Genesis 6:7, commentary and pictures

God declared He would wipe mankind whom He had created from the face of the earth, together with beast and creeping thing and fowl of the air, in grief and regret over making man yet without His compassion and pity ceasing. He reached that sentence because human wickedness was great and every imagination of the heart only evil continually, the earth corrupt and filled with violence through continual transgression of His law. He did not strike at once but granted one hundred and twenty years of probation, in which Noah as preacher of righteousness warned by voice and by building the ark while pardon was offered to all who would repent and take refuge. When the warning was mocked and rejected, God shut the door, withdrew His striving Spirit, and washed the world clean by the Flood that swept away all life outside the ark, an act mingled with mercy to restrain incurable evil and vindicate His law. As eating and drinking and marrying went on unheeding until the Flood took them away, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man, calling all now to stand distinct in obedience, reform appetite and life, and heed the warning before sudden destruction comes.

Wording and Scope Decree

The decree was that the human race which had been created would be wiped out from the surface of the earth, and with man the beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air would be removed. It was spoken when human wickedness had become great in the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually, when the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence and all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. That corruption had come through Satan sowing evil after gaining a hold by Adam's transgression, ripening while two classes stood apart, the righteous such as Enoch walking with God in uprightness and the great majority given over to iniquity. The sentence was not executed at once but after a probation of one hundred and twenty years in which Noah warned by voice and by building an immense boat on dry land with employed carpenters, while the inhabitants treated the message as an idle tale, mocked Noah as deluded and fanatical, reasoned from science and nature, and went on planting and building and marrying and eating and drinking.

The words of regretting the making of man and being grieved at heart express real grief and regret over the creation of man in view of his evil. That grief did not mean the creature formed had been forgotten, for though sinful men forgot, dishonored and despised their Benefactor who had given rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling hearts with food and gladness, pity and love still provided a refuge for all who would accept it. The end of all flesh was declared to have come because all flesh had corrupted its way and the earth was filled with violence, at a time when money had become the measure of manhood and men were estimated not by integrity but by wealth. The same determined language clothes vengeance to execute judgment against transgressors of law and to punish inhabitants of the earth for iniquity and bold transgression, while directing that an ark be built for those desiring salvation.

With man were to be swept away the beasts of the field, the vegetation furnishing abundant food, and the other provisions delighted in as blessings, together with palaces, gardens, costly works, inventions, arts, skill, and treasures of gold and silver and precious stones. The fair earth would thus be transformed into one vast scene of desolation and ruin and frightful solitude, blotting the guilty race from creation for polluting the world and its rich treasures with sin. That society had turned God-given abilities, perfected gifts and means to get wealth toward evil, self-exaltation and violence, forgetting God, worshiping works of its own hands and genius, exalting self as wiser than God, and even seeking to contend with heaven for Eden. They were long-lived men of great stature and powerful minds who let fallen angels control them and used all skill and knowledge to lift up themselves, and those destroyed in the Flood will rise again in the multitude of the wicked at the end with thoughts unchanged, taking up where they stopped under the same desire to conquer that ruled them in death.

The account belongs to inspired history of a real generation, for Noah was a literal person and the Flood was a historical event whose character and history prefigure the present age. In that overthrow men, animals and trees were buried and preserved, including a race many times larger in size than any men, animals and trees now living or that have lived for thousands of years. Those buried bodies and giant relics were preserved as evidence to later generations that the antediluvians perished by a flood, and God designed their discovery to establish faith in inspired history. They prove conditions very different from the present and the great change made by the Flood, but when those conditions existed and what geology alone could never explain can be learned only from the inspired history, which is to be read, understood and kept before the mind while the same selfishness, covetousness, violence, crime, wars and nation rising against nation show the signs of Christ's coming.

