WHAT IF THE ARK HAD PROVED TOO SMALL?
By C. W. Stone
Prominent among the cavils of infidels as to the authenticity of the Bible, are their questions about Noah's ark; and among other things they argue that the God of the Deluge was unfair from the fact that he knew that only a little handful of men would believe in the flood, and that the vast mass would have to be destroyed in its waters; and as he knew it beforehand, he must have decreed it to be so, therefore it could have been no other way, and it was simply impossible for those men to repent and be saved. That doctrine is a sort of cross between infidelity and the doctrine of election. Let's look into its anatomy. Had God decreed from all eternity that eight, and only eight, should be saved from the waters of the flood, where was the sense in commissioning Noah to preach, to warn the world for a hundred and twenty years? Was it to taunt the poor unfortunates? They were to be lost any way. Was it to save the eight? They could not have been lost possibly, not even if the ark had sunk, if this matter of decree be so. Why will men argue so senselessly? The very fact that God sent his faithful servant to warn the world shows that all might have believed in the flood, repented, and been saved, if they had chosen to do so. The trouble was then as it is now: They would not come to Christ, that they might have life. John 5:40. “But,” says the infidel, “the ark was too small. If even it was large enough to hold what is said to have gone into it, it certainly could not have held a thousand more men, to say nothing of the whole world, had they repented under Noah's preaching; therefore God's provision for their salvation was too small, or else he had irrevocably decreed the destruction of the people.” This conclusion is all wrong. God extended his mercy to the world. He knew from the very disposition of the human heart that very few had enough love for him to turn against the wicked tide of their scoffing companions; and yet all had the liberty, and were warned to do it. “Yes; but suppose they had repented, then the ark would have proved too small.” Let me assure you, my skeptical friend, that had the whole world repented, yea, had one man more than God had provided for, repented, the flood never would have come. Says Jesus to his disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” It is the nature of salt to preserve. That which preserves the wicked to-day from the thunderbolts of God's wrath is the presence on earth of his people, and the further work to be done for them. Mercy pleads and Justice waits. When the gospel number is made up, Mercy will veil her face, and Justice, stern and unrelenting, will not delay an hour to pour the wrath of God upon the world. But what about the flood? See how it was in the case of Sodom. God promised to spare that wicked city if ten righteous persons could be found in it. They could not; and God, after caring for every righteous one there was there, burned up the balance. So in the flood, God ordered the ark as a sort of gauge, its capacity being a sort of parallel to the number ten in the case of Sodom. If more than the ark-full of righteous should be found, he would spare the world. God would have saved every righteous one, if even he had withheld the flood. Take the case of Nineveh. Jonah's message was like Noah's, without any proviso: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Nineveh repented, and God spared her. The design of every message God sends is fully accomplished if men heed it and repent, and in that case the penalty is always remitted. “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.” Jer. 18:7, 8. So we conclude from the manner in which God deals with men that the ark was big enough. Happy had it been for the world of that day if more had repented than the ark would accommodate. C. W. STONE.