And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
God Himself inspected the earth before the Flood and found it corrupt before Him and filled with violence, because all flesh had corrupted His way, and for this He determined to destroy man from the face of the earth. To corrupt His way means to turn from the right way of living He gave, refusing to do His holy will and departing from the principles of His law, which is the transcript of His character made known from Adam for human good. The corruption was universal and inward as well as outward, with every imagination of the heart only evil continually, showing itself in violence and bloodshed, intemperate eating and drinking, polygamy and unrestrained immorality, and the perversion of great strength, intellect and skill to selfish and cruel ends. In long-suffering God granted one hundred and twenty years of probation while His Spirit strove with men, making His purpose known to Noah to preach repentance and build the ark, yet only eight persons entered and were saved while the flood cleansed the earth of its moral pollution. As it was in the days of Noah so it will be when the Son of man is revealed, for the same corrupt and violent condition is again current with no new evils, bringing impending sudden destruction on all who reject the warning.
God's Look and Verdict
God Himself inspected the earth before the Flood and found it corrupt before Him and filled with violence, for all flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth, and this is why He destroyed man from the face of the earth. The corruption meant constant repetition of actions against the law of God, against truth and righteousness, against His will and plain requirements, until evil habits became nature and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. The subjects He had created were spoiling the whole earth, and that state brought the sword of justice to destroy them with the earth. The same relentless destruction is prepared for those in the present day who by continual evil thoughts lose free agency and bind themselves as slaves to Satan while refusing heaven's gift of redemption, and the condition before the Flood is a warning that the world can again become marked by widespread wickedness and moral corruption.
The corruption belonged to the great majority who turned from the way God intended them to live and were given over to wickedness, in contrast with the righteous who walked with God. Noah is the exception, for he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, remained faithful and righteous amid pollution and wickedness, and with his household trusted God's word and stood against the people of his time while they rejected the warning given through him and carried on as though God had not spoken. Lot was afterward saved from Sodom on the same ground because he did not corrupt his way before God. Amid that prevailing corruption Methuselah, Noah, and many others labored to keep alive the knowledge of the true God and to hold back the tide of moral evil, with Enoch walking uprightly with God and telling his children what God had shown him about the Flood, and with Methuselah and his sons living to hear Noah's preaching and helping build the ark.
The corrupt state was inward and outward moral ruin, with every imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually and the heart of man deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Thoughts were set on pleasure and indulgence, refusing the counsel of the God who created them and not caring to do His will, following the imagination of their own hearts, with purposes and desires continually evil and violence filling the land. Great physical strength, intelligence, skill, large intellect and cunning work were turned to wrongdoing, and their abilities increased their guilt when they used them in unbridled iniquity, rejecting God and acting cruelly and oppressively toward those who could not resist them. That state wearied God and brought His rebuke and grief of heart and His declared purpose to Noah to destroy them from the earth, and Christ held up that careless disregard of principle in the days before the Flood as the pattern for conditions at the coming of the Son of man.
Human sin made the earth itself corrupt, defiled and spoiled by violence and depraved works. God had surrounded people with precious earthly blessings because He loved them, and the world before the Flood was far more beautiful, grand and lovely than present nature, but people turned those blessings into a curse by using them to gratify pride and glorify themselves, misusing His provisions and dishonoring the Creator. That corruption included selfishness and covetousness leading to violence, crime and all kinds of wickedness, nation rising against nation and watching for advantage, and presumptuous, daring deeds of unholy ambition robbing others to gain strength. The sin Satan introduced through Adam's disobedience opened the floodgates of woe upon the world and cursed the earth, and the wickedness of men became moral pollution upon the earth so great that God would no longer bear with them. Because of that sinfulness God destroyed both the wicked people and the polluted earth, washing the earth clean by the Flood and destroying all the inhabitants of the old world except one family. The Flood bears testimony to all who shall live upon the earth of the result of sin and transgression, showing that God has not changed, and the same corrupting power of sin still spoils the earth now, so that without it the earth would be a happy place but every place inhabited by human beings is degraded by sin; that history is to be read, understood and kept before the mind now as warning, because the same evils are fulfilling the signs of Christ's coming.
Meaning of Corrupted Way
To corrupt God's way means all flesh turned from the right way of living God gave, refusing to do His holy will and following unholy imagination and perverted ideas instead. It was a refusal of Christ as rightful governor and owner of the whole human family and a departure from the principles of His law, bringing defilement upon the earth. The corruption came from wanting freedom from all restraint by casting aside the law of God, and that same desire to get rid of the law has made the world today corrupt as in the days of Noah.
The corruption was nonconformity to and continual transgression of the law of God, with wickedness and violence filling the earth until refusal to obey His commandments brought the flood judgment that destroyed the inhabitants of the old world. That law, the transcript of His character given for human good, had been made known from Adam and handed down through faithful generations, yet was continually transgressed until a flood of waters was called for. The turning from God's way through transgressing His law was accompanied by evil thoughts, idolatry, deception, and disregard for others' rights, property, and lives, rejected with extraordinary self-importance and swelling pride, and the same results of rejecting God's law appear in the present generation. Noah and his family kept the law and did right, so God saved them by a miracle in the ark, and the law was preserved through them for their descendants.
The word corrupted is the same word used when Israel corrupted themselves in worshiping the golden calf. Their corruption included eating and drinking and rising up to play with leaping, singing, and dancing that was sensual and indecent in the Egyptian heathen manner with gross licentiousness. Such corruption explains terrible anger and why there was desire to consume the people at once.
To corrupt the way upon the earth is to choose the imaginations of corrupt minds and dishonor God with wicked inventions, becoming corrupt in body and soul and hating God who made them. It means to be steeped in licentiousness and indulged lust, no longer discerning between the pure affections God gave as attributes of human nature and destructive lusts, so that because of those wicked works came the message that they should not live but be destroyed. That universal corruption came by indulgence in unlawful things that depraves mankind, dwarfs the mind, and perverts the faculties. The pre-flood condition is the same as exists today, marked by increasing dissipation, indecent pictures posted to allure the eyes and deprave morals, corrupt imaginings that stir up the basest passions of the human heart, and defiling practices following those imaginings, with the most terrible part practiced under a garb of sanctity, defiling youth, degrading thoughts, and polluting souls unless they are barricaded with truth. The same corrupting of the way is happening in whole families today, making them as sinful as those before the Flood, and they need to be terribly alarmed.
Forms of Ancient Corruption
The corruption God saw was acted out in violent deeds, for even while the earth still looked beautiful in the sunshine men drove away fear with loud merriment and went on in violence until wrath was awakened. Brute force ruled as the prevailing influence, with men intimidating other men by threatened punishment and evil advancing at a fearful pace. Injustice, violence and disregard for the rights and lives of others filled the land, as men took neighbors' wives, cattle and possessions by force or murder and treated human blood with indifference, rejecting God's order including His arrangement of one man for one wife. That same spirit of Satan acted out in human anger appears in flying into passion over business and making the innocent suffer, especially in venting violence upon a fearful wife while following imagination instead of God, a way that destroys confidence in Christianity, bars children and others from truth, and unless forsaken by turning to seek the Lord with the whole heart shuts the sinner from the city of God as judgment nears.