Causes of Divine Judgment

God resolved to destroy because human wickedness had become great in the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually, a pervasive, continual evil that grieved Him at heart and moved Him to remove created mankind with beast and creeping thing and fowl from the face of the earth. That grief over evil led to judgment on the inhabitants of the old world, while by contrast Noah found grace and Lot was saved because he did not corrupt his way before God. The surrounding account presents the destruction as the consequence of corruption spreading when the descendants of Seth joined the corrupt descendants of Cain, bringing patience to an end. Those who ate from the tree of knowledge persisted in evil, put God out of their thoughts, gave their minds wholly to selfish enjoyment to gratify their own desires, and defiled the surpassingly lovely pre-Flood earth.

The earth also was corrupt before God and filled with violence, and all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth, so that the end of all flesh was come to destroy them with the earth. Evil works defiled the beautiful earth, men worshiped the things their own hands had made, and violence and crime became almost universal, so that God would wash the earth clean of its moral pollution with a flood. At that time there were two classes, the righteous and the wicked, with Enoch and others walking with God in uprightness while the great majority were given over to iniquity until wickedness rose before God to fearful proportions. Money had become the measure of manhood, men being estimated not by integrity but by wealth possessed, in days when men ate and drank and married and knew not until the Flood took them away.

The root cause was continual transgression, disobedience and defiance of God's law, commandments, statutes and requirements, iniquity and bold transgression for which God would arise out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth, clothing Himself with vengeance to execute judgment against transgressors. Men walked in the imagination of their own hearts, corrupted their ways before the Lord, disregarded all His requirements, and by separating from Him fell quickly under Satan's rule, taking on his attributes and working out his schemes on the same principles he followed in his revolt in heaven. Transgression of God's law is always followed by destruction, and the decree marks the limit of divine forbearance when every principle of right-doing was violated and iniquity became so deep and widespread that God could no longer bear with it, as illustrated in the same result following open defiance in Sodom and in Israel. God had borne patiently and granted a probation of one hundred and twenty years with warning through Noah urging turning from disobedience to obedience, but when men refused to repent and persisted, the Flood closed that probation, restrained evil, vindicated His law, and left no living being outside the ark alive.

The setting was the early world still near Eden and in its infancy after Adam's transgression, when Satan sowed the seeds of evil in the earth, having had no control of any part of the Lord's vineyard until Adam fell. The unlawful marriages of the sons of God with the daughters of men led to apostasy, the descendants of Seth joining the corrupt descendants of Cain, and Cain's example ripening over fifteen centuries into crime flooding the earth. Men became more and more disobedient until the entire world with a few exceptions was given up to depravity and corruption, placing their own intellect above God's wisdom, refusing to honor Him by service, and building a condition on false, godless principles in which the fear of God became almost extinct. Adam lived to witness this widespread wickedness and corruption and came to see the death sentence ending miserable life as just and merciful, while obedient representatives such as Enoch and Noah loved God, obeyed His law, were found righteous when tested by it, and received light, truth and commendation, showing that had the antediluvians kept the way of God they too would have been found righteous.

Sins That Filled Earth

The decree to destroy answers a corruption rooted in intemperance in eating and drinking. Appetite had become depraved and without bounds, running to excess, gluttony and drunkenness, inflaming the passions and giving the people up to sensuous indulgence, idolatry, violence and crime. They demanded and ate flesh meat and animal food although God had given no permission to take the life of any creature but had appointed the fruit of the trees for food, gratifying lust in disobedience and in violation of the laws of health in almost everything. The family of man grew self-indulgent, indulging perverted appetite until health was sacrificed upon lustful appetite and the cup of iniquity was full, so the earth was washed clean of its moral pollution by the Flood.

That corruption included impurity, debased passion, dissipation and unlawful indulgence. Polygamy and the taking of multiple wives, unlawful marriages, marrying and giving in marriage to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts without God in the thoughts instead of to glorify Him, violation of marriage rights, and wanton, disobedient youth marrying without counsel of parents or church filled the old world and brought its destruction. What began as a seemingly small choice in marriage led to apostasy and to a chain of terrible, far-reaching consequences.

