And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
The Lord's sorrow over making man is human language for the pain of divine love when sin offends Him, not a change from an unforeseen event, since nothing happens without His foreknowledge. That grief was called forth by total inward corruption, where every imagination of the heart was only evil continually and all flesh had corrupted its way in violence and transgression of His law. His grief was not passive but active, coming out of His place to punish, vindicate His law, and cleanse the earth of its moral pollution by the flood. Yet mercy was mingled with judgment, for He gave a probation of one hundred and twenty years with His Spirit striving, directions for the ark, and preaching through Noah to call that generation to repentance and refuge. As it was in the days of Noah so it will be at the coming of the Son of man, with the same continual evil repeated, the same two classes of righteous and wicked, and the final purification by fire as the earth was once cleansed by water.
God's Sorrow Explained
The word translated repented is human language for divine sorrow, not a change produced by an unforeseen event, since nothing happens by accident or without foreknowledge. Its parallel expressions explain one another, for grief is like pain in the heart. That pain is the sorrow of divine love when human sins offend Him.
That grief was not passive sorrow but action, for He came out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth and by a flood cleansed the earth of its iniquity and moral pollution. For centuries He bore with the old world until guilt reached its limit, when wickedness was great and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. When iniquity became so deep and widespread that He could no longer bear with it, every principle of right-doing being violated, His grief marked the limit of divine forbearance. Transgression of the law in that condition brings the same result in every age, and long forbearance does not mean evil will be left unjudged but that it will be brought to an end with punishment of hearts fully set on doing evil. He gave 120 years of warning while Noah built the ark, but that probation was not valued and only eight persons were saved, and His patience with the wicked is part of His merciful plan to save souls.
His grief did not come from wanting people to perish but from wanting them to have eternal life, for wickedness, crimes and moral pollution were increasing so fast that the wicked would have to be swept away to wash the earth clean. Mercy was mingled with judgment, for Noah and his family were saved, probation had been granted through Christ as Redeemer after the fall, and the flood was judgment on widespread intense disregard of the law while the saved showed mercy alongside it. He is compassionate, ready to pardon and abundant in mercy, full of compassion, mercy and love, and though judgment is vengeance against those who persistently despise grace, benevolence has not been cut off but love and care still flow earthward though sin has increased in volume and prevalence since Eden. He does not again sweep men away by a flood because of the covenant made with Noah, sparing them in divine benevolence. He bore long with rebels for centuries, exercising long forbearance toward a rebellious world while the holy law was trampled in the dust, yet men did not learn the lesson but multiplied in renewed rebellion. He set a second period of probation closing as in the days of Noah, giving 120 years of mercy in which Christ labored with angels to produce a better state, sending Noah as a preacher building the ark on dry land and Enoch who walked with God, with opportunity for all to be saved and help offered to build the ark. Some were converted for a time but did not stay converted and would not heed, so only eight out of the immense multitude were saved, with one man Noah walking with God amid moral corruption, and the same eating, drinking, planting, building and marrying will mark the close of probation when the Son of man shall be revealed. He was mindful of what was passing on the earth, permitted matters to come to a crisis, then interposed to hinder Satan's plans by bringing waters that swept away the wicked inhabitants, establishing His manner of working to let a crisis become marked and then make known that there is a God who sustains and vindicates His people, a pattern to repeat when defiance of the law is almost universal and His afflicted people seek Him as Deliverer.
God is jealous for His honor and regards thankless opposition with displeasure, for people living in His world and fed and clothed from His provision gave Him no thanks, were unmindful of His goodness and continually worked against their Creator. His sorrow over that evil led to the decree that the end of all flesh had come because the earth was filled with violence, to destroy them with the earth, a condition repeated by the thankless world today. After Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree and lost the beautiful Eden given them, sin opened the floodgates of woe and men grew worse till He destroyed the world by a flood, saving only Noah and his sons, showing He means what He says about judgment, and since the flood sin has steadily increased. He keeps a reckoning with nations as well as individuals, and with every nation the sum of guiltiness, allowing a certain period of probation with light and evidence and requirements, supremacy and laws made known so none are destroyed unwarned and without light, which will save them if received. He exercises long forbearance, patience and mercy while iniquity increases until it is to the full, putting constraint upon His own attributes and keeping silence for centuries while goodness is despised and the holy law is prostrated, broken and trampled by rebellious men cooperating with evil angels, with wonderful forbearance while divine compassion flows out and stubborn hearts beat it back. He is slow to anger and great in power, yet grieved at heart by deepening enmity and hatred toward Him. The world before the flood accumulated guilt and indulged wickedness of the same order as Sodom and Gomorrah and the Amorites, adding iniquity to iniquity while He bore long and withheld punishment until the specified measure of guilt was reached and the cup of iniquity was full. When men refuse warning after warning, reject His word and choose darkness rather than light, repeating the sins of the Noachic world with hearts fully set to do evil like Sodom, and when further light and forbearance would do no good and men persist in insolence and in making void the law, with human laws made supreme and vast numbers passing the boundaries and exceeding the limits of grace, His long-suffering ends and He takes the matter in hand, arising in wrath and coming out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth, vindicate His honor and bring plagues upon a godless world, with judgments no longer withheld. The fact that judgments have been long delayed does not make punishment less severe when it comes, and when indignation breaks forth retribution is fearful, with a terrible alternative realized at the crisis.
Wickedness Before Flood
The grief fell on inward wickedness grown total, for every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually, the heart deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, goodness and purity nearly gone, with hatred of the Maker, corrupt thoughts, and body and soul corrupt in a general corruption that provoked Him. That condition accompanied His resolve to destroy the corrupt inhabitants of the earth with the living creatures, while Noah found grace. The earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence and crime, all flesh having corrupted his way, with selfishness, robbery, bloodshed, and self-indulgence, so that no life was safe except by God's protection. That same state of continual evil and violence is the state of the very last days, with only two classes as then, and its judgments are a warning to prepare.