Intemperate eating and drinking inflamed the passions and set them on fire, contributing directly to widespread corruption, violence and crime that brought the Flood as cleansing of moral pollution. Appetite controlled reason and ran to excess in almost everything, violating God's constitution and laws, the laws of health and His commandments, in moral pollution from disobedience and intemperance in almost every form. Men ate animal food contrary to God's plan, for He had given Adam and Eve and the race the fruit of trees for food, designed that no creature life be taken, and gave no permission to eat animal food until after the Flood, yet they followed Eve in being beguiled by Satan to disregard prohibition, gratify lust and indulge base passions in eating and drinking until the cup of iniquity was full. Eating and drinking to excess with boundless depraved appetites was joined with abominable idolatry, violence and ferocity until God could bear no longer, and after the Flood men multiplied only to forget God again and corrupt their ways with intemperance in every form greatly increased. Indulgence of appetite and debased passions thus marked Noah's day and drew destruction by waters upon its inhabitants. The result was steady increase of disease and degeneracy physical, mental and moral, loss of beauty and perfect health, benumbed sensibilities so that sacred things were placed on a level with common things, and removal of God's prospering hand with heavier curse on men and beasts. Through meat eating, liquor drinking often adulterated and poisoned, gluttony, drunkenness and tobacco the race was animalized, and murder was committed in cruel, satanic ferocity with increased physical, mental and moral degeneracy.
The corruption included polygamy and indulgence of corrupt and base passions, into which even many first affected by Noah's warning fell during probation, joining the corrupt and mocking him rather than repenting with true repentance. Moral impurity and unrestrained passion were the sins that brought destruction on the antediluvians and are present again among professed Christians awaiting Christ's return. All flesh had turned from its proper way, and that pre-Flood conduct is the parallel for sexual immorality now, including legalized sexual immorality and exploitation resembling that age, even exploitation of women, as the same condition. Bold, familiar association between the sexes corrupted the heart, and every species of corruption prevailed.
Part of the corruption was the claimed mingling of humans and beasts, which defaced God's image and brought confusion, for which that long-lived race was purposed to destruction and cut off before reaching its full natural length. It also included turning God's gifts to idolatry, worshiping images and groves made from things provided for benefit, dedicating groves to false gods, denying the Creator and giving Him no thanks. Even as God enriched and prospered them their corruption grew, for they worshiped the treasures they should have received as gifts and rejected the Giver.
God-given abilities and knowledge were perverted into inventions and devices, while men forgot God and pursued violence and schemes against heaven that brought the Flood. Then only a few steps from the Creator, with long life, large intellect, almost perfect health and ability for cunning work, they disregarded the law given when earth's foundations were laid, perverted their powers to dishonor God, and were used by Satan to battle against good, with wickedness and pride budding and blossoming and imagination of the heart only evil continually ripening into wickedness and selfish gratification. With great mental and moral capabilities and perfected gifts, with gold and silver in abundance and arts and skill greater than today, they constantly sought to exceed one another in devices, worshiped things their hands made, extolled themselves, supposed they improved on God's plans, forgot the Lord, filled the earth with violence, and devised war with the universe of heaven and seizure of Eden, so God determined to destroy them with the earth while establishing His covenant with Noah. Their great physical strength, intelligence and skill turned to wrongdoing increased guilt when used in unbridled iniquity, rejecting God and acting cruelly and oppressively toward those who could not resist. Men of lofty stature and giant intellect yielded to fallen angels, devoted all skill and knowledge to self-exaltation, led the world to idolize genius by wonderful works of art, while cruelty and evil inventions defiled the earth and defaced God's image until God blotted them from creation, and death makes no change in them so that when raised they resume where they ceased with the same desire to conquer that ruled them when they fell. The same corruption is repeated when modern teachers and students suppose advancement supersedes knowledge of God and cry for higher education, and when men triumph in fancied efficiency and act independently of God under Satan's rule.
Long life did not curb sin but increased it, for as they lived longer they became more corrupt until the earth's condition called for the Flood, showing that leaving sin unpunished allows it to spread to widespread destruction. The earth corrupt and filled with violence was the fruition fifteen centuries later of Cain's influence and example after sentence, for Cain spared from death hardened his heart, rebelled against divine authority, and became head and tempter of bold sinners whose demoralizing power flooded the earth with crime and pollution and called for its destruction. That condition illustrates what permitting the sinner to live forever in rebellion would produce, since forbearance only made the wicked bolder and more defiant and the longer men lived the more abandoned they became, so the sentence destroying them, cutting short unbridled iniquity, freeing the world from hardened rebellion, was just and merciful, a blessing rather than a curse, proving the death sentence for transgression just and merciful. Letting sin go unpunished when Cain's life was spared increased wickedness through his life and teaching despite great forbearance, for long life is no blessing to the sinner since the longer men lived the more corrupt they became, and unpunished rebellion at Sinai would have made the earth as corrupt as in Noah's days with evils greater than from sparing Cain, so cutting off the guilty few to save the many was mercy in love to the world, to Israel and even to transgressors.
Lawful gifts were carried to extremes until they filled the mind to exclusion of noble thoughts, for eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, buying, selling, planting and building were lawful in themselves, and supplying life's necessities is duty and not sinful, but making eating, drinking and dressing supreme objects makes them sin. Forgetting God by overzealous devotion to merely temporal matters and provision for temporal wants, many perverted and unnatural to gratify weak and sinful pride, produced depravity, violence and all manner of sin until the Flood destroyed them, and the same danger remains when temporal aims become life's great aim at sacrifice of comfort, peace and love of God. Excess becomes gluttony and drunkenness leading to theft, murder, lust, gratification of every base passion and satanic cruelty, even among those with names in church books, because truth restricting licentiousness, violence and crime had no place in mind, heart or works among the majority opposed to truth, righteousness and keeping God's law, and the same condition will exist when the Son of man is revealed for Christ comes to judge iniquity. Men were measured by wealth instead of integrity and lived as though there were no God, ruined through wickedness, falsehood and crime of every kind to obtain money, through selfishness, deceit, robbery, bloodshed, greed, dishonest stewardship making others poor, and transgression of law, making present inhabitants like the old world and Sodom and bringing certain retribution riches cannot turn aside, for evil set to work for Satan gains irrepressible force. Such speculation as dealing in mining stocks and buying and selling city lots far above real value is robbery and unlawful business by God's standard even when meeting the world's standard, with untrue representations and exaggerated sure gain as Satan's traps to engross men with the world and divert money from God's treasury, and that pollution is why the Flood swept the world to cleanse it, with safety only in love and fear of God and a heart sanctified by truth.
Satan produces the corruption by keeping men ignorant of God's beneficent designs and removing from sight the great things of law, the principles of justice, mercy and love, while men boast of wonderful progress and enlightenment yet God sees the same corruption as in Noah's day. That returning tide of evil such as has not been seen since Noah and apostate Israel comes by men declaring God's law abrogated and the Bible not authentic, bartering nobility, gentleness and piety to gratify lust for forbidden things in a black record of crime for gain that chills blood and fills the soul with horror. It is rapid development of evil under Satan's generalship, growing bold and defiant from triumphs, with wicked angels in every mob rousing to murder, robbery and violence, including confusion among laboring classes and unions quickly stirred to violence, a steady march no scientific theory explains, to be repeated as men take sides and perversity and cruelty reach the limit when as in Noah's days God reveals Himself in majesty and pours out judgments as Christ foretold for the last days. Men sowed seeds of evil and reaped lawlessness, crime and violence, not by God's decree blinding them but by resisting light, despising commandments, hardening the heart to stone and being confirmed in iniquity until evil was cherished as truth. Satan corrupted the world in Noah's days by energizing it with his violence, working through human agents by the same principles and policy-working begun in heaven, and by those corrupting principles he deceives and corrupts the whole world from beginning to ending, increasingly corrupting every empire and the churches.
Probation Warning and Flood
Because all flesh had corrupted His way by turning from Jehovah, refusing to do His holy will, and following unholy imagination and perverted ideas, God declared that the end of all flesh had come before Him and determined to bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven. The corruption was nonconformity to the law of God, the transcript of His character given in every jot and tittle for human good, and that disobedience so degraded the inhabitants that the imaginations of their hearts were evil continually and the earth was filled with wickedness and violence through them. He commanded Noah to make an ark of gopher wood with rooms pitched within and without with pitch as the appointed means of salvation for all who would hear the warning and turn from unrighteousness. Persistent wickedness in that corrupt generation preceded destruction and stands as a warning that unchecked licentiousness, violence, and crime bring God's judgment, and that excusing or neglecting sin allows corruption to spread.
