Animals Entering Noah's Ark Guided by an AngelBible World
7:15Genesis 7:15
And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
The pairs coming to Noah were wild beasts traveling over land and birds filling the sky from every direction, moving quietly with no human driver because God Himself was leading them in. Their entrance into the great boat built on dry land was entrance into the only shelter from the coming judgment, and all were tested by whether they would believe and turn from wrongdoing. God Himself shut in Noah and his family and kept them safe by His power while every living thing outside perished, so that only eight persons were saved. That history stands as the pattern for the days before Christ appears, when the same careless pleasure, scorn of warning, and sudden destruction will be repeated and God will again be the refuge of His believing ones.
Wording and Historical Setting
This belongs to an inspired account of real events in which Noah was a literal person and the Flood was a fact in history. The Flood was a real act of divine judgment, not an event impossible under fixed laws of nature, for God has power over nature.
It stands in God's judgment on a world where the wickedness of man was great, every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, and the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence.
The phrase two and two means the beasts going into the ark on dry land and the fowls darkening the heavens as they went into the ark. They came from every quarter through the forest to Noah, with the fowls of the air flocking like a dark cloud in the heavens. They came quietly and without a visible leader, under God's invisible leadership.
The ark was an immense boat built on dry land after warning was given of a coming flood. It looked as strange as a great steamer set up on land for repairs. It needed no immense iron standards on wheels to bear it up and no rail track to carry it to the water, for the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened and the waters from above and beneath formed a great sea that floated it. Noah's family and others who received his instruction helped build it. This included carpenters he employed and many who helped do the work without believing the startling message.
It belongs to the history that dates the remains found in the earth to the world before the Flood. The people, animals, and trees of that time could be much larger than those living in later generations, and the Flood brought great changes to the earth.
Causes and Course of Judgment
The Flood came because that generation forgot God, were ungrateful for His gifts, and disobeyed and transgressed His holy law, becoming corrupt through unrestrained appetite and indulgence, and in mercy to the world God blotted out the wicked and cleansed the earth of its moral pollution. The waters that rose to the highest points declared His verdict on those who would not submit to divine authority. The destruction gives a lesson embracing all time on the sure result of transgression.
God gave that guilty generation one hundred and twenty years to turn from sin, repent, overcome bad habits, form righteous characters, choose between good and evil, and find refuge. Noah preached more earnestly amid universal scorn while men presumed on mercy, went decidedly counter to His will though they had a thus saith the Lord to guide them, and despised all warnings in continual disobedience and defiance of His law. When the measure of iniquity was full, the bounds of long-suffering and grace were exceeded, and crime, violence, and repeated rejection of messages wore out His patience, a crisis having come and the limits of forbearance declared. Then God interfered in wrath to vindicate His authority and the honor of His law, to punish transgressors, repress the increase of unrighteousness, and limit human life by sweeping that wicked race from the earth.
For forty days and forty nights rain poured down in torrents from heaven, the crust of the earth was broken with water bursting from beneath and large stones and rocks thrown into the air, the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened, and the waters from beneath united with the waters from heaven to form a great sea that covered the land to the highest points. The immense boat built on dry land, as strange as a great steamer set up on land for repairs, needed no iron standards on wheels to bear it up and no rail track to carry it to the water, for those united waters floated it while the wicked inhabitants were drowned. The flood was an awful outpouring of God's wrath, terrible in its power.
The earth's surface was transformed as vegetation, trees, groves, gardens, forests, palaces, costly pleasure works, houses, idol temples, and places of idolatry were uprooted and swept away with people and terrified animals fleeing to trees and high mountains and swept together into the angry flood. God moved water, soil, rocks, trees, rubbish, and the dead, burying bodies and hiding the treasures people had idolized, throwing up masses concealed under the earth over the loveliest places men had adored. Noah carried seeds into the ark, God preserved some kinds of trees and shrubs alive for later generations, seeds also survived in rock crevices and sprouted as the waters receded, and God used a powerful wind to dry the earth. The fruitful home God had given man was turned to a broken, uneven, frightful solitude, broken and disordered.
The Flood greatly increased the curse on the earth, which has since rested more heavily on people, animals, trees, and other vegetation as human disobedience continued, lying most heavily where the earth's riches had been. Seamed and cleft rocks, deep gorges, caverns, channels, and upthrown rocks remain as evidences and witnesses to the judgment. They declare God's verdict on those who would not submit to divine authority.
The Flood proves that transgression of God's law brings destruction, for the inhabitants deliberately chose their own wicked ways and did not repent and turn to Him. Its lesson stands in a line with the destruction of Sodom for not obeying the laws of God's kingdom, the destruction of Jerusalem because Israel would not heed the messages the Lord gave them, and the final destruction of the whole world by fire in the closing period of its history because of transgression and impenitence. Before that great destruction by fire God again grants a period of test and trial for men to show whether they will be loyal to God and obey His law.
