And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. They belonged with him to the family of eight righteous persons left on earth, who stood firm by trust in God's Word and doing right and lived to enter the ark for shelter until God's indignation was overpast. Through his sons the earth was repeopled after the Flood, and from the line of Shem God chose Abraham to keep His law for future generations, for Noah preserved God's law and taught the Ten Commandments to his descendants. The verse stands in the Genesis 6:5-13 record of a world corrupt before God and filled with violence, when every imagination of man was only evil continually and all flesh had corrupted his way. That generation is a picture of the age before the coming of the Son of man, with the world today following the same way of wickedness and becoming the same as then.
Noah's Three Sons
Genesis 6:10 means that Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. They belonged to the account of Noah's generation, whose absorption in ordinary temporal pursuits preceded the Flood and whose widespread impurity and wrongdoing brought destruction as a warning. That generation was marked by selfishness and covetousness producing violence, crime, watching for advantage, and taking the sword to rob and gain strength by unholy ambition, until God would no longer bear with men but washed the earth of its moral pollution by a flood. The verse stands within the setting of the antediluvian world judged by the Flood, which is used to compare conditions before the Flood with those preceding Christ's return, including wars and rumors of wars and nation rising against nation as signs of His coming.
Noah was a real person, and the record of his family is inspired, historical account. That inspired history of the old world is to be read, understood, and kept before the mind. The account of Noah's generation also serves as a picture of the age before Christ's return.
The three sons were part of Noah's family, the only group of eight who lived to enter the ark and find shelter from the flood until God's indignation was overpast. They were among the only righteous people left on earth out of the vast antediluvian population when probation closed. After Adam's transgression sin entered and men grew bold in disobeying God's law, the Lord purposed to give transgressors an exhibition of His power, causing Noah to know His purpose and instructing him to warn the people while building an ark where the obedient could find shelter. God gave that generation one hundred and twenty years to repent while Noah as preacher of righteousness warned of coming judgment and worked building the immense ark on dry land amid mockery and derision, with each passing day shortening probation, yet with only a few repenting, some believing carpenters dying before the Flood and other converts backsliding. When the appointed time came rain was sent from heaven and the foundations of the great deep were broken up so the waters from beneath united with the waters from above to destroy the old world, and the rebellious race were swept away and drank the waters of the flood with death as their portion, exemplifying the truth of God's word that those who would not keep heaven's commandments would be punished.
Though helpless against the people of their time, Noah and his household stood firm through trust in God's Word. God miraculously saved Noah and his family in the ark because they did right.
Through Noah's sons the earth was repeopled after the Flood, but men soon threw off the restraint of God's law and united in hostility against God, transmitting disloyalty to their posterity. From the line of Shem continued after the Flood God chose Abraham and made him the keeper of His law for future generations. Noah preserved God's law and taught the Ten Commandments to his descendants.
While people rejected the warning and continued as before, Noah remained faithful to God amid the surrounding wickedness in the setting of his warning to the world. He was God's faithful servant when nearly all people thought they were right and he was wrong, rejecting his warning that rain would bring a flood, mocking him and dismissing his message, yet their disbelief did not stop the Flood.
Corrupt World Before Flood
Genesis 6:10 stands in the Genesis 6:5-13 record of the antediluvian world, when there were two classes, the righteous like Enoch and Noah who walked with God and the wicked majority given over to iniquity. It stands fifteen centuries after the sentence pronounced upon Cain, when his influence, example, and teaching had reached fruition in bold rebellion, demoralization, crime, and pollution flooding the earth. Cain lived only to harden his heart, encourage rebellion, become the head of bold abandoned sinners, and as one led by Satan become a tempter whose example demoralized others until the earth became so corrupt and filled with violence as to call for its destruction. The influence of his spared life upon his descendants led to that state of corruption that demanded the destruction of the whole world by a flood.
That generation stood only a step from paradise and lived long lives, with rich gifts from God, great inventions, and great strength of body and mind of which men now have but a faint idea. They perverted His bounties and strength and skill, using them for selfish purposes, unlawful appetites, pride, and sinful pleasure, and forgot God. They expelled God from their thoughts, despised His law, and trampled His standard of character in the dust, corrupting their ways before God and corrupting one another. Talented men of skill and knowledge had become corrupt in imagination because they left God out of their plans and councils and were wise to do evil.
The wickedness of man was great, every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, all flesh had corrupted his way, and the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence, crime, and bloodshed. Neither the marriage relation nor the rights of property were respected, and violence and crime filled the earth until the cries of the oppressed entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. By beholding evil men were changed into its image, until God could bear their wickedness no longer and they were swept away by the Flood. That widespread wickedness and violence bringing God's judgment supplies the setting for the warning that similar conditions prevail as earth's history nears its close.
That dark history illustrates what permitting the sinner to live on forever in rebellion against God would produce, for divine forbearance only made the wicked more bold and defiant. The history of the antediluvians testifies that long life is not a blessing to the sinner, that God's great forbearance did not repress their wickedness, and that the longer men lived the more corrupt they became. The sentence of death upon the fallen race for transgression of God's law was therefore both just and merciful, cutting short unbridled iniquity and freeing the world from hardened rebels as a blessing rather than a curse. Unless the apostasy at Sinai had been speedily punished, the same results would have been seen and the earth would have become as corrupt as in the days of Noah.