In long-suffering God bore long with the transgressors and in mercy granted a probation of one hundred and twenty years for repentance while His Spirit strove with men to bring them back to purity and loyalty. He made His purpose known to Noah by a holy angel and more than a hundred years in advance so the people would not be left without warning, instructing him to warn the people and to preach repentance and reformation with pardon offered while building an ark in which the obedient could find shelter until God's indignation was overpast. By the standard of God's law the obedient were distinguished from the disobedient as probation closed, and every blow struck in building the immense ark was a warning, with Noah's childlike faith and obedience despite opposition serving as a continuing witness that the warning was true. The verse thus marks the closing of probation after long mercy, when repentance failed and sin and disgraceful transgression went so far that God must vindicate the honor of His law, repress unrighteousness, limit human life, and interpose in wrath to blot out the race indifferent to His law and prevent men spoiling one another in continual disobedience and defiance.
Noah gave the Lord's message to the large population by voice and showed his faith by his works in building the ark, with hired carpenters working through the probation, helped by Methuselah, his sons, Enoch's prior testimony, and those who died in the faith who preached all the more earnestly in proportion to the universal scorn heaped on God's law. The inhabitants regarded the message as an idle tale and the building on dry land as worthy of mockery, charged Noah with being deluded, used claims of knowledge and science to dismiss rain, and kept planting and building and marrying and giving in marriage and eating and drinking, stirred to contradict the message by precept and example. They treated the signs of God's power with only momentary fear before returning to careless merriment, forgetting God and putting Him out of thought to make His warnings of none effect until the flood came and took them all away. Many who helped build the ark did not believe the startling message, did not cleanse themselves from wrong principles nor overcome temptation to do and say things contrary to the mind and will of God, and some who at first listened and even worked with him, not being firmly grounded, turned away to become scoffers and mockers and failed to stand till the end of their probation.
Only eight persons, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark and were saved, by miracle, while the rebellious race who would not keep heaven's commandments drank the waters of the flood and death was their portion. Noah preached truth that tested and proved everyone, and those who believed were saved, fulfilling the warning and exemplifying the truth of God's word. After one hundred and twenty years of warning during the building of the ark, only those eight righteous were saved, showing that persistent wickedness despite warning can reach a point at which God rises to vindicate His honor.
The Flood washed the earth of its moral pollution, destroying the sinful race with the creatures and vegetation that had been given to bless them and leaving the earth desolate. The floodwaters declared God's verdict that the wicked inhabitants were incurable, and God blotted them out in mercy to the world, freeing the world from hardened rebellion. That incurable verdict was mercy because it prevented handing sins on to posterity and men spoiling one another forever, and it stands with the judgment on Jericho as testimony of sin's result, while the perishing of the whole world that followed the majority in corruption illustrates certain destruction for those who do the same.
Pattern for Last Days
As it was in the days of Noah so it will be when the Son of man comes and is revealed, for the earth was corrupt before God because all flesh had corrupted His way, and that same corrupt, violent condition will exist again until sudden destruction falls. Men were measured by wealth instead of integrity, wickedness was great with every imagination of the heart only evil continually, and the earth was filled with violence, so that corruption brought the decree that the end of all flesh had come; likewise men will be eating and drinking and marrying until sudden destruction at the coming of the Son of Man. The inhabitants had turned from Jehovah, refusing to do His holy will and follow His law and following unholy imagination and perverted ideas when obedience would have been safety and salvation, and people absorbed in excitement and violence, opposing truth and embracing falsehood without Christ and without hope, show there will be no temporal millennium of a thousand years in which all prepare for eternity. The earth again filled with wickedness and violence unto destruction as by the Flood proves the pattern of widespread corruption and destruction for the world just before the Son of God comes.
The condition of Noah's world represents the condition of the world today, proving that the forms of wickedness then existing are current now and there are no new evils. What God saw as He looked upon the earth before the Flood, an earth corrupt before God and filled with violence because all flesh had corrupted His way, is what He sees as He looks upon the earth and its inhabitants today, so the present world resembles the pre-Flood world and this likeness proves the world is living in the last days of earth's history before the coming of the Son of man. The world is fast becoming as corrupt as it was then, though Christ has laid the plan of redemption to bring salvation within reach and has brought eternal life by His death to all who will accept Him, yet many He died to save refuse to return to loyalty. Growing sins of the present age are like those that led to judgment by the Flood, showing God's patience does not make punishment uncertain, and selfishness, violence and crime prevailing again as earth's history draws to a close call Bible believers to stand for righteousness and truth. That same look of God rests upon the world today as it rested upon the world in Noah's time, because this age repeats the wickedness of the world before the Flood, while calamities, earthquakes, floods and disasters by land and by sea increase and the world becomes ripe for destruction.
As God sent His messages through Noah then, He is sending His messages to people now, and Noah's preaching which warned, tested and proved the people before the Flood destroyed them shows that God's truth for the last days does a similar work of warning, testing and proving the world. Noah's warning was rejected, but it still had to be given, for corruption had spread through all flesh as people turned from the way God intended them to live, and wickedness, violence and disregard for warning would again prevail; likewise God's message must be proclaimed even when people reject it until judgment comes. Many who helped Noah build the ark did not believe the startling message, did not cleanse themselves from all wrong principles, did not put away wrong principles or overcome temptations to act against God's will and to do and say things entirely contrary to the mind and will of God. Violence fills the land as before the Flood and the end of all things is at hand, so chosen workers sanctified by grace must go forth to warn the world, because only a direct message from the Lord will arouse men and women in such an age marked by wretchedness, deformity and disease from neglect of the body.
The renewed worldwide corruption brings impending divine judgment, for as that generation was swept away by the Flood and Sodom was consumed by fire from heaven, so a long procession walking the broad road to eternal ruin faces judgment. All flesh had corrupted God's way by confederating with satanic agencies in war against heaven to make void the law of God, the divine standard of righteousness, declaring it of no effect, with minds diverted from eternal realities by worldly business, sports, the fashions of the day, amusements and unprofitable reading that spoil judgment, amid reveling and drunkenness, so that the world converts the church. That same condition is fast returning in the present world on the very verge of the time of trouble with perplexities scarcely dreamed of, when Satan, the originator of evil, reveals his power in men and apparently controls the world, moving it to greater and still greater opposition to Christ and His message. In the last great conflict between the forces of good and evil, the time of trouble such as never was, the violence filling the earth will exceed what existed before the Flood, for perversity reaches its limit and sudden eternal destruction falls on all who reject Christ. Hearts fully set to do evil, with deep hatred and enmity toward God striking root in depraved hearts, turning away from God, breaking and trampling His holy law under foot, accepting satanic attributes, giving themselves to work evil in cooperation with evil angels and uniting together only in transgression, are now exactly repeated in the mass of humanity, the harvest ripening for centuries until men exceed the bounds of grace, exhaust forbearance, and bring God's reckoning, vindication and punishment with plagues upon a godless world. The professed Christian world advancing from one degree of sinfulness to greater, refusing warnings, rejecting a Thus saith the Lord and accrediting fables, with impurity of long standing mingled with the presentation of truth, placing nature as God, unrestrained license of human will, the counsel of the ungodly and the employment of mind upon mind to carry out Satan's designs through most seducing hypnotizing influences, puts on a form of godliness without real godliness; and when the law of God is fully made void destruction comes, with wrath arising and judgments evidenced in flood and flame, falling most surely on those who educate and deceive the people to accept errors for truth and to turn from the commandments of God.