Warning Rejected by Many
God made His purpose known to Noah and charged him to warn the world while building the ark as a preacher of righteousness, proclaiming for one hundred and twenty years the coming rain and flood though such rain had never been seen, preaching all the more earnestly as scorn increased and never losing reverence and love for the law. That long probation was given to turn from sin, and each passing day left one less day of grace while those who followed pleasure mocked the messages from heaven. By the standard of God's law the obedient were thus distinguished from the disobedient in a most critical time, and the history was kept to prepare later generations for Christ's advent.
Nearly all held themselves right and Noah wrong, claiming to know more than he did, closing their ears to truth, trusting their own reasoning, explaining it away by false science, and calling him a fanatic, visionary, alarmist, enthusiast, and not levelheaded. They laughed, mocked, and scoffed at his words as parables, superstition, and impossibility, reasoning it was fanatical because they had had no rain. They said the warning could not be, could not be endured, and denounced the preacher of righteousness while living in rioting and godless pleasure, asleep in carnal security, putting judgment far off and boasting that all things remain as from the beginning. They kept to their plans and inventions of iniquity and the routine of work without regard to principle.
Great men and good men, philosophers, scientific men, learned men, and men of wisdom saw no consistency in the message, called it a fanciful doctrine and an illusion of the brain inconsistent with God's character, and concluded Noah was deceived, for the learned and wise could not perish while he alone was spared. Some of the carpenters he employed believed but died before the Flood, others of his converts backslid, and many helpers and believing ones worked on the immense boat on dry land without believing the startling message, without cleansing themselves from wrong principles, and without overcoming temptation to do and say things contrary to God's mind and will, though many believing ones kept the faith and died triumphant.
God gave another sign by causing cattle and all other living creatures to come to the ark two and two to be housed inside, beasts going on dry land and fowls darkening the heavens as they came from every quarter through the forest, quietly and without visible leader under God's invisible leadership. Noah walked by faith, and the dumb animals' obedience in finding refuge was a wonderful witness for salvation and remarkable evidence meant to impress the hardened inhabitants. The sight briefly impressed the scoffers, yet they would not believe, were not impressed, put it from their minds in unbelief and corruption, would not humble themselves before God, and made light of Noah and his family.
When the ark was finished and provisioned there was a one-week trial with no rain in which mockery was fully revealed. Then Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives were bidden to enter, ending probation for the world, and an invisible hand shut them in, an angel in bright light shutting the massive door, shutting Noah and his family safely inside and shutting the unrighteous out as mercy was withdrawn from that corrupt generation. Though the perishing cried for safety, pleaded for admission, and clung to the ark till washed away, no others could enter after God shut the door. Their unbelief did not make the message of no effect, did not hinder the predicted event, and did not prevent fulfillment; steady rain fell until no living being or animal outside was left alive, the scoffing world was submerged, the rebellious race drank the waters covering the earth, and death was their portion, fulfilling the prophetic warning and exemplifying the truth of God's word.
Only eight persons, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark and were saved out of that vast population, while the whole vast world perished and was swept out of existence. All were tested by the truth Noah preached, those who believed and turned from unrighteousness being saved, and the message condemned the rejecting world. The small number shows that great numbers do not follow God and the majority will be lost, so following the majority will not bring heaven.
Preservation and Refuge Inside
Every kind that God had created was kept alive through the Flood by being brought into the ark, while the confused kinds that had come from amalgamation were not His creation and were swept away to destruction. That later amalgamation of humans and beasts after the Flood is what produced many varieties of animals and certain human races.
Going into the ark was entering the only refuge and shelter from the coming storm, the place where the obedient could remain until the divine indignation was overpast. Entry was the only safety, provided in the immense boat built on dry land under divine direction for all who would believe and enter. All were tested by the truth Noah preached for one hundred and twenty years, and those who believed the warning and turned from unrighteousness were saved, while only eight persons, Noah and his family, lived to enter.
God Himself shut in those who believed His word and preserved Noah and his family by His power through the Flood. The immense boat rode safely upon the waters with them secure inside while houses, idol temples, people, and terrified animals fleeing to trees and mountains were swept together into the angry flood and all outside perished. Their preservation as the obedient few who found shelter from judgment showed His word fulfilled, and it illustrates how He will deliver His people after they warn the world of coming judgment and protect the faithful from the wicked who seek to destroy them.
Their deliverance was a miracle connected with Noah's right-doing, for God saved and preserved him in the ark He had prepared through the great deluge. Noah in turn preserved God's law and taught it to his descendants. As he was kept safe in the ark, so God will be the refuge of His believing ones in the days of destruction and calamity.
After Adam and Eve fell the floodgates of woe were opened and the world became corrupt before God, and because people would not believe only a few, Noah and his family, were saved in the ark. God does not compel anyone to take part in His work, but He laid out the great plan of redemption and gave humanity the privilege of regaining God-given manhood and womanhood, that the immortal image of God may be restored for future eternal life.