The human family grew self-indulgent and sacrificed health upon the altar of lustful appetite, becoming intemperate in eating and drinking. They demanded flesh meats although God had given them no permission to eat animal food until after the Flood, eating and drinking to excess with depraved appetites that knew no bounds. The food God designed for the race was the fruit of the trees in the garden, and there was to be no death of any creature in Eden. Indulgence inflamed passions and led to widespread corruption, violence, and crime, and Satan overcame the Old World through lustful appetite and corrupt passions. They gave themselves up to abominable idolatry and became violent and ferocious and so corrupt that God could bear with them no longer, their cup of iniquity was full, and God cleansed the earth of its moral pollution by a flood.
Corruption included licentiousness and impurity of long standing, with men choosing to follow the imaginations of their own corrupt minds and dishonoring God by their wicked inventions. A spirit excused bold, familiar, unreserved freedom between men and women as innocent so long as virtue was kept, and that spirit led to every species of corruption. Indulgence in unlawful things depraved mankind, dwarfed the mind, and perverted the faculties, with increasing dissipation, indecent pictures posted to allure the eyes and deprave morals, presentations stirring the basest passions through corrupt imaginings, and defiling practices like those in which the Sodomites indulged, with the most terrible practiced under the garb of sanctity. By indulgence in licentiousness and destructive lusts they became corrupt in body and soul and hated the God who made them, until they could no longer discern the difference between the pure affections God gave human nature and sinful lust. As long as Satan lives he works constantly and untiringly to make the world that wicked and licentious again, as licentious as Sodom and Gomorrah, mingling impurity with the presentation of truth, placing nature as God, and putting on a form of godliness without any real godliness.
Selfishness and covetousness produced violence, crime, and all kinds of wickedness, with men watching for advantage and taking the sword to rob and gain strength by unholy ambition. There were wickedness and falsehood and crime of every stripe and type to obtain money, selfishness, deceit, robbery and bloodshed, increased greed for possessions, transgression of God's law, trading on the Lord's goods, and the poor made so by dishonest stewardship, making the world a veritable Sodom where riches cannot save one soul from perdition. Step by step the world is reaching those same conditions again, including confusion, strife and discord between labor and capital, hypocrisy in the churches, a round of gaiety and pleasure-seeking and eating and drinking that leaves no time to meditate, and ambition to make an exhibition that exalts self. Every conceivable crime is committed, including the lust of the flesh, the pride of the eyes, the display of selfishness, the misuse of power, cruelty, and force used to cause men to unite with confederacies and unions, binding themselves up in bundles for the burning of the great fires of the last days, with speculative dealing in mining stocks and land at figures far above real value, fraud, bankruptcies, oppression of the weak, widows and fatherless, display, plays, amusements, horse-races and rewards for sports, and absorption in ordinary temporal pursuits, all the working of satanic agencies in crowded cities in what men call life.
Men placed their own intellect above the wisdom of God and did not honor God by doing His service, but chose to follow the imaginations of their own corrupt minds and evil hearts. Separated from Jehovah they fell speedily under Satan's jurisdiction, were imbued with his attributes, and worked out his schemes according to the principles he followed when he raised a revolt in heaven. Sinners wanted freedom by casting aside all restraint of the law of God, rejecting His authority and living in transgression with sinful tempers, appetites, tastes, and attributes arrayed in hostility to God. Their actions created a condition based on false, godless principles, the fear of God became almost extinct, men sold themselves to work wickedness and oppressed all who did not meet their own measure, and physical suffering caused by spiritual oppression and the control of conscience by human enactments began then. Satan employs mind upon mind to carry out his designs through human agents to deceive and corrupt empires and churches from beginning to end, with unrestrained license of human will and the counsel of the ungodly.
Warning Rejected During Probation
In mercy God gave the antediluvian world a probation of one hundred and twenty years while the immense ark, a boat on dry land, was building. During that time Noah as preacher of righteousness knew God's purpose and was instructed to warn the people so the obedient could find shelter until God's indignation was overpast. With him Methuselah and many others warned and entreated, and every blow struck on the ark was a warning message. When the long probation was about to close, the obedient were distinguished from the disobedient by the standard of God's law.
Noah was not alone in obedience but was joined by helpers constantly at work preparing the ark. Many other believing ones kept the faith and died triumphant before the close. Amid extraordinary self-importance, swelling pride, continued deeds of unrighteousness, and universal scorn thrown upon God's law and upon Noah and his helpers, he did not lose reverence and love for the law but, with those who died in the faith, preached all the more earnestly in proportion to the ridicule and scorn heaped upon them.
Many helped Noah build the ark who did not believe the startling message and did not cleanse themselves from wrong principles or overcome temptation to do and say things contrary to the mind and will of God. Some who heard listened for a time and even worked with him, but they did not endure; evil influences prevailed, and they turned away from the truth to become scoffers. Some believing carpenters died before the Flood and other converts backslid, leaving at last only eight to live to enter the ark. The same pattern will be repeated in the last days: those who hear the message of truth today but do not believe and become firmly grounded will fall amid moral infidelity and will not stand till the end of their probation, and when the Lord rewards every man according to his deeds they will understand that His message would have been their life and salvation if they had accepted the evidence given and practiced the condition laid down.
Nearly all thought they were right and Noah was wrong, and they wasted that graciously granted probation by mocking, ridiculing, caricaturing, criticizing, and laughing at his peculiar earnestness and intense feeling about coming judgments. They talked of science and the laws controlling nature and held a carnival over his words, calling him a crazed alarmist and crazy fanatic. Their disbelief did not stop the Flood. Just so, anyone publicly foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem when the city had been beautified and strengthened with towers, walls, and fortresses under Herod so as to appear impregnable would have been called a crazed alarmist.