That corruption was continual transgression of God's law, disobedience growing since Adam's transgression opened the floodgates of woe, disregard of His requirements, casting aside His law in the name of freedom, trampling it in the dust, and departing from His plain commands, which brought His wrath and called for destruction by flood. Almost all remembrance of the Creator had vanished, men separated themselves from Him by disobedience and walked in the imagination of their own hearts, while in contrast Enoch and Noah loved God, were obedient to His law, and were found righteous when tested by it. People lived in God's house, fed and clothed from His liberal provision, yet gave no thanks, were not mindful of His goodness, forgot the Giver, and constantly worked in opposition to their Creator. They turned His bounties, strength, skill, gold, forests, gardens, minerals, inventions and ambition into means of forgetting Him, used His gifts for selfish purposes, claimed them as their own, worshiped their own works and idols, perverted His will, hardened their hearts, expelled God from their thoughts, and filled the earth with violence and crime until their cries entered the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. That ingratitude and misuse brought the curse and destruction by flood after a trial and warning, though repentance would have spared them and the destruction was not unwillingly fixed.
Unrestrained appetite and intemperance helped make them incurably corrupt, through self-indulgence, lustful appetite and debased passion, eating animal food contrary to Eden's fruit of the trees, eating and drinking to excess without bounds, drunkenness, gluttony, indulgence of sensuous passions, and lightness degenerating to debasing sins where inclination ruled reason and self became god. Their cup of iniquity became full, mind and morals were dwarfed and perverted, health was sacrificed, God's prospering hand was removed, disease increased as effect follows cause, the curse rested heavier on men and beasts, sensibilities were benumbed, and God could bear with their wickedness no longer but cleansed the earth of its moral pollution. Their sins included defiling marriage and sexuality, marrying and giving in marriage apart from God to gratify loose passions, disobedience to parents and marrying without counsel of parents or church or inquiry after God's will, impurity and moral corruption, dissipation and licentious indulgence, polygamy perverting the marriage institution to deface God's image, amalgamation of man and beast bringing confusion, and even legalized vice and human sacrifice like Sodom's course. Taking wives without regard to God's order was one of its great sins and brought God's wrath, and the same sins among professed Christians who expect Christ's return will bring unmingled fury when the world is almost ripe as then.
They exalted human wisdom above God, became lifted up in imagination and left God out of plans and councils, fully decided they had no need of God, took themselves out of His hands, and thought in finite wisdom and supposed smartness they could do better left to themselves. They measured manhood by wealth rather than integrity, misused riches in pride and hoarding, practiced dishonest business, robbery, speculation, inflated values, unfair confederating for gain, oppression of widows, orphans and laborers, strife between labor and capital, unions and confederacies, hypocrisy in churches, pleasure-seeking excitement, idolatry, image-making, philosophy exalting nature above nature's God, and Satanic devices, commercialism, and mind-captivating errors that crowded God out. Satan set up his throne and energized the world with the same revolt begun in heaven, and men determined to carry out their own plans regardless of others, letting ordinary activities fill their minds until they forgot God. This happened in a surpassingly lovely world only a step from paradise in groves and forests and varied scenery, yet sin blighted it and defiled the beautiful earth with evil works. It came fifteen centuries after Cain when his influence had ripened into pollution flooding the earth, which Adam witnessed for nearly a thousand years and understood as the just consequence of wickedness, when men, animals and trees were many times larger than now under conditions differing from the present, and after long indulgence the race had declined through excess, violence and debauchery from original perfection. Long lives and great forbearance only made the wicked more bold, showing that cutting short unbridled iniquity by death was just and merciful, a blessing rather than a curse, and that geology apart from Bible history can prove nothing about those buried evidences.
Satan demonstrated his principles of rebellion there after Adam's transgression gave him place to sow seeds of evil, controlled descendants through appetite, led them into transgression and ruin, kept minds engrossed in worldly enterprises, and brought man into disfavor by casting aside divine authority and making of none effect the law when it interfered with schemes. The same corrupting principles begun in heaven were carried out through human agents on earth, by which he deceives and corrupts the whole world from beginning to end, corrupts every earthly empire and the churches, and still works by the same policy.
Judgment Through Flood
Sorrow over making humanity in a world of continual wickedness moved to a declared sentence that the end of all flesh had come, to destroy man with beast and creeping thing and fowl from the face of the earth and to destroy them with the earth. The earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence, all flesh having corrupted its way, with every imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually, while Noah found grace and an ark was provided for those who desired to be saved from the coming destruction. That grief was not passive sorrow but action, for He came out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth, clothed Himself with vengeance to execute judgment against transgressors of His law for bold transgression, and by a flood cleansed the earth of its iniquity and moral pollution. The pre-Flood world had been surpassingly lovely in groves and forests and varied scenery, but men put God out of their thoughts, gave their minds to selfish enjoyment to gratify their own desires, corrupted their ways, worshiped things made by their own hands, and defiled the beautiful earth with evil works and almost universal violence and crime, so He washed it clean and turned the once-beautiful earth into desolation and removed the contaminating influence.
Judgment came because guilt reached its limit, the measure of iniquity was filled, patience borne for centuries was exhausted, and corruption had become incurable and beyond remedy after resisting conscience and rejecting the warnings and messages of God's prophets. Having perverted His gifts, men would lose the creatures and vegetation He had given them, for He asserted His authority, punished the transgressors, intervened to uphold His law and restrain evil, and blotted out the wicked inhabitants in mercy because their rebellion could no longer be cured. Plunging further into sin after Noah's message was rejected declared their condition incurable, and the rejection of warning followed by the Flood showed the same result that follows when forbearance does no further good.
