What are "The Days of Noah"?

In Matthew 24, Jesus sat down with His disciples and He discussed with them the time of the end. The disciples had asked three questions, seen in verse 3:

"As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?”

Jesus began answering in verse 4, and continued answering down to verse 51, which closes out the chapter.

If you think of that block of text between verse 4 and verse 31 as a short overview of the Tribulation in chronological order, you will be doing well. Let's break it down a bit:

Verses 4-8, first half of the Tribulation
Verses 9-28, Great Tribulation. The abomination of Desolation ramps up the judgments and tips the world into the Great Tribulation. This is the moment when the antichrist stands in the Temple and proclaims himself God. The persecution of the Jews really begins. This is seen in Revelation 12 onward.
Verse 29-31, After the Tribulation, and gathering those to be judged.
Verses 32-51, general warnings and parables.

Jesus said something in Matthew 24:37-38 about the general conditions of the future times of which He is speaking-

“But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. “For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,”

Matthew 24 is a Tribulation chapter. It has nothing to do with the rapture. When the events described by Jesus in this chapter happen, the rapture will have already taken place. So we wonder how the people on earth will NOT know that the sun going partially dark and the blood in the seas and the mass slaughter and all the rest will not be signs from God, but Jesus says they didn't believe it the first time. Man was totally corrupt at that time and they laughed and mocked Noah for 120 years as he built a boat bigger than the Queen Mary, right there in the waterless desert. THAT is how deluded the sin-drenched mind is.

Something that made me wonder as to the Days of Noah is this: the demons. We read in Genesis 3 & 6 that the demons were on earth at that time. It was a time of total, saturating sin and all its attendant evil (just like it will be during the Tribulation). Here it is from the bible, with its own heading (from the ESV):

Increasing Corruption on Earth

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in a man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6:1-8)

Jesus imprisoned those spirits, the demons who came down and took form and mated with women. He was angry at how they left their glorified positions and did this thing. Jude tells us they are in chains:

Jude 1:6 "“And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.”

After His death, Jesus went and proclaimed his triumph:

1 Peter 3:19 - "in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,"

Another verse in 1 Peter tells us of these disobedient spirits:

1 Peter 3:20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

And again, 2 Peter 2:4 about these spirits in the deepest abyss

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but threw them into the lowest hell and imprisoned them in chains of deepest darkness, holding them for judgment;

The lowest hell is also called Tartarus in the Holman Standard Christian bible and others. It is the lowest part of Hades. It is dark, gloomy, dank, and completely devoid of anything remotely good. It is a place even demons fear. The Legion of demons who possessed the Gadarene man begged not to go 'into the abyss'. (Luke 8:30). 6,000 men comprised a Legion of army men in the Roman days, so that was a lot of demons. Who knows how many are in the abyss...maybe hundreds of thousands? Those demons and others throughout the ages God has sent to the pit. It must be a very big pit full of festering demons

Now to the point. The Days of Noah...if all those demons were roaming around then, and the days ahead are going to be like the days of Noah, does that mean that adding to the general horrible conditions on the earth that these worst of the worst demons are let out of the abyss? Yes. And look how many of them there are-

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit; he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth; they were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those of mankind who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads; they were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion, when it stings a man." (Revelation 9:1-5 RSV)

I am thinking that in addition to the general conditions of the Tribulation with its complete corruption on the earth, and the mocking of the righteous and their refusal to believe, that the Days of Noah may indeed be because in addition to the others who have been sent to the abyss at various times, these same demons from the Days of Noah are going to be let out of the abyss to do their terrible work once again.

Just some thoughts. Here is a prayer from John MacArthur:

"Father, we have been led to see things that create fear and a shaking in our hearts, frightening, terrible, horrible things, prepared for those who reject You, who are alive in the day when You bring judgment. And this is but a taste on earth of hell. If it's this bad on earth, what must it be like in hell where men and women go who reject Christ? Open the hearts, Lord, of those who do not know the Savior that they may escape the terrors of Your just judgment. And, Lord, help us understanding the terror of the Lord as Paul said to persuade men. May we preach the judgment that men may know how desperately they need to escape. Give us opportunity, Lord. We pray in Christ's name. Amen."