Money had become the measure of manhood, so men were estimated not by integrity but by the amount of wealth possessed. Selfishness, covetousness and greed for gain and possessions worked out in dishonest business, fraud, untrue representations, speculation in lands, mines and city lots, robbery of widows and the fatherless, oppression of the weak and violation of marriage and property rights. Lawful pursuits and ordinary activities became sinful when they absorbed the mind to the exclusion of God and noble thought, and the same selfishness, covetousness, violence, crime, wars and nation watching nation for advantage now reappear.

Though only one step from Eden and endowed with great mental and moral capabilities, perfected gifts, greater inventions of art and human skill than now, gold and silver in abundance and means to get wealth, men forgot, dishonored, slighted and despised their benevolent Benefactor who gave rain, fruitful seasons, food and gladness with unsparing hand. They used strength and gifts for selfishness and unlawful desire, treated His bounties as their own, worshiped the works of their own hands and idols, exalted self, left God out of plans and councils, supposed they improved His plans and were wiser than He, constantly sought to exceed their fellows, and even devised war with heaven to take Eden for themselves. That violence and turning of ability to evil showed the Lord forgotten, and the Flood swept away human achievements with people and creatures.

Men bound themselves in confederacies and unions to rule others and demand much. They corrupted the choice of officers, oppressed conscience by human enactments, misused power, and used cruelty and force to compel union, binding themselves in bundles for the burning. From this came confusion, strife and discord between labor and capital, destruction of property, attempts to destroy life, determination to carry out one's own plans regardless of others, wars, bloodshed and crime. The world fast becoming as before the Flood is seen in cities, in wickedness of every description abroad in the land, and in men remaining self-sufficient instead of converted.

The age added amalgamation of man and beast, which defaced God's image, brought confusion, and above other crimes called for destruction and the shortening of long lives. Schools exalted nature and human philosophy above God with infidel sentiments, while parental training was neglected and youth were trained to love excitement, glorify self and follow imagination of evil hearts. Lightness and frivolity degenerated to debasing sins in which self was god and reason was ruled by inclination and passion, producing depravity, cruelty, violence and crime like Sodom, found even among some professing truth and making the present world almost ripe for destruction.

Probation Warning and Flood

God did not execute the announced destruction at once but granted a probation of one hundred and twenty years in which repentance, turning to the Lord, obedience to His commands, and reform could avert the judgment. That period placed the future in the hands of that generation, for if Adam's descendants had repented during those years God would not have destroyed them. The sentence came only after extended mercy and long patience, with Christ and angels laboring for reform, and when persistent transgression and defiance of law closed probation it marked God's intervention to restrain evil and vindicate His law. The warning declared that a flood would destroy the earth and its inhabitants with man and beast and creeping thing and fowl, because wickedness, crimes, and moral pollution were increasing so fast the earth had to be washed clean.

During that probation Noah served as preacher of righteousness, warning by voice and by showing faith by works in building an immense ark on dry land by exact direction where rain had never fallen. He employed carpenters and was joined by believing helpers, while other faithful warners such as Enoch who walked with God and was translated without death, and Methuselah, also gave warning, so that the ark standing as a public testimony and every blow struck upon it was itself a warning. God directed the building and gave Noah instruction to warn the people and to provide shelter where the obedient could find refuge until the indignation was overpast. In this way the coming flood was fully set before men, with their wickedness and the result of transgressing the divine law plainly exposed.

The message promised that those who believed, repented, reformed, turned, and accepted refuge in the ark would find pardon and be saved, and direction was given that an ark be built for all who desired to be saved from the coming destruction. It was a message of warning and entreaty that a flood of waters would come to destroy the wicked, yet love provided a refuge for all who would accept it. Only a few repented and entered that shelter, though all had the privilege of mercy.

