AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH.
By Arthur Fox
Men lived to a great age when the world was young. Their habits were simpler, and the earth and air did not contain so much that would produce disease as now, after so many centuries have come and gone. Men might have been tempted to say, if life had been short from the first, that they did no better because they did not have a fair opportunity to learn how to live, until they were obliged to die. God let them live nearly a thousand years, and the consequence was that the world became so bad with so many evil doers in it, that it was absolutely unfit for anybody to live in. There were some good people here and there, who are described in the Scriptures as the “sons of God;” but they intermarried with “the daughters of men” (people of a baser sort), and in time there was such widespread corruption that God saw best to send a flood to cleanse the world, and to destroy a race that was unfit to live—all save one family, in which alone any true piety seems to have been kept alive. To Noah God gave directions to build an ark, in which he and his family might be saved. God was very patient and waited one hundred and twenty years, while Noah was building the ark, and warning a wicked world to flee from the coming doom. But the wise men of that day regarded him as a fool, and mocked at him as he was preparing the great boat, thinking there was going to be a flood. But the flood came, and their derision ceased forever. The Lord foretold another flood, not of water, but of fire, that shall some day destroy the earth. The human race that was on the earth before the flood perished; but the heavens and the earth which remain are reserved for the day of judgment, which comes to all. Men now make sport as they did in the days of Noah, and will so continue doubtless until the awful day bursts upon them.5 The ark was a type of Christ, and Noah with his family safely shut in the ark furnished a type of the church. At God’s invitation they entered in, and the Lord closed the door. “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” Matt. 24:37–39. “Then said He unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.” Luke 21:10, 11. The world has been greatly agitated over the volcanic eruptions on the islands of Martinique and St. Vincent, where numerous lives were lost, and much property damaged. What does it all mean? Some say the Lord delays His coming. What does the Lord say?—“Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:36. “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” Verse 28. Sanitarium, Cal. ARTHUR FOX.