Their repeated rejection of the messages God sent wore out His long-suffering patience and exhausted His patience, so that these despisers of His mercy were made to drink the waters of the flood. Their wickedness brings destruction despite God's long forbearance, long patience and mercy, which does not make the punishment any less severe for being long delayed. Only a few were saved in the ark — Noah and his family — because the others would not believe. The Flood thus illustrates that the majority may perish while only a few are saved, and the small number who remain faithful should not be discouraged or follow the majority. This past history of Adam's fall, Noah's preaching, extended probation, and final destruction was taught that Israel might prepare for the advent of Christ.
Flood Judgment and Aftermath
Genesis 6:10 stands in the account of the Old World before the Flood, when the human family had grown self-indulgent and sacrificed health upon lustful appetite, intemperate in eating and drinking, demanding flesh meats though no permission to eat animal food had yet been given, eating and drinking to excess with depraved appetites that knew no bounds until passions were inflamed. The food designed for the race was the fruit of the trees in the garden, where there was to be no death of any creature in Eden. The inhabitants gave themselves to abominable idolatry and became violent and ferocious and so corrupt, with widespread corruption, violence and crime, that God could bear with them no longer and their cup of iniquity was full.
Noah's three sons named in Genesis 6:10 were part of the only righteous people left on earth, only eight souls saved out of the vast antediluvian population when probation closed after one hundred and twenty years of warning while Noah as preacher of righteousness knew God's purpose and built the immense ark as a boat on dry land amid mockery, with some believing carpenters dying before the Flood and other converts backsliding. When the appointed time came God in mercy blotted out the wicked world, sending rain from heaven while the foundations of the great deep were broken up so that waters from beneath united with waters from above to destroy the old world. The rebellious race were swept away and drank the waters of the Flood with death as their portion, and God thus cleansed the earth of its moral pollution.
That destruction exemplifies the truth of God's word that those who would not keep heaven's commandments would be punished. Retribution will overtake the wrongdoer, riches cannot save one soul from perdition, and he who gives himself to work Satan's works creates a force of evil he cannot repress. The dark history fifteen centuries after the sentence on Cain, when his influence, example and teaching had reached fruition in bold rebellion until crime and pollution flooded the earth, illustrates what permitting the sinner to live on forever in rebellion would produce, shows divine forbearance only made the wicked more bold and defiant, and manifests the death sentence on the fallen race for transgression as both just and merciful, cutting short unbridled iniquity and freeing the world from hardened rebels as a blessing. God's retributive justice in destroying the Noachic world, Sodom, and the Jewish nation vindicates His honor and magnifies His law as honorable, sure and steadfast forever.
Through Noah's sons the earth was repeopled after the Flood, but as men multiplied they soon threw off the restraint of God's law, forgot God, corrupted their ways before Him, united in hostility against God transmitting disloyalty to posterity, and intemperance in every form increased to a great extent. Hearts fully set to do evil advanced from one degree of sinfulness to greater, refusing all warnings and rejecting Thus saith the Lord for fables, and God's long forbearance, patience and mercy do not make punishment less severe for being long delayed. The same evil and the same destruction is seen in Sodom and in the Jewish nation whose destruction typifies the destruction of the world, each century treasuring up wrath until a time of trouble throughout the whole earth such as never was since there was a nation. That trouble falls most surely on those who educate and deceive the people to accept errors for truth and turn from God's commandments, when His law is fully made void and His patience is worn out.
Picture of Last Days
Noah's generation is a picture of the age before the coming of Christ and the coming of the Son of man, and its widespread wickedness, violence, war, bloodshed, calamity and judgment will resemble conditions in the very last days. Then there were two classes, the righteous like Enoch and Noah who walked with God and the wicked majority given over to iniquity, when wickedness was great and every imagination was only evil continually and all flesh had corrupted its way and the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence, so that the Lord grieved that He had made man and declared He would destroy man and beast and creeping thing and fowl and told Noah the end of all flesh had come. That time of widespread wickedness and violence bringing God's judgment is presented as the pattern for the world before Christ's coming, when people disregard warnings while evil and worldly pursuits occupy them, and similar conditions prevail as earth's history nears its close. The world today follows the same way and is fast becoming and being made the same as then.
The same corruption that existed before the destruction of the old world exists now in the last days, even among some who profess present truth, so the world is almost ripe for destruction as the old world was. That generation stood only a step from paradise with long lives and rich gifts from God and great strength of body and mind, but used His bounties and strength and skill for selfish purposes, unlawful appetites, pride and sinful pleasure, expelling God from thought, despising His law and trampling His standard of character, corrupting their ways before God and corrupting one another until by beholding evil they were changed into its image and God could bear their wickedness no longer and they were swept away. Neither the marriage relation nor the rights of property were respected, and violence and crime filled the earth until the cries of the oppressed entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, a moral pollution now repeated in present society and compared with corruption in large cities today through disregard for God and His law, selfish pleasure, pride and disregard for the weak. The same dishonest practices then are compared with dishonest practices now, including speculation in lands and mines, and Noah's time is connected with the unions and social conditions of the present age.