The inhabitants did not lack warnings but refused to heed, regarding the message as an idle tale and the building as worthy of mocking. They charged Noah with being deluded, fanatical, crazy, and stirred by Satan, laughed at him, reasoned from science and the laws of nature that such an event was impossible by human wisdom, and contradicted the solemn message by precept and example as if unbelief would make it of no account. They went on following their own pleasure and the imagination of their own hearts in planting and building and marrying and giving in marriage and eating and drinking, growing more full of idolatrous business, vileness, and crime, forgetting God and putting Him out of their thoughts to make His warnings of none effect, and resisting the invitations of mercy and the striving of the Spirit. Some who helped build the ark did not believe, put away wrongdoing, or resist words and actions contrary to God's will, and others who were deeply convicted and briefly converted did not stay converted but partook of the jesting and ridiculing spirit, falling back into bolder defiance until none were so reckless and far in sin as those who once had light but resisted the convicting Spirit.

When the appointed and specified time had nearly expired and the one hundred and twenty years of preaching and working were finished, Noah and his family entered the ark and the hand of God closed its door. Then the Spirit ceased striving with rebellious man, mercy stepped from the golden throne no longer to intercede for the guilty sinner, and human probation closed. Only eight souls out of that vast population, Noah and his family, the eight righteous, survived in the ark, while the rebellious race were swept away, death was their portion, and no living being outside the ark remained alive.

God washed the earth clean of moral pollution by a flood in which rain sent from heaven united with the broken-up foundations of the great deep, waters from beneath uniting with waters from above. It was the third and most dreadful curse upon the earth, following the first curse upon Adam's posterity and the earth for disobedience and the second upon the ground after Cain slew Abel, and it deluged the world because its inhabitants transgressed the law. Men, animals, and trees, including a race many times larger in size than any now living, were buried and preserved as evidence of conditions before the Flood and of the great change it made, which geology alone could never explain apart from inspired history. Swept away with man were trees, groves, gardens, palaces, and costly pleasure works they had idolized, turning their lovely home into broken, uneven, frightful solitude, while deep gorges, seamed and cleft and upthrown rocks raised from the deep, uplifted seabeds with clay, lime, and shells strewn and thrown hither and thither, and rich treasures of gold, silver, and precious stone buried beyond sight and reach amid convulsions of fire and flood, earthquakes and volcanoes, remain as terrors and evidences of that outpouring of wrath.

God's Justice and Mercy

Iniquity had become so deep and widespread that God could no longer bear with it, the cup was full, the bounds of long-suffering were exceeded, and forbearance reached its limit after centuries of patience. Continual evil and corruption had spread as the descendants of Seth joined the corrupt descendants of Cain, every imagination of the thoughts of the heart being only evil continually, all flesh having corrupted his way, and the earth being filled with violence and crime. Men used the gifts and strength given them for selfishness and unlawful desires, money had become the measure of manhood so that men were estimated not by integrity but by wealth, and they violated marriage and property rights, oppressed the weak, rejected God and His law, and forgot, dishonored, slighted and despised their benevolent Benefactor who had given rain from heaven and fruitful seasons. The decree therefore marks the limit of divine forbearance when open defiance of God and His law in every age brings the end of all flesh.

The sentence was mingled with mercy and love, for God pitied the race, did not forget the creature He had formed, provided a refuge for all who would accept it, labored for reform through Christ and angels, and remained ready to pardon those who turned. Before executing the sentence He fully set wickedness and the result of transgressing the divine law before men with messages of warning and entreaty through Noah as preacher of righteousness for one hundred and twenty years, promising that those who would believe, repent, reform and find refuge in the ark should find pardon and be saved. The warning was given so the people would see their sins and crimes, be alarmed and fear, and put away sin by repentance toward God and faith in Christ in obedience to sacred precepts, for it was the voice of God to man through His servant working with pleadings of infinite love to draw man to Himself. Many were deeply convicted yet resisted the invitations of mercy because their sinful life could not harmonize with the pure principles of God's moral government and putting away sin seemed too great a sacrifice, so they refused to reform, partook of jesting and ridiculing, and became among the boldest and most defiant scoffers. When the time specified had nearly expired Noah and his family entered the ark and the hand of God closed its door, the Spirit ceased striving, continued resistance separated them from God, and mercy stepped from the golden throne no longer to intercede for the guilty sinner.