At the time destruction was determined, Eden, which had remained upon the earth with its entrance barred by watching angels, was withdrawn from the earth by the hand that had planted it. Adam witnessed the wide-spreading corruption growing for nearly a thousand years, beheld through that long life a world of suffering and sorrow from sin, and understood the flood of waters brought upon widespread iniquity as the just consequence of human wickedness. Fifteen centuries after Cain his influence and example had ripened into crime and pollution flooding the earth, calling for its destruction, and forbearance in sparing sinners had only made the wicked more bold and defiant, the longer men living in sin becoming the more abandoned. The sentence of death upon the fallen race for transgression of God's law, in cutting short a career of unbridled iniquity and freeing the world from the influence of those hardened in rebellion, was thus proved both just and merciful, a blessing rather than a curse, and merciful in bringing such a life to an end by death.
Before the flood men, animals, and trees were many times larger than any now existing or that have existed for thousands of years, vastly superior in size to men now living, under conditions differing in many respects from the present, which can be learned only from the Bible since geology apart from Bible history can prove nothing and can never fathom what the history of the flood explains. At the flood great changes took place, and those larger men, animals, and trees were buried and thus preserved as evidence to later generations that the antediluvians perished by water. God designed that the discovery of bones, petrified trees, instruments of warfare, implements and other relics in the earth should establish faith in inspired history, but men with vain reasoning make a wrong use of these benefits and turn them into a curse, falling into the same error as the people before the flood and as those who use geological discoveries to deny the Mosaic record.
That destruction stands as a lesson for all time on the sure result of transgressing holy law, for God means what He says about judgment, a lesson men have not learned since the flood as sin has steadily increased after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and opened the floodgates of woe until only Noah and his sons were saved. The people before the Flood lived to blaspheme God and defile the earth, and their example parallels the Canaanites and the inhabitants of Jericho, whose persistent evil and corruption made judgment necessary, with love and justice both calling for the prompt execution of those who rebelled against God and harmed humanity. Sodom destroyed by fire from heaven, Nineveh first spared by repentance then destroyed when sin reached to heaven, and cities growing like the pre-Flood world preparing for a fate like Sodom's prove the same certainty, with the antediluvian destruction standing as a warning to later people including Sodom, who knew of it yet followed the same course. It warns now because the world is fast becoming as it was before the flood, with Satan enthroned, God's law trampled underfoot, and the Sabbath discarded for a spurious sabbath, typifying coming judgment upon cities that reject warnings, upon the Jewish nation, and upon the world.
Mercy Before Judgment
God would not destroy without warning but gave a probation of one hundred and twenty years in which His Spirit would strive with man. He made His purpose known to Noah by a holy angel, gave exact directions to build an immense ark on dry land as shelter until indignation was overpast, and set Noah, Enoch, Methuselah and many others to preach repentance, keep alive knowledge of God, and stay moral evil. Enoch had repeated to his children what God had shown him about the flood, and Methuselah and his sons lived to hear Noah's preaching and helped build the ark. Every blow struck on the ark was a warning, given with power as God's own voice calling that generation to believe, repent, reform, and find pardon, shelter and refuge. Those who believed the message and prepared by repentance and reformation would find pardon and be saved, and opportunity was offered to all with help offered even to build the ark.
Only eight, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark and were saved. The large population knew not their visitation not for lack of warning but because they did not heed, regarding Noah's message as an idle tale, mocking the building, and charging Noah with delusion. They reasoned about science and nature's laws, continued planting and building and marrying and giving in marriage and growing in idolatrous business, vileness and crime, forgetting God and resisting conviction until conscience became unimpressible. Even many who helped build did not believe nor turn from wrong principles nor overcome conduct contrary to God's will, some of the employed carpenters believed for a time but died before the flood, and others of his converts backslid and perished, so the righteous on earth were but few. Some later still rebelled because He had destroyed them.
The destruction was not unwillingly fixed: judgment could be averted if they turned to the Lord, and if they had only repented He would not have destroyed the inhabitants of the old world. They were warned through faithful witnesses and given 120 years of probation, but they rejected the warning, mocked Noah, persisted in wickedness and refused admonition, so the announced judgment was carried out.
When men persist in wickedness the Spirit is withdrawn and the restraining power God has held over Satan is removed. Satan is then no longer prevented from exercising his power over inhabitants in calamities against men and against beasts, and these disasters will be of more constant occurrence. Rejecting merciful warning as in Noah's day led to withdrawal of the Spirit from the sinful race and their destruction in the flood, leaving many on dark secret paths to continue stumbling to ruin beyond return. The only safety is in being wholly on the Lord's side, for those found on the enemy's side will perish with the wicked in the plagues the Lord allows Satan to create.
Last Days Parallel
As in the days of Noah so shall be the coming of the Son of man, for the pre-Flood condition of great and total wickedness, with every imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually, the earth corrupt before God and filled with violence and all flesh having corrupted its way, is being repeated step by step in the very last days. There are no new evils, only the same forms of wickedness current now, the same careless, world-loving, warning-rejecting spirit that ate and drank and married until Noah entered the ark, the same measuring of manhood by wealth rather than integrity, disobedience to law and refusal of loyalty. There are only two classes as then, the righteous like Enoch and Noah who walk with God in uprightness, and the wicked who resemble the antediluvian world. Cities and churches are becoming like Noah's world and like Sodom and Gomorrah, with iniquity and crime of every order in high places, gambling, robbery, drunkenness, hidden corruption and cruelty, hypocrisy, pleasure-seeking, eating and drinking, ambition to exalt self, lust of the flesh, pride of the eyes, selfishness, misuse of power, cruelty, force to compel union with confederacies and unions, strife between labor and capital, while Satan rules and energizes the revolt.