The old corruption worked by satanic agencies is being reached again step by step, seen in crowded cities in confusion, strife and discord between labor and capital, and hypocrisy in the churches. Men determined to carry out their own plans and their own way and will regardless of others bring destruction of property and attempts to destroy life, discouragement of those appointed to restrain evil, and perplexing social problems whose end the human mind cannot determine, with violent strikes for higher wages proving the world is fast becoming as it was before the Flood, as seen in cities such as San Francisco and Oakland. Political strife, bribery and fraud on every hand, with men determined to rule or ruin and ready to ill-treat and even kill those who will not be ruled by them, and with corruption of the choice of officers, show a corruption beyond what human pen can trace existing again today in the cities. Satan keeps men from meditation by leading them into gaiety and pleasure-seeking, eating and drinking, and fills them with ambition to make an exhibition that exalts self, with every conceivable crime including the lust of the flesh, the pride of the eyes, the display of selfishness, the misuse of power, cruelty, self-indulgence, defiled marriage, 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, which round of crime and folly men call life. Binding unions existed then as they do now, and that same increase of wickedness and violence in every populous community and in the great cities now calls for diligent, wholehearted hunting for souls, working the cities from outpost centers in the way Enoch labored.
Present Duty and Warning
Before the Flood people corrupted their ways by rejecting God and His law, using God-given strength and gifts for selfish ends until violence and crime filled the earth, and that corruption spread through society until by beholding evil men became like it. That same condition is compared with modern society, especially large cities where disregard for God, selfish pleasure, pride, immorality and disregard for the rights of the weak prevail, and where corrupt surroundings confront youth as they did in Noah's time. Before the Flood the earth was corrupt and filled with heart-sickening violence, with men killing women and women killing men, even girls of fifteen or sixteen killed for refusing to marry, and the same violent state exists today, worse the nearer to the large cities, so sanitariums should not be built in the cities and the laws of the land become more oppressive as in Noah's days. The cities are now growing more and more to be like the earth before the Flood and more and more like Sodom, increasing in corruption and preparing for the fate of Sodom, so those crowded into them need to procure land in localities far from the cities where they can cultivate the soil.
In Noah's time the world became corrupt in depravity, cruelty, violence and crime, and that corruption came from training youth to love excitement, to glorify self and to follow the imagination of their own evil hearts instead of educating them to diligent habits. Cities and even country towns are now becoming like that world and like Sodom and Gomorrah, because children are being educated and trained in the same order in this age as in those days, and now as then the same depravity, cruelty, violence and crime are the result. The present age is likewise corrupt in its immorality, requiring guarding of young people from worldly customs and influences, especially courtship and marriage practices that parents may fail to notice. Because Noah was surrounded by enemies of God and of truth and the same surrounding exists now, with severe tests coming to every soul on Christ's side, youth and those of mature age must use their advantages to obtain knowledge of the truth and be stored with Bible truth in order to give to every man a reason for the hope within them with meekness and fear. Because today the earth is just as corrupt as in Noah's days, God's people are to be separated in practice from all the people on the face of the earth, with faithful sentinels guarding their charge as a shepherd guards his flock, earnestly seeking the Lord with all the heart and finding Him, educating those connected with them to render undivided service to God instead of leading them into close connection with the world to seek selfish gratification by practicing its customs, betraying no sacred trusts, observing greatest care to practice right principles, and bringing no earthly and selfish principles into God's work.
Corrupting the way before God applies to cherishing envy, hatred, jealousy, suspicion, strife and bitterness in the church, showing that people have gone astray and separated themselves from God. That same polluting iniquity prevailing as in Noah's day prevails today not only in the world but also in the church, and the counter influence required is lifting up the cross of Calvary and keeping the atoning sacrifice before people, so men behold sin in its true hateful character and lay hold upon the righteousness of Christ, which alone can subdue sin and restore the moral image of God in man. All flesh corrupted God's way through sin and violence in transgression of God's law, with fallen men of sinful tempers, appetites, tastes and attributes arrayed in hostility to God, not knowing God nor Jesus Christ whom He sent, so that the divine harmonies of heavenly intelligences would be out of place and not understood among them, and the same corrupt condition now exists with people resembling the Noachian world in contrast to the one in whose heart the grace of Christ abides and who is daily transformed in character. The earth became corrupt because men decided to ignore truth and righteousness to follow the imagination of their evil hearts, and that evil condition before the Flood is repeated whenever God's work is conducted in a worldly manner, with not one who continues in that course entering heaven, so escape requires the new life formed within to be like Christ in character, contending for the faith once delivered to the saints and living godly in Christ Jesus.
All flesh corrupted God's way by corrupting soul and body through intemperance in eating and drinking, and the sins that existed in Noah's day exist now, requiring the warning of coming judgment to be given with all energy. God calls for decided reform to a higher plane of action, with the church arising and shining and every family practicing self-denial to improve its condition, and those truly on the Lord's side are self-denying and self-sacrificing, eating and drinking to the glory of God instead of corrupting themselves, and their condition proves their light has not been removed. If church members refuse to receive and practice the light of health reform, the work will go on without them, God will remove their candlestick out of its place, and they will be left in the background. Selfishness, violence and crime prevailed then because of excessive indulgence of appetites and passions, and the same condition prevails as this earth's history closes from the same cause, so a reform in habits of life is needed now to fit a people for the coming of Christ.
The world is again being filled with violence and alarming prevalence of sin as in Noah's days, and that corrupt condition comes from rejection of truth and setting aside God's commandments and would not exist if those claiming to be God's people had reverenced and obeyed His law. False shepherds make God's Word of none effect by decided opposition to His law, revealing that they have rejected His Word, put their own words in its place, teach the commandments of men for doctrines, encourage wickedness in apostasy from truth, and still claim to be wise and to have God's law with them. The earth became corrupt because all flesh corrupted God's way by living as though there were no God and refusing to have any thought of Him and disregarding His word, and that same wickedness now prevails to an alarming extent, so God cannot bless those who refuse to be faithful stewards in disobedience to Him but withdraws His restraining power and permits Satan the destroyer to accomplish his destroying work, bringing calamities of every kind and degree upon an earth ripe for the harvest. The corruption that spread through the earth when humanity abandoned the way God intended and polluted the world is compared with the present world, and belief in the truth and acceptance of the light God sends is the only remedy, for refusing truth spoken in demonstration of the Spirit, hating the light, trampling upon God's Word, and standing between heaven-sent light and the people defiles the soul and leads to ruin. The earth was filled with rebellion and corruption before the Flood because men disregarded God's law, and the same disregard and open rebellion now fills the world with violence, seen in neglect of His true Sabbath and regard for the spurious Sabbath, while observance of His Sabbath as a perpetual covenant shows loyalty and truth to His commandments. People now resemble the inhabitants of the Noachic world in transgressing God's law and arraying themselves in hostility to God with sinful tempers, appetites, tastes and attributes, and that condition requires effective co-workers with God to do diligent, earnest, hard work, meeting people where they are and, when they will not come to the gospel feast of Christ's call, carrying the message to them in house-to-house labor in the highways and byways as the last message to the world.
God looked upon the earth before the Flood and found it corrupt because all flesh had corrupted His way, with the earth filled with violence before Him, and Christ has laid the plan of redemption to bring salvation within reach and has brought eternal life by His death to all who will accept Him as a personal Saviour, yet many He died to save refuse to return to loyalty while the world is fast becoming as corrupt as then. The people of Noah's generation are characteristic of the age before Christ appears in the clouds, for human nature without God's Spirit remains the same across the two ages, and the Flood and Noah are historical realities, with Christ's treatment of Genesis affirming the Old Testament as inspired Scripture.
In Noah's days the earth was corrupt and filled with violence and crimes too terrible to trace upon paper, devised by satanic agencies, with Satan working with intensity to deceive and allure souls from the true paths of righteousness into forbidden paths. The same wickedness and horrible violence is now in every place and time is very short, and the Lord's way is the only safe way, requiring those who have had the light to walk in the light as Christ is in the light, to do honor to the Saviour by living the truth and increasing daily in spirituality, lest darkness come upon them, since truth alone as it is in Jesus will reflect the true light.