The Flood declared the wicked incurable and vindicated God's law and honor, for after rejecting Noah's message they plunged into greater sin and deepened rebellion and would not submit to divine authority. God blotted them out in mercy to the world to prevent still greater ruin, for unchecked sin spreads and long lives were no blessing since the longer they lived the more corrupt they became and God's great patience did not restrain their wickedness. By freeing the world from hardened rebels the judgment restrained evil, limited life that lengthened corruption, and stands as a just and merciful blessing and lesson to the universe in the great controversy.

God means what He says, keeps a reckoning with nations, gives a certain time of probation with light and evidence that will save if received, and long delay through forbearance does not lessen severity when punishment comes. After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and lost Eden, sin opened the floodgates of woe and grew worse until God destroyed the world by a flood saving only Noah and his sons, as shown again when Sodom was destroyed by fire from heaven and when Nineveh was spared upon repentance but later destroyed when its people returned to idolatry and their sins reached to heaven. Men had become disloyal and the worst kind of sinners perpetuating iniquity with hearts fully set to do evil, and at the end of the allotted one hundred and twenty years they would not repent but engaged in all kinds of violence, so they were destroyed while impenitent to the very close of probation and perished in the flood rather than being washed straight into glory. Obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life and no one can get to heaven transgressing as well as obeying, for God's mercy does not keep Him from executing the final penalty, continued resistance separates from Him, and He never forsakes a people or individuals until they forsake Him, though neglect to bring purity and truth into practice grieves His Spirit so He is not in their midst to bless. The same sins that brought wrath on the old world, on Sodom and Gomorrah, and on ancient Jerusalem will bring ruin if they become the crime, but God will work with and for His commandment-keeping people if they avoid those sins, since outward opposition cannot dim their faith.

The destruction stands with Sodom, the Amorites, Jericho and the Canaanites, Israel and Jerusalem as proof that transgression of God's law is always followed by destruction and every principle of right-doing violated brings the same result in every age. Both love and justice demanded prompt execution of the rebels before the Flood who lived only to blaspheme heaven and defile the earth as rebels against God and foes to man, and the same condition and demand explain the utter destruction of the Canaanites at Jericho, which was not contrary to love and mercy but the dictate of infinite wisdom and goodness. The judgment by water was one way God judged cities and nations, and the sweeping away of the inhabitants before the Flood compared with Sodom warns corrupt influences in the present world, for the Sodomites perished though they knew this example. Great numbers following evil do not make heaven found by the majority, since only eight were saved and the calamities that follow when sin persists remain an example.

Last Days Parallel Prophecy

As it was in the days of Noah, when people were eating and drinking and marrying and knowing not until the Flood took them away, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man with sudden destruction upon the unaware. The decree to destroy man whom He had created from the face of the earth, with beast and creeping thing and fowls of the air, was spoken because the wickedness of man was great and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, so that the Lord regretted He had made man and was grieved at His heart. All flesh had corrupted his way and the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence, and money had become the measure of manhood so that men were estimated not by integrity but by wealth, bringing the divine decision that the end of all flesh was come to destroy them with the earth. That corruption included eating and drinking and marrying without God in the thoughts to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts instead of to glorify Him, with disobedient and wanton youth marrying without parental and church counsel, with lightness and frivolity degenerating to debasing sins where self was god and inclination and passion bore sway over reason and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated. The same eating, drinking, and marrying that filled the days of Noah will fill the days of the Son of Man, and the world is almost as ripe for destruction as it was then, absorbed in worldly excitement and bringing the unmingled fury of God upon the last days.