Present signs repeating the old world include increasing calamities, earthquakes, floods and disasters by land and by sea, for God looks upon the world today as He looked upon it then and sends His messages today as He sent them through Noah while the ark was building. That history of selfishness and covetousness producing violence, crime and all kinds of wickedness, with men watching for advantage and taking the sword to rob and gain strength by unholy ambition until God would no longer bear with men but washed the earth of its moral pollution, is a warning for the present because the same violence is returning in wars and rumors of wars and nation rising against nation as signs of Christ's coming. God in mercy and love gave the antediluvians a probation of one hundred and twenty years during which Noah with Methuselah and many others warned and entreated, and the past is repeating today as God sends plain warnings through earthquakes and through judgments already falling in flood and flame, showing how quickly the ungodly will perish when His judgments fall. Step by step the world is reaching those same conditions again, including confusion, strife and discord between labor and capital, hypocrisy in the churches, a round of gaiety and pleasure-seeking and eating and drinking that leaves no time to meditate, and ambition to make an exhibition that exalts self, with every conceivable crime including lust of the flesh, pride of the eyes, display of selfishness, misuse of power, cruelty and force used to cause men to unite with confederacies and unions, binding themselves in bundles for the burning of the great fires of the last days, all the working of satanic agencies in crowded cities in what men call life. The wickedness now revealed in cities like San Francisco and Oakland, with men determined to carry out their own plans regardless of others, destroying property and attempting to destroy life, seeking their own way and will instead of depending on God and self-sufficient and needing conversion by the Spirit operating on the heart, is like that before the Flood.
Noah's preaching before the Flood warned, tested and proved the people, and their destruction followed when the Flood came, serving as a parallel to the warning message for the last days which likewise tests and proves the world. All were tested by the truth Noah preached, and those who believed were saved, for the ark was used by God to save all who would hear the warning and turn from unrighteousness, when only eight persons including Noah's three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth were saved because of the world's iniquity. All who refuse to repent will perish.
Call to Faithful Living
The time of Noah's three sons was a time when wickedness of every description was abroad and the earth was ripe for destruction, and that same polluted and corrupted condition is fast returning now. The only remedy for that pollution is belief in the truth and acceptance of the light. Those who believe Christ is soon coming must take their stand fully on the Lord's side with God's loyal people. Those who see the need for the new life to be formed within, to be like Christ in character, must contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, as all who live godly in Christ Jesus must do, for not one who chooses the course of following the imagination of an evil heart and ignoring truth and righteousness will enter heaven.
In such corruption God's faithful people are to be separated in practice from all the people on the earth. They are to guard their charge as a shepherd guards his flock, seeking the Lord with all the heart and finding Him. They are to refuse to lead those connected with them into close connection with the world and its selfish customs and gratification. They are to educate them to render undivided service to God with greatest care to practice right principles and betray no sacred trust.
The sins of Noah's days are the same sins existing now, when selfishness, violence, and crime prevail through excessive indulgence of appetites and passions. That condition calls for a message of warning to the world, a work of decided reform, a higher plane of action, and family self-denial and self-sacrifice to fit a people for the coming of Christ. Especially there must be refusal to corrupt soul and body by intemperance in eating and drinking, but eating and drinking to the glory of God, keeping the brain clear and the body as free as possible from disease. The church must keep her light by keeping the light of health reform on this higher plane, for if that light is refused the candlestick is removed and those left behind are left in the background.
Before the Flood indulgence in unlawful things depraved mankind, dwarfed the mind, and perverted the faculties amid increasing dissipation, indecent pictures posted to allure the eyes and deprave morals, presentations stirring the basest passions through corrupt imaginings, and defiling practices like those of Sodom, with the most terrible practiced under garb of sanctity. Just such a state as existed then exists today, and youth will be defiled, their thoughts degraded, and their souls polluted unless they are barricaded with the truth. As long as Satan lives he works constantly and untiringly to make the world that wicked and licentious again, as licentious as Sodom and Gomorrah. Therefore watchfulness and vigilance are needed now, the lustful eye turned from vanity, boldness and immodesty met with decided rebuke, self-confidence put away, and daily prayer offered that God will preserve the heart from evil desires and strengthen the soul to resist temptation.
The days of Noah were filled with strife and war and bloodshed and wickedness of every kind, and the world rapidly nearing the end is being made the same. Therefore Christians must not war among themselves, but be united in one interest to advance God's kingdom. The earth before the Flood was corrupt and violent, a condition now being repeated in the cities, which are growing more and more like the earth before the Flood and more and more like Sodom. That increasing wickedness is preparing them for the same fate of destruction that came on the pre-flood world and on Sodom, and because of this coming judgment those crowded into the cities should procure land in localities far from the cities where they can cultivate the soil.
Noah was surrounded by enemies of God and of the truth, and believers are so surrounded now, so that every soul on Christ's side will face severe tests in that opposition. In Noah's days the principles of heaven were discarded for worldly policy, spirit, maxims, likings and principles, especially unfairness in deal, unjust and dishonest robbery of God, selfish confederating to grasp all possible gain, and taking large remuneration while restricting others and denying them what is their due and the opportunities Providence offered them. God draws a broad distinct line between such worldly policy and the unselfish, undeviating principles of justice, righteousness and equity. The practices of Noah's days are poison that spreads as others drink of the cup, and must be guarded against from the first tinge and first approach.
Noah's three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth were part of the eight persons only saved in the ark when the world because of its iniquity was destroyed by a flood. The ark was used by God to save all who would hear the warning and turn from their unrighteousness, for all were tested by the truth that Noah preached, and those who believed were saved. The Flood illustrates that the majority may perish while only a few are saved. The small number who remain faithful should not be discouraged or follow the majority.
Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. They belonged with him to the family of eight righteous persons left on earth, who stood firm by trust in God's Word and doing right and lived to enter the ark for shelter until God's indignation was overpast. Through his sons the earth was repeopled after the Flood, and from the line of Shem God chose Abraham to keep His law for future generations, for Noah preserved God's law and taught the Ten Commandments to his descendants. The verse stands in the Genesis 6:5-13 record of a world corrupt before God and filled with violence, when every imagination of man was only evil continually and all flesh had corrupted his way. That generation is a picture of the age before the coming of the Son of man, with the world today following the same way of wickedness and becoming the same as then.
Noah's Three Sons
Genesis 6:10 means that Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. They belonged to the account of Noah's generation, whose absorption in ordinary temporal pursuits preceded the Flood and whose widespread impurity and wrongdoing brought destruction as a warning. That generation was marked by selfishness and covetousness producing violence, crime, watching for advantage, and taking the sword to rob and gain strength by unholy ambition, until God would no longer bear with men but washed the earth of its moral pollution by a flood. The verse stands within the setting of the antediluvian world judged by the Flood, which is used to compare conditions before the Flood with those preceding Christ's return, including wars and rumors of wars and nation rising against nation as signs of His coming.
Noah was a real person, and the record of his family is inspired, historical account. That inspired history of the old world is to be read, understood, and kept before the mind. The account of Noah's generation also serves as a picture of the age before Christ's return.
The three sons were part of Noah's family, the only group of eight who lived to enter the ark and find shelter from the flood until God's indignation was overpast. They were among the only righteous people left on earth out of the vast antediluvian population when probation closed. After Adam's transgression sin entered and men grew bold in disobeying God's law, the Lord purposed to give transgressors an exhibition of His power, causing Noah to know His purpose and instructing him to warn the people while building an ark where the obedient could find shelter. God gave that generation one hundred and twenty years to repent while Noah as preacher of righteousness warned of coming judgment and worked building the immense ark on dry land amid mockery and derision, with each passing day shortening probation, yet with only a few repenting, some believing carpenters dying before the Flood and other converts backsliding. When the appointed time came rain was sent from heaven and the foundations of the great deep were broken up so the waters from beneath united with the waters from above to destroy the old world, and the rebellious race were swept away and drank the waters of the flood with death as their portion, exemplifying the truth of God's word that those who would not keep heaven's commandments would be punished.
Though helpless against the people of their time, Noah and his household stood firm through trust in God's Word. God miraculously saved Noah and his family in the ark because they did right.
Through Noah's sons the earth was repeopled after the Flood, but men soon threw off the restraint of God's law and united in hostility against God, transmitting disloyalty to their posterity. From the line of Shem continued after the Flood God chose Abraham and made him the keeper of His law for future generations. Noah preserved God's law and taught the Ten Commandments to his descendants.
While people rejected the warning and continued as before, Noah remained faithful to God amid the surrounding wickedness in the setting of his warning to the world. He was God's faithful servant when nearly all people thought they were right and he was wrong, rejecting his warning that rain would bring a flood, mocking him and dismissing his message, yet their disbelief did not stop the Flood.
Corrupt World Before Flood
Genesis 6:10 stands in the Genesis 6:5-13 record of the antediluvian world, when there were two classes, the righteous like Enoch and Noah who walked with God and the wicked majority given over to iniquity. It stands fifteen centuries after the sentence pronounced upon Cain, when his influence, example, and teaching had reached fruition in bold rebellion, demoralization, crime, and pollution flooding the earth. Cain lived only to harden his heart, encourage rebellion, become the head of bold abandoned sinners, and as one led by Satan become a tempter whose example demoralized others until the earth became so corrupt and filled with violence as to call for its destruction. The influence of his spared life upon his descendants led to that state of corruption that demanded the destruction of the whole world by a flood.
That generation stood only a step from paradise and lived long lives, with rich gifts from God, great inventions, and great strength of body and mind of which men now have but a faint idea. They perverted His bounties and strength and skill, using them for selfish purposes, unlawful appetites, pride, and sinful pleasure, and forgot God. They expelled God from their thoughts, despised His law, and trampled His standard of character in the dust, corrupting their ways before God and corrupting one another. Talented men of skill and knowledge had become corrupt in imagination because they left God out of their plans and councils and were wise to do evil.
The wickedness of man was great, every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, all flesh had corrupted his way, and the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence, crime, and bloodshed. Neither the marriage relation nor the rights of property were respected, and violence and crime filled the earth until the cries of the oppressed entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. By beholding evil men were changed into its image, until God could bear their wickedness no longer and they were swept away by the Flood. That widespread wickedness and violence bringing God's judgment supplies the setting for the warning that similar conditions prevail as earth's history nears its close.
That dark history illustrates what permitting the sinner to live on forever in rebellion against God would produce, for divine forbearance only made the wicked more bold and defiant. The history of the antediluvians testifies that long life is not a blessing to the sinner, that God's great forbearance did not repress their wickedness, and that the longer men lived the more corrupt they became. The sentence of death upon the fallen race for transgression of God's law was therefore both just and merciful, cutting short unbridled iniquity and freeing the world from hardened rebels as a blessing rather than a curse. Unless the apostasy at Sinai had been speedily punished, the same results would have been seen and the earth would have become as corrupt as in the days of Noah.