Because men in wickedness resemble the antediluvians, the judgments of the Lord now falling are a warning to prepare for coming burning destruction. Destruction of cities, wars, bloodshed, earthquakes, floods, flame, distress of nations with perplexity, broken thrones, intense activity of Satan, shrieks of suffering expiring nations, confusion, and the earth pouring forth burning contents from its bowels prove the end is near, the guilt of the whole world made manifest, wickedness almost reaching its limit, the earth almost ripe and very soon to be made completely desolate. God permits these judgments to fall and will again come out of His place to punish the earth for iniquity and blot out iniquity, as He purified the world by a flood when its wickedness became unbearable and it lost His favor.
The earth is nearing its final purification by fire as it was cleansed by water, when divine sorrow over rejected probation ends in judgment. After a period of test and trial granted to choose between evil and good and to show loyalty by obeying law through repentance and conversion, those who deliberately choose their own wicked ways bring the same result, for moral pollution has become as before the Flood and as in Sodom and Gomorrah. Then the highest Authority will give the word to shorten the days lest no flesh be saved, and transgression will bring punishment of the world for iniquity with the slain of the Lord from one end of the earth to the other.
As Noah by faith and works warned the world and condemned it despite mockery, building the ark on dry land, God's people today are to warn the world by faith and works and condemn the world, meeting the same wicked resistance without failing or becoming discouraged. God sends plain warnings now as He did then, granting striving of His Spirit, with every blow on the ark then a warning message and with calamities, earthquakes, floods, and disasters by land and sea increasing now, calling to wholly consecrated life while many reject warnings and deny the authority of law because their life does not harmonize with pure principles of moral government. The message demands all energies in a work of decided reform, leading to a higher plane of action, and even many who helped build the ark did not believe the startling message, did not cleanse themselves from wrong principles nor overcome conduct contrary to mind and will of God, and perished.
Call to Present Faithfulness
The condition before the flood when wickedness caused grief at the heart is a warning on temperance against the intemperance of the present world. The people then were condemned for drunkenness, gluttony, and indulgence of sensuous passions that brought down their intellectual and moral nature until moral pollution was washed away by the flood, and the same leading sins mark the age before the return of Christ. Their lightness and frivolity degenerated into debasing sins of selfish indulgence and corrupt passion, with inclination and passion ruling over reason, self made god, and the knowledge of God nearly obliterated, which called forth wrath in dreadful destruction to rid the earth of contaminating influence, and that rule of appetite over mind and conscience is now repeated. The cause then was excessive indulgence of appetites and passions producing selfishness, violence and crime, and the same cause produces the same selfishness, violence and crime as this earth's history closes.
A decided reform in habits of life is therefore needed now to fit a people for the coming of Christ, keeping the brain clear and the body as free as possible from disease. The warning message demands all energies, calling the church to arise and shine with every family practicing self-denial, eating and drinking to the glory of God and refusing to corrupt soul and body by intemperance, so that the condition of the church testifies her light has not been removed. Followers of Christ must be temperate in eating and drinking and not indulge appetite at the expense of health and spiritual growth, for as it was in the days of Noah so it will be in the days of the Son of Man. If church members refuse to receive and practice the light, the movement of health reform will go on without them, their candlestick will be removed out of its place, and they will be left in the background. Gluttony, winebibbing, liquor-drinking and tobacco using show appetite still bearing sway over mind and conscience.
The same prevailing iniquity that polluted the earth then pollutes the world and even the church now, and sin in its true hateful character must be met by lifting up the cross of Calvary and the atoning sacrifice, that beholding sin's hatefulness people may lay hold upon the righteousness of Christ which alone can subdue sin and restore the moral image of God in man. The inhabitants of the old world were punished for disobedience of God's requirements and were not washed by the deluge straight into glory, proving mercy does not mean final penalty for transgression will not be executed and that obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life. That evil grieved God at His heart and brought judgment, warning those now deciding destiny for eternity with souls to save or lose to see the difference between obedience and disobedience, break from enslaving appetite, flee to refuge in Christ, and lay hold on eternal life. Salvation depends upon full and entire obedience, requiring spiritual knowledge obtained only by studying the living oracles of God, for the greatest events hang upon apparently small things as disobedience destroyed the old world by flood. Great numbers do not follow Christ and only a few believe present truth, so believers must not follow the majority to see heaven but regard the commandments of God, lift the cross after knowing duty, refuse fables and turning to the right or left, and stand alone as the few lest they meet destruction with the many.
The account is literal history of a literal Noah and a real flood, in inspired words pronounced divine by Christ, and its generation specifies the character of the age before He appears in the clouds of heaven, showing Noah's day prefigures the present age and that human nature uninfluenced by the Spirit is the same then as now, so the Old Testament account cannot be divorced from the New. The wickedness that grieved God and brought judgment is still found among professed followers of Christ. Choosing to ignore truth and righteousness to follow evil imaginations of the heart and to work out own plans in a worldly manner grieves God, and not one who persists in that choice shall enter heaven. Grief came from corrupt training and life when youth were educated to love excitement, glorify themselves and follow imagination of evil hearts with depravity, cruelty, violence and crime as result, and the same condition returns as cities and even country towns become like Noah's world and like Sodom and Gomorrah where youth are trained by idle holidays and pleasure-seeking rather than diligent habits. Neglect by parents in training and educating children is making the world again what it was in Noah's days when wickedness grew so great it pained God that He had made man and He swept moral pollution away by the flood. From generation to generation parents transgressed the law, despised the Sabbath and failed to instruct children diligently to love and fear God and obey all His commandments, so sin abounded and wrath was kindled against the earth's teachers, and had parents obeyed what is required the world would not be as today.