The present world is fast becoming and now is as the antediluvian world, when as now there were two classes, the righteous and the wicked, with Enoch and others walking with God in uprightness while the great majority were given over to iniquity until every imagination of the heart was only evil continually. What was true then is true in the last days, when the world again resembles that world in wickedness, violence, corruption, war and bloodshed, with calamities and judgments falling as warning to prepare for what is coming upon the earth at Christ's coming. The same corrupt violent state exists in the very last days by Satan's untiring work to make inhabitants as the inhabitants of the Flood, joined with Sodom's licentiousness, with the religion of the Bible rare and amusements and ambitious projects invented to glorify man and increasing love of pleasure and appetite for unnatural things introduced to deface the moral image of God in man. Though only one step from Eden and endowed with great mental and moral capabilities, perfected gifts, greater inventions of art and human skill than today, and gold and silver in abundance, men used them to work out human inventions, worship the things their hands had made, exalt self, suppose they were improving upon God's plans, forget the Lord, and even devise war with heaven to gain Eden, and the same spirit appears when men feel wise above a Thus saith the Lord, cannot read the seventh-day Sabbath, and cry higher education while supposing advancement supersedes the knowledge of God. That age of sin and corruption is the pattern for the last days of this earth's history, no more favorable for the development of Christian character than today, in which believers like Noah are to so live that they are a pleasure to God while many He died to save refuse to return to loyalty though Christ has carried out redemption to bring salvation and eternal life within reach.

Increasing calamities, earthquakes, floods, and disasters by land and by sea mark the coming judgment, for God looks upon the world today as He looked upon the world in Noah's time and saw its wickedness and determined to destroy it, because the wickedness before the Flood is repeated in this age. Those wicked practices are increasing again, and the earth is nearing its final purification by fire to blot out iniquity, as the Flood purified the earth by water because disobedience made wickedness unbearable and forfeited favor. God sends plain warnings through men and through earthquakes, flood and flame, showing how quickly the ungodly who refuse to repent will perish when His judgments fall upon evildoers, for the past is repeating. Such disasters against men and beasts will occur more constantly because the Spirit of the Lord is being withdrawn from the earth and the restraining power held over Satan is being withdrawn, so Satan is not prevented from exercising his power in plagues God allows him to create, and the only safety is being wholly on the Lord's side, for those found on the enemy's side will perish with the wicked. The corruption and crime exposed in the present age are compared with Noah's time, showing that human sins reach heaven and judgments will fall, while sin taking full control with Satan enthroned, the law trampled, God's Sabbath set aside and polluted and a rival first-day sabbath exalted, and the sins of cities and towns reaching to heaven, calls for humble prayer and turning to God with fasting, weeping and mourning.

As God sent His warning messages in the days of Noah, He sends His messages to people today, for the Flood was judgment on a violent generation that refused counsel and ignored warning through Noah, and its destruction serves as warning about the condition of the world and the judgment preceding Christ's return. Noah's preaching warned, tested, and proved the inhabitants before the waters swept them away, and that work is the pattern for God's truth in the last days, which warns people, tests response to truth, proves them, and helps decide destiny. In mercy and love the antediluvians were still given a probation of one hundred and twenty years while the ark was building, with Noah, Methuselah and many others sounding warning and entreaty so that every blow struck on the ark was a warning message. Disregard of God's law and widespread iniquity that brought destruction on the pre-flood world now precede the Lord's coming judgment and the world's destruction, calling for repentance and exalting the law before the end.

Present Duty and Warning

Genesis 6:7 shows grief over making man and a settled purpose to wipe man with beast, creeping thing and fowl from the face of the earth, because human wickedness had grown great, every imagination of the heart was only evil continually, and the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence through all flesh corrupting its way. The decree means God would arise out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for iniquity and bold transgression of His law, clothing Himself with vengeance to execute judgment against transgressors. Even so direction was given that an ark be built for all who desired to be saved from the coming destruction, leaving the righteous distinct from the wicked as with Enoch and Noah and Lot. What was true then is true in the last days, when as now there are two classes, the righteous and the wicked, with Enoch and others walking with God in uprightness while the great majority are given over to iniquity until wickedness rises to fearful proportions.