The human family grew self-indulgent and sacrificed health upon the altar of lustful appetite, becoming intemperate in eating and drinking. They demanded flesh meats although God had given them no permission to eat animal food until after the Flood, eating and drinking to excess with depraved appetites that knew no bounds. The food God designed for the race was the fruit of the trees in the garden, and there was to be no death of any creature in Eden. Indulgence inflamed passions and led to widespread corruption, violence, and crime, and Satan overcame the Old World through lustful appetite and corrupt passions. They gave themselves up to abominable idolatry and became violent and ferocious and so corrupt that God could bear with them no longer, their cup of iniquity was full, and God cleansed the earth of its moral pollution by a flood.
Corruption included licentiousness and impurity of long standing, with men choosing to follow the imaginations of their own corrupt minds and dishonoring God by their wicked inventions. A spirit excused bold, familiar, unreserved freedom between men and women as innocent so long as virtue was kept, and that spirit led to every species of corruption. Indulgence in unlawful things depraved mankind, dwarfed the mind, and perverted the faculties, with increasing dissipation, indecent pictures posted to allure the eyes and deprave morals, presentations stirring the basest passions through corrupt imaginings, and defiling practices like those in which the Sodomites indulged, with the most terrible practiced under the garb of sanctity. By indulgence in licentiousness and destructive lusts they became corrupt in body and soul and hated the God who made them, until they could no longer discern the difference between the pure affections God gave human nature and sinful lust. As long as Satan lives he works constantly and untiringly to make the world that wicked and licentious again, as licentious as Sodom and Gomorrah, mingling impurity with the presentation of truth, placing nature as God, and putting on a form of godliness without any real godliness.
Selfishness and covetousness produced violence, crime, and all kinds of wickedness, with men watching for advantage and taking the sword to rob and gain strength by unholy ambition. There were wickedness and falsehood and crime of every stripe and type to obtain money, selfishness, deceit, robbery and bloodshed, increased greed for possessions, transgression of God's law, trading on the Lord's goods, and the poor made so by dishonest stewardship, making the world a veritable Sodom where riches cannot save one soul from perdition. Step by step the world is reaching those same conditions again, including confusion, strife and discord between labor and capital, hypocrisy in the churches, a round of gaiety and pleasure-seeking and eating and drinking that leaves no time to meditate, and ambition to make an exhibition that exalts self. Every conceivable crime is committed, including the lust of the flesh, the pride of the eyes, the display of selfishness, the misuse of power, cruelty, and force used to cause men to unite with confederacies and unions, binding themselves up in bundles for the burning of the great fires of the last days, with speculative dealing in mining stocks and land at figures far above real value, fraud, bankruptcies, oppression of the weak, widows and fatherless, display, plays, amusements, horse-races and rewards for sports, and absorption in ordinary temporal pursuits, all the working of satanic agencies in crowded cities in what men call life.
Men placed their own intellect above the wisdom of God and did not honor God by doing His service, but chose to follow the imaginations of their own corrupt minds and evil hearts. Separated from Jehovah they fell speedily under Satan's jurisdiction, were imbued with his attributes, and worked out his schemes according to the principles he followed when he raised a revolt in heaven. Sinners wanted freedom by casting aside all restraint of the law of God, rejecting His authority and living in transgression with sinful tempers, appetites, tastes, and attributes arrayed in hostility to God. Their actions created a condition based on false, godless principles, the fear of God became almost extinct, men sold themselves to work wickedness and oppressed all who did not meet their own measure, and physical suffering caused by spiritual oppression and the control of conscience by human enactments began then. Satan employs mind upon mind to carry out his designs through human agents to deceive and corrupt empires and churches from beginning to end, with unrestrained license of human will and the counsel of the ungodly.
Warning Rejected During Probation
In mercy God gave the antediluvian world a probation of one hundred and twenty years while the immense ark, a boat on dry land, was building. During that time Noah as preacher of righteousness knew God's purpose and was instructed to warn the people so the obedient could find shelter until God's indignation was overpast. With him Methuselah and many others warned and entreated, and every blow struck on the ark was a warning message. When the long probation was about to close, the obedient were distinguished from the disobedient by the standard of God's law.
Noah was not alone in obedience but was joined by helpers constantly at work preparing the ark. Many other believing ones kept the faith and died triumphant before the close. Amid extraordinary self-importance, swelling pride, continued deeds of unrighteousness, and universal scorn thrown upon God's law and upon Noah and his helpers, he did not lose reverence and love for the law but, with those who died in the faith, preached all the more earnestly in proportion to the ridicule and scorn heaped upon them.
Many helped Noah build the ark who did not believe the startling message and did not cleanse themselves from wrong principles or overcome temptation to do and say things contrary to the mind and will of God. Some who heard listened for a time and even worked with him, but they did not endure; evil influences prevailed, and they turned away from the truth to become scoffers. Some believing carpenters died before the Flood and other converts backslid, leaving at last only eight to live to enter the ark. The same pattern will be repeated in the last days: those who hear the message of truth today but do not believe and become firmly grounded will fall amid moral infidelity and will not stand till the end of their probation, and when the Lord rewards every man according to his deeds they will understand that His message would have been their life and salvation if they had accepted the evidence given and practiced the condition laid down.
Nearly all thought they were right and Noah was wrong, and they wasted that graciously granted probation by mocking, ridiculing, caricaturing, criticizing, and laughing at his peculiar earnestness and intense feeling about coming judgments. They talked of science and the laws controlling nature and held a carnival over his words, calling him a crazed alarmist and crazy fanatic. Their disbelief did not stop the Flood. Just so, anyone publicly foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem when the city had been beautified and strengthened with towers, walls, and fortresses under Herod so as to appear impregnable would have been called a crazed alarmist.