God Himself inspected the earth before the Flood and found it corrupt before Him and filled with violence, because all flesh had corrupted His way, and for this He determined to destroy man from the face of the earth. To corrupt His way means to turn from the right way of living He gave, refusing to do His holy will and departing from the principles of His law, which is the transcript of His character made known from Adam for human good. The corruption was universal and inward as well as outward, with every imagination of the heart only evil continually, showing itself in violence and bloodshed, intemperate eating and drinking, polygamy and unrestrained immorality, and the perversion of great strength, intellect and skill to selfish and cruel ends. In long-suffering God granted one hundred and twenty years of probation while His Spirit strove with men, making His purpose known to Noah to preach repentance and build the ark, yet only eight persons entered and were saved while the flood cleansed the earth of its moral pollution. As it was in the days of Noah so it will be when the Son of man is revealed, for the same corrupt and violent condition is again current with no new evils, bringing impending sudden destruction on all who reject the warning.
God's Look and Verdict
God Himself inspected the earth before the Flood and found it corrupt before Him and filled with violence, for all flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth, and this is why He destroyed man from the face of the earth. The corruption meant constant repetition of actions against the law of God, against truth and righteousness, against His will and plain requirements, until evil habits became nature and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. The subjects He had created were spoiling the whole earth, and that state brought the sword of justice to destroy them with the earth. The same relentless destruction is prepared for those in the present day who by continual evil thoughts lose free agency and bind themselves as slaves to Satan while refusing heaven's gift of redemption, and the condition before the Flood is a warning that the world can again become marked by widespread wickedness and moral corruption.
The corruption belonged to the great majority who turned from the way God intended them to live and were given over to wickedness, in contrast with the righteous who walked with God. Noah is the exception, for he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, remained faithful and righteous amid pollution and wickedness, and with his household trusted God's word and stood against the people of his time while they rejected the warning given through him and carried on as though God had not spoken. Lot was afterward saved from Sodom on the same ground because he did not corrupt his way before God. Amid that prevailing corruption Methuselah, Noah, and many others labored to keep alive the knowledge of the true God and to hold back the tide of moral evil, with Enoch walking uprightly with God and telling his children what God had shown him about the Flood, and with Methuselah and his sons living to hear Noah's preaching and helping build the ark.
The corrupt state was inward and outward moral ruin, with every imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually and the heart of man deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Thoughts were set on pleasure and indulgence, refusing the counsel of the God who created them and not caring to do His will, following the imagination of their own hearts, with purposes and desires continually evil and violence filling the land. Great physical strength, intelligence, skill, large intellect and cunning work were turned to wrongdoing, and their abilities increased their guilt when they used them in unbridled iniquity, rejecting God and acting cruelly and oppressively toward those who could not resist them. That state wearied God and brought His rebuke and grief of heart and His declared purpose to Noah to destroy them from the earth, and Christ held up that careless disregard of principle in the days before the Flood as the pattern for conditions at the coming of the Son of man.
Human sin made the earth itself corrupt, defiled and spoiled by violence and depraved works. God had surrounded people with precious earthly blessings because He loved them, and the world before the Flood was far more beautiful, grand and lovely than present nature, but people turned those blessings into a curse by using them to gratify pride and glorify themselves, misusing His provisions and dishonoring the Creator. That corruption included selfishness and covetousness leading to violence, crime and all kinds of wickedness, nation rising against nation and watching for advantage, and presumptuous, daring deeds of unholy ambition robbing others to gain strength. The sin Satan introduced through Adam's disobedience opened the floodgates of woe upon the world and cursed the earth, and the wickedness of men became moral pollution upon the earth so great that God would no longer bear with them. Because of that sinfulness God destroyed both the wicked people and the polluted earth, washing the earth clean by the Flood and destroying all the inhabitants of the old world except one family. The Flood bears testimony to all who shall live upon the earth of the result of sin and transgression, showing that God has not changed, and the same corrupting power of sin still spoils the earth now, so that without it the earth would be a happy place but every place inhabited by human beings is degraded by sin; that history is to be read, understood and kept before the mind now as warning, because the same evils are fulfilling the signs of Christ's coming.
Meaning of Corrupted Way
To corrupt God's way means all flesh turned from the right way of living God gave, refusing to do His holy will and following unholy imagination and perverted ideas instead. It was a refusal of Christ as rightful governor and owner of the whole human family and a departure from the principles of His law, bringing defilement upon the earth. The corruption came from wanting freedom from all restraint by casting aside the law of God, and that same desire to get rid of the law has made the world today corrupt as in the days of Noah.
The corruption was nonconformity to and continual transgression of the law of God, with wickedness and violence filling the earth until refusal to obey His commandments brought the flood judgment that destroyed the inhabitants of the old world. That law, the transcript of His character given for human good, had been made known from Adam and handed down through faithful generations, yet was continually transgressed until a flood of waters was called for. The turning from God's way through transgressing His law was accompanied by evil thoughts, idolatry, deception, and disregard for others' rights, property, and lives, rejected with extraordinary self-importance and swelling pride, and the same results of rejecting God's law appear in the present generation. Noah and his family kept the law and did right, so God saved them by a miracle in the ark, and the law was preserved through them for their descendants.
The word corrupted is the same word used when Israel corrupted themselves in worshiping the golden calf. Their corruption included eating and drinking and rising up to play with leaping, singing, and dancing that was sensual and indecent in the Egyptian heathen manner with gross licentiousness. Such corruption explains terrible anger and why there was desire to consume the people at once.
To corrupt the way upon the earth is to choose the imaginations of corrupt minds and dishonor God with wicked inventions, becoming corrupt in body and soul and hating God who made them. It means to be steeped in licentiousness and indulged lust, no longer discerning between the pure affections God gave as attributes of human nature and destructive lusts, so that because of those wicked works came the message that they should not live but be destroyed. That universal corruption came by indulgence in unlawful things that depraves mankind, dwarfs the mind, and perverts the faculties. The pre-flood condition is the same as exists today, marked by increasing dissipation, indecent pictures posted to allure the eyes and deprave morals, corrupt imaginings that stir up the basest passions of the human heart, and defiling practices following those imaginings, with the most terrible part practiced under a garb of sanctity, defiling youth, degrading thoughts, and polluting souls unless they are barricaded with truth. The same corrupting of the way is happening in whole families today, making them as sinful as those before the Flood, and they need to be terribly alarmed.
Forms of Ancient Corruption
The corruption God saw was acted out in violent deeds, for even while the earth still looked beautiful in the sunshine men drove away fear with loud merriment and went on in violence until wrath was awakened. Brute force ruled as the prevailing influence, with men intimidating other men by threatened punishment and evil advancing at a fearful pace. Injustice, violence and disregard for the rights and lives of others filled the land, as men took neighbors' wives, cattle and possessions by force or murder and treated human blood with indifference, rejecting God's order including His arrangement of one man for one wife. That same spirit of Satan acted out in human anger appears in flying into passion over business and making the innocent suffer, especially in venting violence upon a fearful wife while following imagination instead of God, a way that destroys confidence in Christianity, bars children and others from truth, and unless forsaken by turning to seek the Lord with the whole heart shuts the sinner from the city of God as judgment nears.