The Lord's sorrow over making man is human language for the pain of divine love when sin offends Him, not a change from an unforeseen event, since nothing happens without His foreknowledge. That grief was called forth by total inward corruption, where every imagination of the heart was only evil continually and all flesh had corrupted its way in violence and transgression of His law. His grief was not passive but active, coming out of His place to punish, vindicate His law, and cleanse the earth of its moral pollution by the flood. Yet mercy was mingled with judgment, for He gave a probation of one hundred and twenty years with His Spirit striving, directions for the ark, and preaching through Noah to call that generation to repentance and refuge. As it was in the days of Noah so it will be at the coming of the Son of man, with the same continual evil repeated, the same two classes of righteous and wicked, and the final purification by fire as the earth was once cleansed by water.
God's Sorrow Explained
The word translated repented is human language for divine sorrow, not a change produced by an unforeseen event, since nothing happens by accident or without foreknowledge. Its parallel expressions explain one another, for grief is like pain in the heart. That pain is the sorrow of divine love when human sins offend Him.
That grief was not passive sorrow but action, for He came out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth and by a flood cleansed the earth of its iniquity and moral pollution. For centuries He bore with the old world until guilt reached its limit, when wickedness was great and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. When iniquity became so deep and widespread that He could no longer bear with it, every principle of right-doing being violated, His grief marked the limit of divine forbearance. Transgression of the law in that condition brings the same result in every age, and long forbearance does not mean evil will be left unjudged but that it will be brought to an end with punishment of hearts fully set on doing evil. He gave 120 years of warning while Noah built the ark, but that probation was not valued and only eight persons were saved, and His patience with the wicked is part of His merciful plan to save souls.
His grief did not come from wanting people to perish but from wanting them to have eternal life, for wickedness, crimes and moral pollution were increasing so fast that the wicked would have to be swept away to wash the earth clean. Mercy was mingled with judgment, for Noah and his family were saved, probation had been granted through Christ as Redeemer after the fall, and the flood was judgment on widespread intense disregard of the law while the saved showed mercy alongside it. He is compassionate, ready to pardon and abundant in mercy, full of compassion, mercy and love, and though judgment is vengeance against those who persistently despise grace, benevolence has not been cut off but love and care still flow earthward though sin has increased in volume and prevalence since Eden. He does not again sweep men away by a flood because of the covenant made with Noah, sparing them in divine benevolence. He bore long with rebels for centuries, exercising long forbearance toward a rebellious world while the holy law was trampled in the dust, yet men did not learn the lesson but multiplied in renewed rebellion. He set a second period of probation closing as in the days of Noah, giving 120 years of mercy in which Christ labored with angels to produce a better state, sending Noah as a preacher building the ark on dry land and Enoch who walked with God, with opportunity for all to be saved and help offered to build the ark. Some were converted for a time but did not stay converted and would not heed, so only eight out of the immense multitude were saved, with one man Noah walking with God amid moral corruption, and the same eating, drinking, planting, building and marrying will mark the close of probation when the Son of man shall be revealed. He was mindful of what was passing on the earth, permitted matters to come to a crisis, then interposed to hinder Satan's plans by bringing waters that swept away the wicked inhabitants, establishing His manner of working to let a crisis become marked and then make known that there is a God who sustains and vindicates His people, a pattern to repeat when defiance of the law is almost universal and His afflicted people seek Him as Deliverer.
God is jealous for His honor and regards thankless opposition with displeasure, for people living in His world and fed and clothed from His provision gave Him no thanks, were unmindful of His goodness and continually worked against their Creator. His sorrow over that evil led to the decree that the end of all flesh had come because the earth was filled with violence, to destroy them with the earth, a condition repeated by the thankless world today. After Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree and lost the beautiful Eden given them, sin opened the floodgates of woe and men grew worse till He destroyed the world by a flood, saving only Noah and his sons, showing He means what He says about judgment, and since the flood sin has steadily increased. He keeps a reckoning with nations as well as individuals, and with every nation the sum of guiltiness, allowing a certain period of probation with light and evidence and requirements, supremacy and laws made known so none are destroyed unwarned and without light, which will save them if received. He exercises long forbearance, patience and mercy while iniquity increases until it is to the full, putting constraint upon His own attributes and keeping silence for centuries while goodness is despised and the holy law is prostrated, broken and trampled by rebellious men cooperating with evil angels, with wonderful forbearance while divine compassion flows out and stubborn hearts beat it back. He is slow to anger and great in power, yet grieved at heart by deepening enmity and hatred toward Him. The world before the flood accumulated guilt and indulged wickedness of the same order as Sodom and Gomorrah and the Amorites, adding iniquity to iniquity while He bore long and withheld punishment until the specified measure of guilt was reached and the cup of iniquity was full. When men refuse warning after warning, reject His word and choose darkness rather than light, repeating the sins of the Noachic world with hearts fully set to do evil like Sodom, and when further light and forbearance would do no good and men persist in insolence and in making void the law, with human laws made supreme and vast numbers passing the boundaries and exceeding the limits of grace, His long-suffering ends and He takes the matter in hand, arising in wrath and coming out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth, vindicate His honor and bring plagues upon a godless world, with judgments no longer withheld. The fact that judgments have been long delayed does not make punishment less severe when it comes, and when indignation breaks forth retribution is fearful, with a terrible alternative realized at the crisis.
Wickedness Before Flood
The grief fell on inward wickedness grown total, for every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually, the heart deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, goodness and purity nearly gone, with hatred of the Maker, corrupt thoughts, and body and soul corrupt in a general corruption that provoked Him. That condition accompanied His resolve to destroy the corrupt inhabitants of the earth with the living creatures, while Noah found grace. The earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence and crime, all flesh having corrupted his way, with selfishness, robbery, bloodshed, and self-indulgence, so that no life was safe except by God's protection. That same state of continual evil and violence is the state of the very last days, with only two classes as then, and its judgments are a warning to prepare.