Their repeated rejection of the messages God sent wore out His long-suffering patience and exhausted His patience, so that these despisers of His mercy were made to drink the waters of the flood. Their wickedness brings destruction despite God's long forbearance, long patience and mercy, which does not make the punishment any less severe for being long delayed. Only a few were saved in the ark — Noah and his family — because the others would not believe. The Flood thus illustrates that the majority may perish while only a few are saved, and the small number who remain faithful should not be discouraged or follow the majority. This past history of Adam's fall, Noah's preaching, extended probation, and final destruction was taught that Israel might prepare for the advent of Christ.
Flood Judgment and Aftermath
Genesis 6:10 stands in the account of the Old World before the Flood, when the human family had grown self-indulgent and sacrificed health upon lustful appetite, intemperate in eating and drinking, demanding flesh meats though no permission to eat animal food had yet been given, eating and drinking to excess with depraved appetites that knew no bounds until passions were inflamed. The food designed for the race was the fruit of the trees in the garden, where there was to be no death of any creature in Eden. The inhabitants gave themselves to abominable idolatry and became violent and ferocious and so corrupt, with widespread corruption, violence and crime, that God could bear with them no longer and their cup of iniquity was full.
Noah's three sons named in Genesis 6:10 were part of the only righteous people left on earth, only eight souls saved out of the vast antediluvian population when probation closed after one hundred and twenty years of warning while Noah as preacher of righteousness knew God's purpose and built the immense ark as a boat on dry land amid mockery, with some believing carpenters dying before the Flood and other converts backsliding. When the appointed time came God in mercy blotted out the wicked world, sending rain from heaven while the foundations of the great deep were broken up so that waters from beneath united with waters from above to destroy the old world. The rebellious race were swept away and drank the waters of the Flood with death as their portion, and God thus cleansed the earth of its moral pollution.
That destruction exemplifies the truth of God's word that those who would not keep heaven's commandments would be punished. Retribution will overtake the wrongdoer, riches cannot save one soul from perdition, and he who gives himself to work Satan's works creates a force of evil he cannot repress. The dark history fifteen centuries after the sentence on Cain, when his influence, example and teaching had reached fruition in bold rebellion until crime and pollution flooded the earth, illustrates what permitting the sinner to live on forever in rebellion would produce, shows divine forbearance only made the wicked more bold and defiant, and manifests the death sentence on the fallen race for transgression as both just and merciful, cutting short unbridled iniquity and freeing the world from hardened rebels as a blessing. God's retributive justice in destroying the Noachic world, Sodom, and the Jewish nation vindicates His honor and magnifies His law as honorable, sure and steadfast forever.
Through Noah's sons the earth was repeopled after the Flood, but as men multiplied they soon threw off the restraint of God's law, forgot God, corrupted their ways before Him, united in hostility against God transmitting disloyalty to posterity, and intemperance in every form increased to a great extent. Hearts fully set to do evil advanced from one degree of sinfulness to greater, refusing all warnings and rejecting Thus saith the Lord for fables, and God's long forbearance, patience and mercy do not make punishment less severe for being long delayed. The same evil and the same destruction is seen in Sodom and in the Jewish nation whose destruction typifies the destruction of the world, each century treasuring up wrath until a time of trouble throughout the whole earth such as never was since there was a nation. That trouble falls most surely on those who educate and deceive the people to accept errors for truth and turn from God's commandments, when His law is fully made void and His patience is worn out.
Picture of Last Days
Noah's generation is a picture of the age before the coming of Christ and the coming of the Son of man, and its widespread wickedness, violence, war, bloodshed, calamity and judgment will resemble conditions in the very last days. Then there were two classes, the righteous like Enoch and Noah who walked with God and the wicked majority given over to iniquity, when wickedness was great and every imagination was only evil continually and all flesh had corrupted its way and the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence, so that the Lord grieved that He had made man and declared He would destroy man and beast and creeping thing and fowl and told Noah the end of all flesh had come. That time of widespread wickedness and violence bringing God's judgment is presented as the pattern for the world before Christ's coming, when people disregard warnings while evil and worldly pursuits occupy them, and similar conditions prevail as earth's history nears its close. The world today follows the same way and is fast becoming and being made the same as then.
The same corruption that existed before the destruction of the old world exists now in the last days, even among some who profess present truth, so the world is almost ripe for destruction as the old world was. That generation stood only a step from paradise with long lives and rich gifts from God and great strength of body and mind, but used His bounties and strength and skill for selfish purposes, unlawful appetites, pride and sinful pleasure, expelling God from thought, despising His law and trampling His standard of character, corrupting their ways before God and corrupting one another until by beholding evil they were changed into its image and God could bear their wickedness no longer and they were swept away. Neither the marriage relation nor the rights of property were respected, and violence and crime filled the earth until the cries of the oppressed entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, a moral pollution now repeated in present society and compared with corruption in large cities today through disregard for God and His law, selfish pleasure, pride and disregard for the weak. The same dishonest practices then are compared with dishonest practices now, including speculation in lands and mines, and Noah's time is connected with the unions and social conditions of the present age.