Intemperate eating and drinking inflamed the passions and set them on fire, contributing directly to widespread corruption, violence and crime that brought the Flood as cleansing of moral pollution. Appetite controlled reason and ran to excess in almost everything, violating God's constitution and laws, the laws of health and His commandments, in moral pollution from disobedience and intemperance in almost every form. Men ate animal food contrary to God's plan, for He had given Adam and Eve and the race the fruit of trees for food, designed that no creature life be taken, and gave no permission to eat animal food until after the Flood, yet they followed Eve in being beguiled by Satan to disregard prohibition, gratify lust and indulge base passions in eating and drinking until the cup of iniquity was full. Eating and drinking to excess with boundless depraved appetites was joined with abominable idolatry, violence and ferocity until God could bear no longer, and after the Flood men multiplied only to forget God again and corrupt their ways with intemperance in every form greatly increased. Indulgence of appetite and debased passions thus marked Noah's day and drew destruction by waters upon its inhabitants. The result was steady increase of disease and degeneracy physical, mental and moral, loss of beauty and perfect health, benumbed sensibilities so that sacred things were placed on a level with common things, and removal of God's prospering hand with heavier curse on men and beasts. Through meat eating, liquor drinking often adulterated and poisoned, gluttony, drunkenness and tobacco the race was animalized, and murder was committed in cruel, satanic ferocity with increased physical, mental and moral degeneracy.
The corruption included polygamy and indulgence of corrupt and base passions, into which even many first affected by Noah's warning fell during probation, joining the corrupt and mocking him rather than repenting with true repentance. Moral impurity and unrestrained passion were the sins that brought destruction on the antediluvians and are present again among professed Christians awaiting Christ's return. All flesh had turned from its proper way, and that pre-Flood conduct is the parallel for sexual immorality now, including legalized sexual immorality and exploitation resembling that age, even exploitation of women, as the same condition. Bold, familiar association between the sexes corrupted the heart, and every species of corruption prevailed.
Part of the corruption was the claimed mingling of humans and beasts, which defaced God's image and brought confusion, for which that long-lived race was purposed to destruction and cut off before reaching its full natural length. It also included turning God's gifts to idolatry, worshiping images and groves made from things provided for benefit, dedicating groves to false gods, denying the Creator and giving Him no thanks. Even as God enriched and prospered them their corruption grew, for they worshiped the treasures they should have received as gifts and rejected the Giver.
God-given abilities and knowledge were perverted into inventions and devices, while men forgot God and pursued violence and schemes against heaven that brought the Flood. Then only a few steps from the Creator, with long life, large intellect, almost perfect health and ability for cunning work, they disregarded the law given when earth's foundations were laid, perverted their powers to dishonor God, and were used by Satan to battle against good, with wickedness and pride budding and blossoming and imagination of the heart only evil continually ripening into wickedness and selfish gratification. With great mental and moral capabilities and perfected gifts, with gold and silver in abundance and arts and skill greater than today, they constantly sought to exceed one another in devices, worshiped things their hands made, extolled themselves, supposed they improved on God's plans, forgot the Lord, filled the earth with violence, and devised war with the universe of heaven and seizure of Eden, so God determined to destroy them with the earth while establishing His covenant with Noah. Their great physical strength, intelligence and skill turned to wrongdoing increased guilt when used in unbridled iniquity, rejecting God and acting cruelly and oppressively toward those who could not resist. Men of lofty stature and giant intellect yielded to fallen angels, devoted all skill and knowledge to self-exaltation, led the world to idolize genius by wonderful works of art, while cruelty and evil inventions defiled the earth and defaced God's image until God blotted them from creation, and death makes no change in them so that when raised they resume where they ceased with the same desire to conquer that ruled them when they fell. The same corruption is repeated when modern teachers and students suppose advancement supersedes knowledge of God and cry for higher education, and when men triumph in fancied efficiency and act independently of God under Satan's rule.
Long life did not curb sin but increased it, for as they lived longer they became more corrupt until the earth's condition called for the Flood, showing that leaving sin unpunished allows it to spread to widespread destruction. The earth corrupt and filled with violence was the fruition fifteen centuries later of Cain's influence and example after sentence, for Cain spared from death hardened his heart, rebelled against divine authority, and became head and tempter of bold sinners whose demoralizing power flooded the earth with crime and pollution and called for its destruction. That condition illustrates what permitting the sinner to live forever in rebellion would produce, since forbearance only made the wicked bolder and more defiant and the longer men lived the more abandoned they became, so the sentence destroying them, cutting short unbridled iniquity, freeing the world from hardened rebellion, was just and merciful, a blessing rather than a curse, proving the death sentence for transgression just and merciful. Letting sin go unpunished when Cain's life was spared increased wickedness through his life and teaching despite great forbearance, for long life is no blessing to the sinner since the longer men lived the more corrupt they became, and unpunished rebellion at Sinai would have made the earth as corrupt as in Noah's days with evils greater than from sparing Cain, so cutting off the guilty few to save the many was mercy in love to the world, to Israel and even to transgressors.
Lawful gifts were carried to extremes until they filled the mind to exclusion of noble thoughts, for eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, buying, selling, planting and building were lawful in themselves, and supplying life's necessities is duty and not sinful, but making eating, drinking and dressing supreme objects makes them sin. Forgetting God by overzealous devotion to merely temporal matters and provision for temporal wants, many perverted and unnatural to gratify weak and sinful pride, produced depravity, violence and all manner of sin until the Flood destroyed them, and the same danger remains when temporal aims become life's great aim at sacrifice of comfort, peace and love of God. Excess becomes gluttony and drunkenness leading to theft, murder, lust, gratification of every base passion and satanic cruelty, even among those with names in church books, because truth restricting licentiousness, violence and crime had no place in mind, heart or works among the majority opposed to truth, righteousness and keeping God's law, and the same condition will exist when the Son of man is revealed for Christ comes to judge iniquity. Men were measured by wealth instead of integrity and lived as though there were no God, ruined through wickedness, falsehood and crime of every kind to obtain money, through selfishness, deceit, robbery, bloodshed, greed, dishonest stewardship making others poor, and transgression of law, making present inhabitants like the old world and Sodom and bringing certain retribution riches cannot turn aside, for evil set to work for Satan gains irrepressible force. Such speculation as dealing in mining stocks and buying and selling city lots far above real value is robbery and unlawful business by God's standard even when meeting the world's standard, with untrue representations and exaggerated sure gain as Satan's traps to engross men with the world and divert money from God's treasury, and that pollution is why the Flood swept the world to cleanse it, with safety only in love and fear of God and a heart sanctified by truth.
Satan produces the corruption by keeping men ignorant of God's beneficent designs and removing from sight the great things of law, the principles of justice, mercy and love, while men boast of wonderful progress and enlightenment yet God sees the same corruption as in Noah's day. That returning tide of evil such as has not been seen since Noah and apostate Israel comes by men declaring God's law abrogated and the Bible not authentic, bartering nobility, gentleness and piety to gratify lust for forbidden things in a black record of crime for gain that chills blood and fills the soul with horror. It is rapid development of evil under Satan's generalship, growing bold and defiant from triumphs, with wicked angels in every mob rousing to murder, robbery and violence, including confusion among laboring classes and unions quickly stirred to violence, a steady march no scientific theory explains, to be repeated as men take sides and perversity and cruelty reach the limit when as in Noah's days God reveals Himself in majesty and pours out judgments as Christ foretold for the last days. Men sowed seeds of evil and reaped lawlessness, crime and violence, not by God's decree blinding them but by resisting light, despising commandments, hardening the heart to stone and being confirmed in iniquity until evil was cherished as truth. Satan corrupted the world in Noah's days by energizing it with his violence, working through human agents by the same principles and policy-working begun in heaven, and by those corrupting principles he deceives and corrupts the whole world from beginning to ending, increasingly corrupting every empire and the churches.
Probation Warning and Flood
Because all flesh had corrupted His way by turning from Jehovah, refusing to do His holy will, and following unholy imagination and perverted ideas, God declared that the end of all flesh had come before Him and determined to bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven. The corruption was nonconformity to the law of God, the transcript of His character given in every jot and tittle for human good, and that disobedience so degraded the inhabitants that the imaginations of their hearts were evil continually and the earth was filled with wickedness and violence through them. He commanded Noah to make an ark of gopher wood with rooms pitched within and without with pitch as the appointed means of salvation for all who would hear the warning and turn from unrighteousness. Persistent wickedness in that corrupt generation preceded destruction and stands as a warning that unchecked licentiousness, violence, and crime bring God's judgment, and that excusing or neglecting sin allows corruption to spread.
