“Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?” Gen. 18:17, 18. And due notice was given to righteous Lot, who, with his daughters, was preserved; and none, even in that guilty city, perished without due warning. Lot evidently warned the people; and in thus communing with them, was “vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.” 2 Peter 2:7, 8. His righteous life had been a rebuke to them; and we have every reason to believe that the holy example of Abraham in his worship of the true God was known to them. He had at one time been their saviour, and rescued their captives and spoil from the victorious enemy who was carrying them away. But when Lot warned his friends of the approaching doom, “he seemed as one that mocked.” Gen. 19:14. They, like the antediluvians, persisted in sin, and drank of the wrath of God. At a subsequent time the sins of Nineveh rose to heaven, and Jonah was sent to bear to that proud capital the startling message, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” The consciences of those sinners told them the message was true; and from the least of them to the greatest they humbled themselves, and the overhanging judgment was averted. Before Christ commenced his earthly mission, John the Baptist was sent as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” By this means the expectation of the people was raised, and doubtless many were through it led to accept of salvation, while the generation at large was condemned for rejecting the light. Our Saviour in his time saw the destruction of Jerusalem just in the future of that generation, and faithfully warned the people, foretelling signs by which it might be known when the desolation thereof was nigh. Luke 21:21. Such is the testimony of inspiration respecting the dealings of God with his people in past ages. All who accept the Bible as the inspired word of God acknowledge that he has been very faithful in warning people in past ages of impending judgments and other events which affected their eternal welfare. Such having been the divine plan in relation to past events, we would certainly be justified in anticipating such warnings of Christ’s second coming as would comport with the importance of the event. But when we come to regard the future, and especially our own immediate future, the incredulity of very many is at once aroused.