Only Noah was excepted because he found grace as a just man perfect in his generations who walked with God, marking the difference between the disobedient who were destroyed and obedient representatives such as Enoch and Noah who loved God, obeyed His law, were found righteous when tested by it, and received light, truth and commendation. Had the antediluvians kept the way of God and obeyed His commandments they too would have been found righteous and received His commendation, for disobedience by walking in the imagination of their own hearts, corrupting their ways and disregarding all requirements separated them from Him after Adam's disobedience until with few exceptions the entire world was given up to depravity. Response to warning determined whether they would be saved, and when they rejected it God withdrew His Spirit from the sinful race and they perished in the Flood. Enoch walked with God in that fearfully corrupt and polluted age, proving fellowship with God is possible amid abounding iniquity, so if he walked with God then people can walk with God today when the perils of the last days are thickening, iniquity abounds and the love of many grows cold.

The same corrupt violent state exists in the very last days by Satan's work to make inhabitants as the inhabitants of the Flood, with the religion of the Bible rare and amusements and ambitious projects invented to glorify man and increasing love of pleasure and appetite for unnatural things introduced to deface the moral image of God in man. The world again resembles the antediluvian world in wickedness, war and bloodshed, and calamities and judgments fall as warning to prepare for what is coming upon the earth at Christ's coming. Every person therefore bears responsibility to save his own soul and the souls of others, and God calls for wide-awake men and women to come to the front. Believers must keep distinct, walking with God, keeping His commandments by living active faith, loving righteousness and hating evil practice even when few.

The condition of the world prior to the Flood gives a warning on temperance against the intemperance of the present world, for indulgence of appetite and intemperance made the world in Noah's time so wicked that it was beyond all remedy, so God swept the people away. That destruction was determined because sins had reached their limit, especially intemperance that corrupted soul and body, and the same indulgence and the same sins now exist and are making the present world like that world. The same selfishness, violence, crime, and excessive indulgence of appetites and passions that prevailed then prevail as this earth's history closes, so a reform in habits of life is needed now to fit a people for the coming of Christ, with clear brain and body as free as possible from disease. The judgment is therefore a message of warning to be given to the world, calling ministers to carry forward a work of decided reform to lead God's people to a higher plane of action, with the church arising to shine and every family practicing self-denial to improve their condition.

Those truly on the Lord's side will be self-denying and self-sacrificing, eating and drinking to the glory of God and refusing to corrupt soul and body by intemperance, and the condition of the church will then testify that her light has not been removed. If church members do not act the part assigned them, the movement of health reform will go on without them, God will remove their candlestick out of its place, and those who refuse to receive and practice the light will be left in the background. Because cities are now growing more and more to be like the earth before the Flood and like Sodom, preparing for the same fate of destruction as Sodom, those crowded into the cities should procure land in localities far from the cities where they can cultivate the soil. God decided to destroy man from the earth because wickedness had filled the world before the Flood, and that same pre-flood condition is fast coming again and is being reached step by step today by satanic working in crowded cities.

That working is seen in wickedness revealed in cities like San Francisco and Oakland, in destruction of property and attempts to destroy life, and in men determined to carry out their own plans regardless of others, showing the natural man needs to be converted by the Spirit instead of remaining self-sufficient. It is seen in confusion, strife and discord between labor and capital, hypocrisy in the churches, leading men into a round of gaiety and pleasure-seeking and eating and drinking so they will not meditate, ambition to make an exhibition that exalts self, every conceivable crime, the lust of the flesh and the pride of the eyes, display of selfishness, misuse of power, cruelty, and force used to cause men to unite with confederacies and unions. Men bound themselves together in confederacies and unions to rule other men and demand much of them, putting in peril the lives of those who refused to unite, with corrupt transactions in the selection of officers showing how little confidence could be placed in human rulership, and the same binding up in unions exists in the great cities today with everything being prepared for the last great work to be done by the One mighty to save and mighty to destroy. This round of crime and folly called life binds them in bundles for the burning of the great fires of the last days, while they march blindly onward as an ox to the slaughter absorbed in selfish pursuits as though there were no God until the Lord arises out of His place to punish the inhabitants of earth for their iniquities, when the whole world is in the march to death with sudden destruction and eternal death on all who reject Christ. God brings these social perplexities to notice to expose the evil of seeking to carry out one's own way and will, and He withdraws His Spirit from wicked cities become as the cities of the antediluvian world whose inhabitants have been tested and tried, when the time has come to punish presumptuous wrongdoers who refuse to keep His commandments and disregard His messages of warning.