In long-suffering God bore long with the transgressors and in mercy granted a probation of one hundred and twenty years for repentance while His Spirit strove with men to bring them back to purity and loyalty. He made His purpose known to Noah by a holy angel and more than a hundred years in advance so the people would not be left without warning, instructing him to warn the people and to preach repentance and reformation with pardon offered while building an ark in which the obedient could find shelter until God's indignation was overpast. By the standard of God's law the obedient were distinguished from the disobedient as probation closed, and every blow struck in building the immense ark was a warning, with Noah's childlike faith and obedience despite opposition serving as a continuing witness that the warning was true. The verse thus marks the closing of probation after long mercy, when repentance failed and sin and disgraceful transgression went so far that God must vindicate the honor of His law, repress unrighteousness, limit human life, and interpose in wrath to blot out the race indifferent to His law and prevent men spoiling one another in continual disobedience and defiance.
Noah gave the Lord's message to the large population by voice and showed his faith by his works in building the ark, with hired carpenters working through the probation, helped by Methuselah, his sons, Enoch's prior testimony, and those who died in the faith who preached all the more earnestly in proportion to the universal scorn heaped on God's law. The inhabitants regarded the message as an idle tale and the building on dry land as worthy of mockery, charged Noah with being deluded, used claims of knowledge and science to dismiss rain, and kept planting and building and marrying and giving in marriage and eating and drinking, stirred to contradict the message by precept and example. They treated the signs of God's power with only momentary fear before returning to careless merriment, forgetting God and putting Him out of thought to make His warnings of none effect until the flood came and took them all away. Many who helped build the ark did not believe the startling message, did not cleanse themselves from wrong principles nor overcome temptation to do and say things contrary to the mind and will of God, and some who at first listened and even worked with him, not being firmly grounded, turned away to become scoffers and mockers and failed to stand till the end of their probation.
Only eight persons, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark and were saved, by miracle, while the rebellious race who would not keep heaven's commandments drank the waters of the flood and death was their portion. Noah preached truth that tested and proved everyone, and those who believed were saved, fulfilling the warning and exemplifying the truth of God's word. After one hundred and twenty years of warning during the building of the ark, only those eight righteous were saved, showing that persistent wickedness despite warning can reach a point at which God rises to vindicate His honor.
The Flood washed the earth of its moral pollution, destroying the sinful race with the creatures and vegetation that had been given to bless them and leaving the earth desolate. The floodwaters declared God's verdict that the wicked inhabitants were incurable, and God blotted them out in mercy to the world, freeing the world from hardened rebellion. That incurable verdict was mercy because it prevented handing sins on to posterity and men spoiling one another forever, and it stands with the judgment on Jericho as testimony of sin's result, while the perishing of the whole world that followed the majority in corruption illustrates certain destruction for those who do the same.
Pattern for Last Days
As it was in the days of Noah so it will be when the Son of man comes and is revealed, for the earth was corrupt before God because all flesh had corrupted His way, and that same corrupt, violent condition will exist again until sudden destruction falls. Men were measured by wealth instead of integrity, wickedness was great with every imagination of the heart only evil continually, and the earth was filled with violence, so that corruption brought the decree that the end of all flesh had come; likewise men will be eating and drinking and marrying until sudden destruction at the coming of the Son of Man. The inhabitants had turned from Jehovah, refusing to do His holy will and follow His law and following unholy imagination and perverted ideas when obedience would have been safety and salvation, and people absorbed in excitement and violence, opposing truth and embracing falsehood without Christ and without hope, show there will be no temporal millennium of a thousand years in which all prepare for eternity. The earth again filled with wickedness and violence unto destruction as by the Flood proves the pattern of widespread corruption and destruction for the world just before the Son of God comes.
The condition of Noah's world represents the condition of the world today, proving that the forms of wickedness then existing are current now and there are no new evils. What God saw as He looked upon the earth before the Flood, an earth corrupt before God and filled with violence because all flesh had corrupted His way, is what He sees as He looks upon the earth and its inhabitants today, so the present world resembles the pre-Flood world and this likeness proves the world is living in the last days of earth's history before the coming of the Son of man. The world is fast becoming as corrupt as it was then, though Christ has laid the plan of redemption to bring salvation within reach and has brought eternal life by His death to all who will accept Him, yet many He died to save refuse to return to loyalty. Growing sins of the present age are like those that led to judgment by the Flood, showing God's patience does not make punishment uncertain, and selfishness, violence and crime prevailing again as earth's history draws to a close call Bible believers to stand for righteousness and truth. That same look of God rests upon the world today as it rested upon the world in Noah's time, because this age repeats the wickedness of the world before the Flood, while calamities, earthquakes, floods and disasters by land and by sea increase and the world becomes ripe for destruction.
As God sent His messages through Noah then, He is sending His messages to people now, and Noah's preaching which warned, tested and proved the people before the Flood destroyed them shows that God's truth for the last days does a similar work of warning, testing and proving the world. Noah's warning was rejected, but it still had to be given, for corruption had spread through all flesh as people turned from the way God intended them to live, and wickedness, violence and disregard for warning would again prevail; likewise God's message must be proclaimed even when people reject it until judgment comes. Many who helped Noah build the ark did not believe the startling message, did not cleanse themselves from all wrong principles, did not put away wrong principles or overcome temptations to act against God's will and to do and say things entirely contrary to the mind and will of God. Violence fills the land as before the Flood and the end of all things is at hand, so chosen workers sanctified by grace must go forth to warn the world, because only a direct message from the Lord will arouse men and women in such an age marked by wretchedness, deformity and disease from neglect of the body.
The renewed worldwide corruption brings impending divine judgment, for as that generation was swept away by the Flood and Sodom was consumed by fire from heaven, so a long procession walking the broad road to eternal ruin faces judgment. All flesh had corrupted God's way by confederating with satanic agencies in war against heaven to make void the law of God, the divine standard of righteousness, declaring it of no effect, with minds diverted from eternal realities by worldly business, sports, the fashions of the day, amusements and unprofitable reading that spoil judgment, amid reveling and drunkenness, so that the world converts the church. That same condition is fast returning in the present world on the very verge of the time of trouble with perplexities scarcely dreamed of, when Satan, the originator of evil, reveals his power in men and apparently controls the world, moving it to greater and still greater opposition to Christ and His message. In the last great conflict between the forces of good and evil, the time of trouble such as never was, the violence filling the earth will exceed what existed before the Flood, for perversity reaches its limit and sudden eternal destruction falls on all who reject Christ. Hearts fully set to do evil, with deep hatred and enmity toward God striking root in depraved hearts, turning away from God, breaking and trampling His holy law under foot, accepting satanic attributes, giving themselves to work evil in cooperation with evil angels and uniting together only in transgression, are now exactly repeated in the mass of humanity, the harvest ripening for centuries until men exceed the bounds of grace, exhaust forbearance, and bring God's reckoning, vindication and punishment with plagues upon a godless world. The professed Christian world advancing from one degree of sinfulness to greater, refusing warnings, rejecting a Thus saith the Lord and accrediting fables, with impurity of long standing mingled with the presentation of truth, placing nature as God, unrestrained license of human will, the counsel of the ungodly and the employment of mind upon mind to carry out Satan's designs through most seducing hypnotizing influences, puts on a form of godliness without real godliness; and when the law of God is fully made void destruction comes, with wrath arising and judgments evidenced in flood and flame, falling most surely on those who educate and deceive the people to accept errors for truth and to turn from the commandments of God.
