavery. Trafficking. Exploitation. Forced labor. Sexual exploitation. Industrialized cruelty. We’re not just committing old sins. We’re finding new ways to commit them. And then Scripture gives us something even more sobering. Genesis 6:6 says that the Lord was grieved at His heart. God wasn’t indifferent. Human wickedness grieved Him. Sit with that. Our sin doesn’t merely break rules. It breaks God’s heart. But the next four signs move beyond what we can see on the surface. They take us into the spiritual and supernatural. ⸻ SIGN 4 — THE COLLAPSE OF THE SACRED Some forms of corruption don’t kick the door down. They get invited in. Slowly. Politely. One inch at a time. Until eventually, people can’t remember where the boundary used to be. Genesis 6:2 says: “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.” There are different interpretations of who the “sons of God” were, and we’ll come back to that. But notice the phrase: “They took…whom they chose.” The boundaries were being disregarded. Restraint disappeared. And here’s the frightening part about cultural decay: Eventually, what once shocked people becomes ordinary. What once caused conviction becomes entertainment. What once required shame gets renamed as normal. The line between sacred and profane becomes harder and harder to see. Peter describes Lot as being deeply distressed by the corruption surrounding him. Day after day. And perhaps you’ve felt something like that. You see something that would have bothered you ten years ago… and now you barely notice it. That’s worth examining. Because sometimes what feels like tolerance is actually a conscience becoming numb. And when people empty the sacred from their lives, the human heart doesn’t remain empty forever. Something else eventually takes its place. Which brings us to Sign 5. ⸻ SIGN 5 — DARK SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY Our world didn’t become less spiritual. It became spiritual in different directions. Astrology. Horoscopes. Manifestation. Crystals. Occult practices. Divination. “Spiritual but not religious.” Some of these practices are packaged as wellness, self-discovery, or harmless entertainment. But Scripture repeatedly warns God’s people not to seek supernatural guidance from sources other than God. The problem isn’t that humanity stopped believing in the supernatural. The problem is where humanity is looking for supernatural power. We’ve become willing to knock on spiritual doors Scripture tells us not to open. And that matters because once humanity begins reaching beyond the natural for power… we also begin asking: How far can we go beyond the natural through technology? And that brings us to a sign previous generations couldn’t have imagined. ⸻ SIGN 6 — TRANSHUMANISM For most of human history, the idea of deliberately altering the biological boundaries of humanity belonged in science fiction. Today, it doesn’t. In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced that he had used gene-editing technology on human embryos, resulting in genetically modified babies. The scientific community condemned the experiment. And yet the technology itself did not disappear. In 2024, Neuralink announced its first human brain-computer-interface implant. A human being could interact with a computer using neural signals. Now, be careful here. Technology itself is not automatically evil. Medicine isn’t evil. Scientific discovery isn’t automatically rebellion against God. But Scripture repeatedly gives us a picture of humanity pushing against the boundaries God established for creation. And Genesis 6 contains one of the Bible’s most mysterious descriptions of those boundaries being crossed. Which brings us to the final sign. The one people don’t want to talk about. ⸻ SIGN 7 — THE NEPHILIM Genesis 6:4 says: “There were giants in the earth in those days…” The passage describes the “sons of God” coming to the “daughters of men,” followed by the appearance of the Nephilim. There are multiple interpretations of this passage. Some understand the sons of God as fallen angels. Others understand them differently. I can’t prove every supernatural interpretation people attach to Genesis 6. But I can tell you what the text says: Something deeply abnormal was happening in the human story. And immediately afterward, Genesis says: “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” Then: “All flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” That’s why this passage deserves our attention. The issue wasn’t simply that people were behaving badly. Genesis presents a world where corruption had become pervasive. And here’s where modern speculation enters the