That corruption was continual transgression of God's law, disobedience growing since Adam's transgression opened the floodgates of woe, disregard of His requirements, casting aside His law in the name of freedom, trampling it in the dust, and departing from His plain commands, which brought His wrath and called for destruction by flood. Almost all remembrance of the Creator had vanished, men separated themselves from Him by disobedience and walked in the imagination of their own hearts, while in contrast Enoch and Noah loved God, were obedient to His law, and were found righteous when tested by it. People lived in God's house, fed and clothed from His liberal provision, yet gave no thanks, were not mindful of His goodness, forgot the Giver, and constantly worked in opposition to their Creator. They turned His bounties, strength, skill, gold, forests, gardens, minerals, inventions and ambition into means of forgetting Him, used His gifts for selfish purposes, claimed them as their own, worshiped their own works and idols, perverted His will, hardened their hearts, expelled God from their thoughts, and filled the earth with violence and crime until their cries entered the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. That ingratitude and misuse brought the curse and destruction by flood after a trial and warning, though repentance would have spared them and the destruction was not unwillingly fixed.
Unrestrained appetite and intemperance helped make them incurably corrupt, through self-indulgence, lustful appetite and debased passion, eating animal food contrary to Eden's fruit of the trees, eating and drinking to excess without bounds, drunkenness, gluttony, indulgence of sensuous passions, and lightness degenerating to debasing sins where inclination ruled reason and self became god. Their cup of iniquity became full, mind and morals were dwarfed and perverted, health was sacrificed, God's prospering hand was removed, disease increased as effect follows cause, the curse rested heavier on men and beasts, sensibilities were benumbed, and God could bear with their wickedness no longer but cleansed the earth of its moral pollution. Their sins included defiling marriage and sexuality, marrying and giving in marriage apart from God to gratify loose passions, disobedience to parents and marrying without counsel of parents or church or inquiry after God's will, impurity and moral corruption, dissipation and licentious indulgence, polygamy perverting the marriage institution to deface God's image, amalgamation of man and beast bringing confusion, and even legalized vice and human sacrifice like Sodom's course. Taking wives without regard to God's order was one of its great sins and brought God's wrath, and the same sins among professed Christians who expect Christ's return will bring unmingled fury when the world is almost ripe as then.
They exalted human wisdom above God, became lifted up in imagination and left God out of plans and councils, fully decided they had no need of God, took themselves out of His hands, and thought in finite wisdom and supposed smartness they could do better left to themselves. They measured manhood by wealth rather than integrity, misused riches in pride and hoarding, practiced dishonest business, robbery, speculation, inflated values, unfair confederating for gain, oppression of widows, orphans and laborers, strife between labor and capital, unions and confederacies, hypocrisy in churches, pleasure-seeking excitement, idolatry, image-making, philosophy exalting nature above nature's God, and Satanic devices, commercialism, and mind-captivating errors that crowded God out. Satan set up his throne and energized the world with the same revolt begun in heaven, and men determined to carry out their own plans regardless of others, letting ordinary activities fill their minds until they forgot God. This happened in a surpassingly lovely world only a step from paradise in groves and forests and varied scenery, yet sin blighted it and defiled the beautiful earth with evil works. It came fifteen centuries after Cain when his influence had ripened into pollution flooding the earth, which Adam witnessed for nearly a thousand years and understood as the just consequence of wickedness, when men, animals and trees were many times larger than now under conditions differing from the present, and after long indulgence the race had declined through excess, violence and debauchery from original perfection. Long lives and great forbearance only made the wicked more bold, showing that cutting short unbridled iniquity by death was just and merciful, a blessing rather than a curse, and that geology apart from Bible history can prove nothing about those buried evidences.
Satan demonstrated his principles of rebellion there after Adam's transgression gave him place to sow seeds of evil, controlled descendants through appetite, led them into transgression and ruin, kept minds engrossed in worldly enterprises, and brought man into disfavor by casting aside divine authority and making of none effect the law when it interfered with schemes. The same corrupting principles begun in heaven were carried out through human agents on earth, by which he deceives and corrupts the whole world from beginning to end, corrupts every earthly empire and the churches, and still works by the same policy.
Judgment Through Flood
Sorrow over making humanity in a world of continual wickedness moved to a declared sentence that the end of all flesh had come, to destroy man with beast and creeping thing and fowl from the face of the earth and to destroy them with the earth. The earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence, all flesh having corrupted its way, with every imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually, while Noah found grace and an ark was provided for those who desired to be saved from the coming destruction. That grief was not passive sorrow but action, for He came out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth, clothed Himself with vengeance to execute judgment against transgressors of His law for bold transgression, and by a flood cleansed the earth of its iniquity and moral pollution. The pre-Flood world had been surpassingly lovely in groves and forests and varied scenery, but men put God out of their thoughts, gave their minds to selfish enjoyment to gratify their own desires, corrupted their ways, worshiped things made by their own hands, and defiled the beautiful earth with evil works and almost universal violence and crime, so He washed it clean and turned the once-beautiful earth into desolation and removed the contaminating influence.
Judgment came because guilt reached its limit, the measure of iniquity was filled, patience borne for centuries was exhausted, and corruption had become incurable and beyond remedy after resisting conscience and rejecting the warnings and messages of God's prophets. Having perverted His gifts, men would lose the creatures and vegetation He had given them, for He asserted His authority, punished the transgressors, intervened to uphold His law and restrain evil, and blotted out the wicked inhabitants in mercy because their rebellion could no longer be cured. Plunging further into sin after Noah's message was rejected declared their condition incurable, and the rejection of warning followed by the Flood showed the same result that follows when forbearance does no further good.