The old corruption worked by satanic agencies is being reached again step by step, seen in crowded cities in confusion, strife and discord between labor and capital, and hypocrisy in the churches. Men determined to carry out their own plans and their own way and will regardless of others bring destruction of property and attempts to destroy life, discouragement of those appointed to restrain evil, and perplexing social problems whose end the human mind cannot determine, with violent strikes for higher wages proving the world is fast becoming as it was before the Flood, as seen in cities such as San Francisco and Oakland. Political strife, bribery and fraud on every hand, with men determined to rule or ruin and ready to ill-treat and even kill those who will not be ruled by them, and with corruption of the choice of officers, show a corruption beyond what human pen can trace existing again today in the cities. Satan keeps men from meditation by leading them into gaiety and pleasure-seeking, eating and drinking, and fills them with ambition to make an exhibition that exalts self, with every conceivable crime including the lust of the flesh, the pride of the eyes, the display of selfishness, the misuse of power, cruelty, self-indulgence, defiled marriage, 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, which round of crime and folly men call life. Binding unions existed then as they do now, and that same increase of wickedness and violence in every populous community and in the great cities now calls for diligent, wholehearted hunting for souls, working the cities from outpost centers in the way Enoch labored.
Present Duty and Warning
Before the Flood people corrupted their ways by rejecting God and His law, using God-given strength and gifts for selfish ends until violence and crime filled the earth, and that corruption spread through society until by beholding evil men became like it. That same condition is compared with modern society, especially large cities where disregard for God, selfish pleasure, pride, immorality and disregard for the rights of the weak prevail, and where corrupt surroundings confront youth as they did in Noah's time. Before the Flood the earth was corrupt and filled with heart-sickening violence, with men killing women and women killing men, even girls of fifteen or sixteen killed for refusing to marry, and the same violent state exists today, worse the nearer to the large cities, so sanitariums should not be built in the cities and the laws of the land become more oppressive as in Noah's days. The cities are now growing more and more to be like the earth before the Flood and more and more like Sodom, increasing in corruption and preparing for the fate of Sodom, so those crowded into them need to procure land in localities far from the cities where they can cultivate the soil.
In Noah's time the world became corrupt in depravity, cruelty, violence and crime, and that corruption came from training youth to love excitement, to glorify self and to follow the imagination of their own evil hearts instead of educating them to diligent habits. Cities and even country towns are now becoming like that world and like Sodom and Gomorrah, because children are being educated and trained in the same order in this age as in those days, and now as then the same depravity, cruelty, violence and crime are the result. The present age is likewise corrupt in its immorality, requiring guarding of young people from worldly customs and influences, especially courtship and marriage practices that parents may fail to notice. Because Noah was surrounded by enemies of God and of truth and the same surrounding exists now, with severe tests coming to every soul on Christ's side, youth and those of mature age must use their advantages to obtain knowledge of the truth and be stored with Bible truth in order to give to every man a reason for the hope within them with meekness and fear. Because today the earth is just as corrupt as in Noah's days, God's people are to be separated in practice from all the people on the face of the earth, with faithful sentinels guarding their charge as a shepherd guards his flock, earnestly seeking the Lord with all the heart and finding Him, educating those connected with them to render undivided service to God instead of leading them into close connection with the world to seek selfish gratification by practicing its customs, betraying no sacred trusts, observing greatest care to practice right principles, and bringing no earthly and selfish principles into God's work.
Corrupting the way before God applies to cherishing envy, hatred, jealousy, suspicion, strife and bitterness in the church, showing that people have gone astray and separated themselves from God. That same polluting iniquity prevailing as in Noah's day prevails today not only in the world but also in the church, and the counter influence required is lifting up the cross of Calvary and keeping the atoning sacrifice before people, so men behold sin in its true hateful character and lay hold upon the righteousness of Christ, which alone can subdue sin and restore the moral image of God in man. All flesh corrupted God's way through sin and violence in transgression of God's law, with fallen men of sinful tempers, appetites, tastes and attributes arrayed in hostility to God, not knowing God nor Jesus Christ whom He sent, so that the divine harmonies of heavenly intelligences would be out of place and not understood among them, and the same corrupt condition now exists with people resembling the Noachian world in contrast to the one in whose heart the grace of Christ abides and who is daily transformed in character. The earth became corrupt because men decided to ignore truth and righteousness to follow the imagination of their evil hearts, and that evil condition before the Flood is repeated whenever God's work is conducted in a worldly manner, with not one who continues in that course entering heaven, so escape requires the new life formed within to be like Christ in character, contending for the faith once delivered to the saints and living godly in Christ Jesus.
All flesh corrupted God's way by corrupting soul and body through intemperance in eating and drinking, and the sins that existed in Noah's day exist now, requiring the warning of coming judgment to be given with all energy. God calls for decided reform to a higher plane of action, with the church arising and shining and every family practicing self-denial to improve its condition, and those truly on the Lord's side are self-denying and self-sacrificing, eating and drinking to the glory of God instead of corrupting themselves, and their condition proves their light has not been removed. If church members refuse to receive and practice the light of health reform, the work will go on without them, God will remove their candlestick out of its place, and they will be left in the background. Selfishness, violence and crime prevailed then because of excessive indulgence of appetites and passions, and the same condition prevails as this earth's history closes from the same cause, so a reform in habits of life is needed now to fit a people for the coming of Christ.
The world is again being filled with violence and alarming prevalence of sin as in Noah's days, and that corrupt condition comes from rejection of truth and setting aside God's commandments and would not exist if those claiming to be God's people had reverenced and obeyed His law. False shepherds make God's Word of none effect by decided opposition to His law, revealing that they have rejected His Word, put their own words in its place, teach the commandments of men for doctrines, encourage wickedness in apostasy from truth, and still claim to be wise and to have God's law with them. The earth became corrupt because all flesh corrupted God's way by living as though there were no God and refusing to have any thought of Him and disregarding His word, and that same wickedness now prevails to an alarming extent, so God cannot bless those who refuse to be faithful stewards in disobedience to Him but withdraws His restraining power and permits Satan the destroyer to accomplish his destroying work, bringing calamities of every kind and degree upon an earth ripe for the harvest. The corruption that spread through the earth when humanity abandoned the way God intended and polluted the world is compared with the present world, and belief in the truth and acceptance of the light God sends is the only remedy, for refusing truth spoken in demonstration of the Spirit, hating the light, trampling upon God's Word, and standing between heaven-sent light and the people defiles the soul and leads to ruin. The earth was filled with rebellion and corruption before the Flood because men disregarded God's law, and the same disregard and open rebellion now fills the world with violence, seen in neglect of His true Sabbath and regard for the spurious Sabbath, while observance of His Sabbath as a perpetual covenant shows loyalty and truth to His commandments. People now resemble the inhabitants of the Noachic world in transgressing God's law and arraying themselves in hostility to God with sinful tempers, appetites, tastes and attributes, and that condition requires effective co-workers with God to do diligent, earnest, hard work, meeting people where they are and, when they will not come to the gospel feast of Christ's call, carrying the message to them in house-to-house labor in the highways and byways as the last message to the world.
God looked upon the earth before the Flood and found it corrupt because all flesh had corrupted His way, with the earth filled with violence before Him, and Christ has laid the plan of redemption to bring salvation within reach and has brought eternal life by His death to all who will accept Him as a personal Saviour, yet many He died to save refuse to return to loyalty while the world is fast becoming as corrupt as then. The people of Noah's generation are characteristic of the age before Christ appears in the clouds, for human nature without God's Spirit remains the same across the two ages, and the Flood and Noah are historical realities, with Christ's treatment of Genesis affirming the Old Testament as inspired Scripture.
In Noah's days the earth was corrupt and filled with violence and crimes too terrible to trace upon paper, devised by satanic agencies, with Satan working with intensity to deceive and allure souls from the true paths of righteousness into forbidden paths. The same wickedness and horrible violence is now in every place and time is very short, and the Lord's way is the only safe way, requiring those who have had the light to walk in the light as Christ is in the light, to do honor to the Saviour by living the truth and increasing daily in spirituality, lest darkness come upon them, since truth alone as it is in Jesus will reflect the true light.