conversation. In our generation, discussion about unidentified phenomena and alleged non-human intelligence has moved from fringe conversations into congressional hearings and mainstream government discussion. In July 2023, former intelligence officer David Grusch testified before Congress and made allegations concerning recovered craft and alleged “non-human” biologics. Those claims remain disputed and have not established the biblical identity of the Nephilim. So I’m not telling you: “UFOs have been proven to be the Nephilim.” I’m telling you to notice the question. For the first time in human history, humanity is seriously debating whether intelligence exists beyond our ordinary understanding of humanity. And Genesis 6 is the biblical passage that makes that conversation impossible for Christians to ignore. So look at the checklist. ⸻ THE SEVEN SIGNS Exploding population. ✓ Violence filling the earth. ✓ Evil continually in the heart. ✓ The collapse of the sacred. ✓ Dark spiritual activity. ✓ Humanity pushing technological and biological boundaries. ✓ The mystery of the Nephilim. ✓ But here’s the question: What are we supposed to do with the checklist? Because Jesus didn’t tell us these things so we could become obsessed with dates. He told us so we would stay awake. And that brings us to something even bigger than the seven signs. ⸻ THE PATTERN OF JUDGMENT Look at three major biblical judgments: The Flood. Sodom and Gomorrah. The plagues of Egypt. But notice something. In the Flood, Noah was preserved before judgment overwhelmed the earth. In Sodom, Lot was brought out before judgment fell. Egypt is different: God’s people remained in the land while God judged Egypt. And Jesus specifically points us back to Noah and Lot when describing His return. Luke 17:26–30 says that people were eating, drinking, marrying, buying, selling, planting and building— until the day Noah entered the ark. And: until the day Lot went out of Sodom. Then judgment came. That’s the pattern Jesus Himself gives us. And now we finally arrive at the most important part of the entire story. ⸻ THE DOOR Imagine Noah. More than a century of obedience. A massive ark sitting on dry ground. Warnings that seemed ridiculous to everyone around him. And then, one ordinary day… the animals come. Noah enters. His family enters. And then Genesis 7:16 gives us the sentence that changes everything: “And the LORD shut him in.” God shut the door. Noah didn’t shut it. God did. For 120 years, the door of mercy had been open. Then it closed. And outside? Life continued. People ate. People drank. People made plans. People went to work. People planned tomorrow. They had no idea that their world was about to change forever. Jesus said: “For as in the days of Noah, so shall it be also at the coming of the Son of Man.” — Matthew 24:37 And Paul wrote: “When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them…” — 1 Thessalonians 5:3 That’s the warning. Not: “Figure out the exact date.” Not: “Become obsessed with conspiracy theories.” Not: “Predict the hour.” Jesus said: WATCH. BE READY. REPENT. BELIEVE. Because eventually… the Door closes. ⸻ AND THE DOOR HAS A NAME Here’s where this entire message stops being about Noah. It stops being about the Nephilim. It stops being about population statistics. It stops being about wars. It stops being about technology. It stops being about signs. Because the checklist was never the destination. It was pointing somewhere. To someone. Jesus. Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” — John 14:6 The question isn’t merely: “Are these the last days?” The question is: “Are you ready to meet Jesus?” You don’t need to understand every mystery in Genesis 6. You don’t need to solve every question about UFOs. You don’t need to know the date of Christ’s return. You need Jesus. Because salvation isn’t found in a checklist. It’s found in Christ. So if you’ve been running from God… come home. If you’ve been living in sin… repent. If you’ve been wounded… bring your wounds to Jesus. If you’ve never surrendered your life to Him… today is the day. Don’t wait for another sign. Don’t wait until you’re ready. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Walk through the Door while it is still open. Jesus is calling. And the most important question isn’t what side of the checklist you’re on. It’s this: ARE YOU IN CHRIST? Because when the final Door closes… there won’t be another one. ✝️ Jesus is the Door. Jesus is the Way. Jesus is the Truth. Jesus is the Life. Repent. Believe. Surrender. Follow Him. The question isn’t whether you can recognize the signs. The question is whether you will recognize the Savior.