At the time destruction was determined, Eden, which had remained upon the earth with its entrance barred by watching angels, was withdrawn from the earth by the hand that had planted it. Adam witnessed the wide-spreading corruption growing for nearly a thousand years, beheld through that long life a world of suffering and sorrow from sin, and understood the flood of waters brought upon widespread iniquity as the just consequence of human wickedness. Fifteen centuries after Cain his influence and example had ripened into crime and pollution flooding the earth, calling for its destruction, and forbearance in sparing sinners had only made the wicked more bold and defiant, the longer men living in sin becoming the more abandoned. The sentence of death upon the fallen race for transgression of God's law, in cutting short a career of unbridled iniquity and freeing the world from the influence of those hardened in rebellion, was thus proved both just and merciful, a blessing rather than a curse, and merciful in bringing such a life to an end by death.
Before the flood men, animals, and trees were many times larger than any now existing or that have existed for thousands of years, vastly superior in size to men now living, under conditions differing in many respects from the present, which can be learned only from the Bible since geology apart from Bible history can prove nothing and can never fathom what the history of the flood explains. At the flood great changes took place, and those larger men, animals, and trees were buried and thus preserved as evidence to later generations that the antediluvians perished by water. God designed that the discovery of bones, petrified trees, instruments of warfare, implements and other relics in the earth should establish faith in inspired history, but men with vain reasoning make a wrong use of these benefits and turn them into a curse, falling into the same error as the people before the flood and as those who use geological discoveries to deny the Mosaic record.
That destruction stands as a lesson for all time on the sure result of transgressing holy law, for God means what He says about judgment, a lesson men have not learned since the flood as sin has steadily increased after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and opened the floodgates of woe until only Noah and his sons were saved. The people before the Flood lived to blaspheme God and defile the earth, and their example parallels the Canaanites and the inhabitants of Jericho, whose persistent evil and corruption made judgment necessary, with love and justice both calling for the prompt execution of those who rebelled against God and harmed humanity. Sodom destroyed by fire from heaven, Nineveh first spared by repentance then destroyed when sin reached to heaven, and cities growing like the pre-Flood world preparing for a fate like Sodom's prove the same certainty, with the antediluvian destruction standing as a warning to later people including Sodom, who knew of it yet followed the same course. It warns now because the world is fast becoming as it was before the flood, with Satan enthroned, God's law trampled underfoot, and the Sabbath discarded for a spurious sabbath, typifying coming judgment upon cities that reject warnings, upon the Jewish nation, and upon the world.
Mercy Before Judgment
God would not destroy without warning but gave a probation of one hundred and twenty years in which His Spirit would strive with man. He made His purpose known to Noah by a holy angel, gave exact directions to build an immense ark on dry land as shelter until indignation was overpast, and set Noah, Enoch, Methuselah and many others to preach repentance, keep alive knowledge of God, and stay moral evil. Enoch had repeated to his children what God had shown him about the flood, and Methuselah and his sons lived to hear Noah's preaching and helped build the ark. Every blow struck on the ark was a warning, given with power as God's own voice calling that generation to believe, repent, reform, and find pardon, shelter and refuge. Those who believed the message and prepared by repentance and reformation would find pardon and be saved, and opportunity was offered to all with help offered even to build the ark.
Only eight, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark and were saved. The large population knew not their visitation not for lack of warning but because they did not heed, regarding Noah's message as an idle tale, mocking the building, and charging Noah with delusion. They reasoned about science and nature's laws, continued planting and building and marrying and giving in marriage and growing in idolatrous business, vileness and crime, forgetting God and resisting conviction until conscience became unimpressible. Even many who helped build did not believe nor turn from wrong principles nor overcome conduct contrary to God's will, some of the employed carpenters believed for a time but died before the flood, and others of his converts backslid and perished, so the righteous on earth were but few. Some later still rebelled because He had destroyed them.
The destruction was not unwillingly fixed: judgment could be averted if they turned to the Lord, and if they had only repented He would not have destroyed the inhabitants of the old world. They were warned through faithful witnesses and given 120 years of probation, but they rejected the warning, mocked Noah, persisted in wickedness and refused admonition, so the announced judgment was carried out.
When men persist in wickedness the Spirit is withdrawn and the restraining power God has held over Satan is removed. Satan is then no longer prevented from exercising his power over inhabitants in calamities against men and against beasts, and these disasters will be of more constant occurrence. Rejecting merciful warning as in Noah's day led to withdrawal of the Spirit from the sinful race and their destruction in the flood, leaving many on dark secret paths to continue stumbling to ruin beyond return. The only safety is in being wholly on the Lord's side, for those found on the enemy's side will perish with the wicked in the plagues the Lord allows Satan to create.
Last Days Parallel
As in the days of Noah so shall be the coming of the Son of man, for the pre-Flood condition of great and total wickedness, with every imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually, the earth corrupt before God and filled with violence and all flesh having corrupted its way, is being repeated step by step in the very last days. There are no new evils, only the same forms of wickedness current now, the same careless, world-loving, warning-rejecting spirit that ate and drank and married until Noah entered the ark, the same measuring of manhood by wealth rather than integrity, disobedience to law and refusal of loyalty. There are only two classes as then, the righteous like Enoch and Noah who walk with God in uprightness, and the wicked who resemble the antediluvian world. Cities and churches are becoming like Noah's world and like Sodom and Gomorrah, with iniquity and crime of every order in high places, gambling, robbery, drunkenness, hidden corruption and cruelty, hypocrisy, pleasure-seeking, eating and drinking, ambition to exalt self, lust of the flesh, pride of the eyes, selfishness, misuse of power, cruelty, force to compel union with confederacies and unions, strife between labor and capital, while Satan rules and energizes the revolt.