That pre-flood wickedness is the condition Satan, as long as he lives, works constantly and untiringly to reproduce in the world now, joined with the licentiousness of Sodom and Gomorrah. Because that evil pressure is unceasing, safety requires watchfulness and vigilance, turning the lustful eye from vanity, rebuking boldness and immodesty, daily prayer for a heart preserved from evil desires and a soul strengthened to resist temptation, resolutely guarding the affections, and refusing self-confidence that denies danger and need of unceasing prayer. The evils existing before the Flood came when men decided to ignore truth and righteousness to follow the imagination of their evil hearts, and the same evil is repeated when professed health work is conducted in a worldly manner, so not one who persists in ignoring truth and righteousness to follow his own evil imagination shall enter heaven. To escape that destruction all who see their need must have a new life formed within, to be like Christ in character, and must contend for the faith once delivered to the saints as those who live godly in Christ Jesus.

The world in Noah's day was polluted and corrupted, bringing the declared purpose to destroy man from the face of the earth, and the same polluted, corrupted condition now exists, whose only remedy is belief in the truth and acceptance of the light. Those who tempt God, reject all evidence, choose darkness rather than light, hate the light, interpose themselves between heaven-sent light and the people, trample upon the Word of God and do despite to His Holy Spirit defile their souls and continue to stumble to ruin. Following the imaginations of sinful hearts as the Noachic world did leads away from victory in the conflict for the soul, while faithfulness and perseverance offer the way to win. The age before the Flood was morally corrupt and degenerate, with schools marked by sharp intelligence in so-called science, where nature was acknowledged and worshiped above the God of nature, where infidel sentiments prevailed and ideas of God were cloudy and obscure. The words that proceeded from God to man were not heeded but disowned and rejected for human philosophy, and men drank up iniquity as water while words of warning were sounding in their ears.

In Noah's day there was a right side and a wrong side and the largest number chose the wrong side, for the world had gone mad under the training and inspiration of Satan, sustaining sin and giving popularity to transgression of the law of God, but that popularity does not demerit or lessen the force of one principle of Jehovah. It is of the highest consequence for young men and young women to know the difference and to be on the right side. Safety therefore requires studying the living oracles, gaining spiritual knowledge and the knowledge of God, guarding the eye and affections, and refusing grasping for wages. God's people must not war among themselves but be united.

Riches were not sufficient to save the inhabitants of the Noachic world from destruction, but proved their ruin, for outward wealth gives a man no value with God, and wealth trusted in, hoarded for self-glory, and abused instead of used to do good brings utter destruction. The decision to destroy the people of the old world came because selfishness, deceit, robbery, bloodshed, falsehood and crime to get money, and greed for possessions that transgresses God's law, had made them exceedingly wicked like Sodom. The same dishonest stewardship that makes the poor and the same wickedness now fill the world, pursued through selfishness, deceit, robbery and bloodshed in violation of God's law, creating a force of evil men cannot repress, and the same retribution will overtake the wrongdoer, for riches cannot save any soul from perdition or from death. The people of Noah's day used God's gifts in their own service instead of consecrating them to Him, for He had given means, power to get wealth, and natural blessings with a claim upon them and a call to surrender all to Him.

They treated their means and money as their own to use as they pleased, refused His revealed will and call to surrender all, let love of the world pervert the will and harden the heart against obedience, and forgot the Giver's claim upon them, so the blessings God gave were turned into a curse by wrong use, bringing destruction. The whole world now should be aroused to renounce those same sins, especially covetousness shown in placing wages high and grasping at the highest wages to gratify personal desires. God's work needs consecrated men who will keep the simplicity of true godliness, put confidence in God instead of man, and refuse such grasping, surrendering means and blessings to God and using them for good rather than turning them by wrong use into a curse.