Present signs repeating the old world include increasing calamities, earthquakes, floods and disasters by land and by sea, for God looks upon the world today as He looked upon it then and sends His messages today as He sent them through Noah while the ark was building. That history of selfishness and covetousness producing violence, crime and all kinds of wickedness, with men watching for advantage and taking the sword to rob and gain strength by unholy ambition until God would no longer bear with men but washed the earth of its moral pollution, is a warning for the present because the same violence is returning in wars and rumors of wars and nation rising against nation as signs of Christ's coming. God in mercy and love gave the antediluvians a probation of one hundred and twenty years during which Noah with Methuselah and many others warned and entreated, and the past is repeating today as God sends plain warnings through earthquakes and through judgments already falling in flood and flame, showing how quickly the ungodly will perish when His judgments fall. Step by step the world is reaching those same conditions again, including confusion, strife and discord between labor and capital, hypocrisy in the churches, a round of gaiety and pleasure-seeking and eating and drinking that leaves no time to meditate, and ambition to make an exhibition that exalts self, with every conceivable crime including lust of the flesh, pride of the eyes, display of selfishness, misuse of power, cruelty and force used to cause men to unite with confederacies and unions, binding themselves in bundles for the burning of the great fires of the last days, all the working of satanic agencies in crowded cities in what men call life. The wickedness now revealed in cities like San Francisco and Oakland, with men determined to carry out their own plans regardless of others, destroying property and attempting to destroy life, seeking their own way and will instead of depending on God and self-sufficient and needing conversion by the Spirit operating on the heart, is like that before the Flood.
Noah's preaching before the Flood warned, tested and proved the people, and their destruction followed when the Flood came, serving as a parallel to the warning message for the last days which likewise tests and proves the world. All were tested by the truth Noah preached, and those who believed were saved, for the ark was used by God to save all who would hear the warning and turn from unrighteousness, when only eight persons including Noah's three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth were saved because of the world's iniquity. All who refuse to repent will perish.
Call to Faithful Living
The time of Noah's three sons was a time when wickedness of every description was abroad and the earth was ripe for destruction, and that same polluted and corrupted condition is fast returning now. The only remedy for that pollution is belief in the truth and acceptance of the light. Those who believe Christ is soon coming must take their stand fully on the Lord's side with God's loyal people. Those who see the need for the new life to be formed within, to be like Christ in character, must contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, as all who live godly in Christ Jesus must do, for not one who chooses the course of following the imagination of an evil heart and ignoring truth and righteousness will enter heaven.
In such corruption God's faithful people are to be separated in practice from all the people on the earth. They are to guard their charge as a shepherd guards his flock, seeking the Lord with all the heart and finding Him. They are to refuse to lead those connected with them into close connection with the world and its selfish customs and gratification. They are to educate them to render undivided service to God with greatest care to practice right principles and betray no sacred trust.
The sins of Noah's days are the same sins existing now, when selfishness, violence, and crime prevail through excessive indulgence of appetites and passions. That condition calls for a message of warning to the world, a work of decided reform, a higher plane of action, and family self-denial and self-sacrifice to fit a people for the coming of Christ. Especially there must be refusal to corrupt soul and body by intemperance in eating and drinking, but eating and drinking to the glory of God, keeping the brain clear and the body as free as possible from disease. The church must keep her light by keeping the light of health reform on this higher plane, for if that light is refused the candlestick is removed and those left behind are left in the background.
Before the Flood indulgence in unlawful things depraved mankind, dwarfed the mind, and perverted the faculties amid increasing dissipation, indecent pictures posted to allure the eyes and deprave morals, presentations stirring the basest passions through corrupt imaginings, and defiling practices like those of Sodom, with the most terrible practiced under garb of sanctity. Just such a state as existed then exists today, and youth will be defiled, their thoughts degraded, and their souls polluted unless they are barricaded with the truth. As long as Satan lives he works constantly and untiringly to make the world that wicked and licentious again, as licentious as Sodom and Gomorrah. Therefore watchfulness and vigilance are needed now, the lustful eye turned from vanity, boldness and immodesty met with decided rebuke, self-confidence put away, and daily prayer offered that God will preserve the heart from evil desires and strengthen the soul to resist temptation.
The days of Noah were filled with strife and war and bloodshed and wickedness of every kind, and the world rapidly nearing the end is being made the same. Therefore Christians must not war among themselves, but be united in one interest to advance God's kingdom. The earth before the Flood was corrupt and violent, a condition now being repeated in the cities, which are growing more and more like the earth before the Flood and more and more like Sodom. That increasing wickedness is preparing them for the same fate of destruction that came on the pre-flood world and on Sodom, and because of this coming judgment those crowded into the cities should procure land in localities far from the cities where they can cultivate the soil.
Noah was surrounded by enemies of God and of the truth, and believers are so surrounded now, so that every soul on Christ's side will face severe tests in that opposition. In Noah's days the principles of heaven were discarded for worldly policy, spirit, maxims, likings and principles, especially unfairness in deal, unjust and dishonest robbery of God, selfish confederating to grasp all possible gain, and taking large remuneration while restricting others and denying them what is their due and the opportunities Providence offered them. God draws a broad distinct line between such worldly policy and the unselfish, undeviating principles of justice, righteousness and equity. The practices of Noah's days are poison that spreads as others drink of the cup, and must be guarded against from the first tinge and first approach.
Noah's three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth were part of the eight persons only saved in the ark when the world because of its iniquity was destroyed by a flood. The ark was used by God to save all who would hear the warning and turn from their unrighteousness, for all were tested by the truth that Noah preached, and those who believed were saved. The Flood illustrates that the majority may perish while only a few are saved. The small number who remain faithful should not be discouraged or follow the majority.