Because men in wickedness resemble the antediluvians, the judgments of the Lord now falling are a warning to prepare for coming burning destruction. Destruction of cities, wars, bloodshed, earthquakes, floods, flame, distress of nations with perplexity, broken thrones, intense activity of Satan, shrieks of suffering expiring nations, confusion, and the earth pouring forth burning contents from its bowels prove the end is near, the guilt of the whole world made manifest, wickedness almost reaching its limit, the earth almost ripe and very soon to be made completely desolate. God permits these judgments to fall and will again come out of His place to punish the earth for iniquity and blot out iniquity, as He purified the world by a flood when its wickedness became unbearable and it lost His favor.
The earth is nearing its final purification by fire as it was cleansed by water, when divine sorrow over rejected probation ends in judgment. After a period of test and trial granted to choose between evil and good and to show loyalty by obeying law through repentance and conversion, those who deliberately choose their own wicked ways bring the same result, for moral pollution has become as before the Flood and as in Sodom and Gomorrah. Then the highest Authority will give the word to shorten the days lest no flesh be saved, and transgression will bring punishment of the world for iniquity with the slain of the Lord from one end of the earth to the other.
As Noah by faith and works warned the world and condemned it despite mockery, building the ark on dry land, God's people today are to warn the world by faith and works and condemn the world, meeting the same wicked resistance without failing or becoming discouraged. God sends plain warnings now as He did then, granting striving of His Spirit, with every blow on the ark then a warning message and with calamities, earthquakes, floods, and disasters by land and sea increasing now, calling to wholly consecrated life while many reject warnings and deny the authority of law because their life does not harmonize with pure principles of moral government. The message demands all energies in a work of decided reform, leading to a higher plane of action, and even many who helped build the ark did not believe the startling message, did not cleanse themselves from wrong principles nor overcome conduct contrary to mind and will of God, and perished.
Call to Present Faithfulness
The condition before the flood when wickedness caused grief at the heart is a warning on temperance against the intemperance of the present world. The people then were condemned for drunkenness, gluttony, and indulgence of sensuous passions that brought down their intellectual and moral nature until moral pollution was washed away by the flood, and the same leading sins mark the age before the return of Christ. Their lightness and frivolity degenerated into debasing sins of selfish indulgence and corrupt passion, with inclination and passion ruling over reason, self made god, and the knowledge of God nearly obliterated, which called forth wrath in dreadful destruction to rid the earth of contaminating influence, and that rule of appetite over mind and conscience is now repeated. The cause then was excessive indulgence of appetites and passions producing selfishness, violence and crime, and the same cause produces the same selfishness, violence and crime as this earth's history closes.
A decided reform in habits of life is therefore needed now to fit a people for the coming of Christ, keeping the brain clear and the body as free as possible from disease. The warning message demands all energies, calling the church to arise and shine with every family practicing self-denial, eating and drinking to the glory of God and refusing to corrupt soul and body by intemperance, so that the condition of the church testifies her light has not been removed. Followers of Christ must be temperate in eating and drinking and not indulge appetite at the expense of health and spiritual growth, for as it was in the days of Noah so it will be in the days of the Son of Man. If church members refuse to receive and practice the light, the movement of health reform will go on without them, their candlestick will be removed out of its place, and they will be left in the background. Gluttony, winebibbing, liquor-drinking and tobacco using show appetite still bearing sway over mind and conscience.
The same prevailing iniquity that polluted the earth then pollutes the world and even the church now, and sin in its true hateful character must be met by lifting up the cross of Calvary and the atoning sacrifice, that beholding sin's hatefulness people may lay hold upon the righteousness of Christ which alone can subdue sin and restore the moral image of God in man. The inhabitants of the old world were punished for disobedience of God's requirements and were not washed by the deluge straight into glory, proving mercy does not mean final penalty for transgression will not be executed and that obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life. That evil grieved God at His heart and brought judgment, warning those now deciding destiny for eternity with souls to save or lose to see the difference between obedience and disobedience, break from enslaving appetite, flee to refuge in Christ, and lay hold on eternal life. Salvation depends upon full and entire obedience, requiring spiritual knowledge obtained only by studying the living oracles of God, for the greatest events hang upon apparently small things as disobedience destroyed the old world by flood. Great numbers do not follow Christ and only a few believe present truth, so believers must not follow the majority to see heaven but regard the commandments of God, lift the cross after knowing duty, refuse fables and turning to the right or left, and stand alone as the few lest they meet destruction with the many.
The account is literal history of a literal Noah and a real flood, in inspired words pronounced divine by Christ, and its generation specifies the character of the age before He appears in the clouds of heaven, showing Noah's day prefigures the present age and that human nature uninfluenced by the Spirit is the same then as now, so the Old Testament account cannot be divorced from the New. The wickedness that grieved God and brought judgment is still found among professed followers of Christ. Choosing to ignore truth and righteousness to follow evil imaginations of the heart and to work out own plans in a worldly manner grieves God, and not one who persists in that choice shall enter heaven. Grief came from corrupt training and life when youth were educated to love excitement, glorify themselves and follow imagination of evil hearts with depravity, cruelty, violence and crime as result, and the same condition returns as cities and even country towns become like Noah's world and like Sodom and Gomorrah where youth are trained by idle holidays and pleasure-seeking rather than diligent habits. Neglect by parents in training and educating children is making the world again what it was in Noah's days when wickedness grew so great it pained God that He had made man and He swept moral pollution away by the flood. From generation to generation parents transgressed the law, despised the Sabbath and failed to instruct children diligently to love and fear God and obey all His commandments, so sin abounded and wrath was kindled against the earth's teachers, and had parents obeyed what is required the world would not be as today.