End-Time Pattern and Application
Noah's generation is the pattern for the age before Christ appears, for as the Flood came and swept away inhabitants who ignored warning and were taken by surprise, so it will be in the days of the Son of man. The Flood is the pattern for the last message of mercy to be given to the world and carried to regions beyond. That coming will find men rejecting the truth of God as they did then, with the same unbelief that prevailed before the Flood existing prior to the coming of Christ, when moral darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people.
The inhabitants then lived in rioting and godless pleasure, asleep in carnal security, putting judgment far off. They boasted that all things remain as from the beginning and that tomorrow shall be as today only much more abundant, keeping to their plans and inventions of iniquity and the routine of work without regard to principle until sudden destruction came. The world was absorbed in pleasure, amusements, gain, traffic, moneymaking and dishonest practices, while the church and ministers were lulled in security crying peace and safety, until sudden destruction comes as a snare and overtakes the unprepared as a thief. So shall it be prior to Christ's second appearing, when warnings are again met with unbelief and Christ comes as a thief, and this condition is the pattern for the world in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
The same condition of increasing wickedness and unbelief exists today, with very short time left to prepare. Calamities, earthquakes, floods, and disasters by land and by sea are increasing, as warning is sent now as it was sent through Noah then. Before Christ comes everything in nature will be convulsed with burning mountains, boiling waters, mighty earthquakes, and great destruction of human life before the Son of man appears. The same fallacious reasoning is used today when the warning is proclaimed to fear God and keep His commandments because the wrath of God is soon to fall on all the sinful and disobedient and they will perish in the general conflagration. Unfaithful professed servants lull themselves to carnal security that God is too good and too merciful to save just a few who keep the Sabbath and believe the message of warning, that great and good men, philosophers and men of wisdom would see the Sabbath and the shortness of time if it were true, and that a merciful God who made men would not consume them with fire for not believing the warnings because this is not in accordance with God.
As Noah was kept safe in the ark God had prepared, so God will be the refuge of His believing ones in the days of destruction and calamity, and as Noah was kept safe in the ark so believers will be kept safe in God. The last call of mercy will likewise go unheard by men blinded by peace and safety theories, every person will be fixed holy still or filthy still, and all must humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, serve one master, wake up and get ready before it is everlastingly too late. That moral darkness does not change the duty to lift up the voice in warning, showing professing children of God their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins. All will have sufficient light to accept saving truth, obey God's requirements in keeping all His commandments, and be saved, yet the message condemns the rejecting world, requiring self-denial and the lifting of the cross to obey. Noah's faithfulness in warning even when rejected is the example of the duty to keep giving God's warning.
Safety is found only in walking according to God's Word and God's law on the side of the loyal and true even if the whole world opposes, and not in walking contrary to God in rebellion under condemnation and displeasure or following the voice of man. Great numbers do not follow God and the majority will be lost, so following the majority will not bring heaven. The small number who now regard the commandments of God and believe present truth should not be discouraged, for strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life and few find it. The Flood proves transgression of God's law brings destruction, and it warns that before the great destruction of the world by fire God again grants a period of test and trial for men to show whether they will be loyal to God and obey His law. This history of extended probation of one hundred and twenty years in which Noah preached, ending when crime and violence and repeated rejection wore out long-suffering patience, was known to the sons of the prophets and taught to the children of Israel to prepare them for the advent of Christ, and sins increasing in the present will also bring certain punishment.
The pairs coming to Noah were wild beasts traveling over land and birds filling the sky from every direction, moving quietly with no human driver because God Himself was leading them in. Their entrance into the great boat built on dry land was entrance into the only shelter from the coming judgment, and all were tested by whether they would believe and turn from wrongdoing. God Himself shut in Noah and his family and kept them safe by His power while every living thing outside perished, so that only eight persons were saved. That history stands as the pattern for the days before Christ appears, when the same careless pleasure, scorn of warning, and sudden destruction will be repeated and God will again be the refuge of His believing ones.
Wording and Historical Setting
This belongs to an inspired account of real events in which Noah was a literal person and the Flood was a fact in history. The Flood was a real act of divine judgment, not an event impossible under fixed laws of nature, for God has power over nature.
It stands in God's judgment on a world where the wickedness of man was great, every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, and the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence.
The phrase two and two means the beasts going into the ark on dry land and the fowls darkening the heavens as they went into the ark. They came from every quarter through the forest to Noah, with the fowls of the air flocking like a dark cloud in the heavens. They came quietly and without a visible leader, under God's invisible leadership.
The ark was an immense boat built on dry land after warning was given of a coming flood. It looked as strange as a great steamer set up on land for repairs. It needed no immense iron standards on wheels to bear it up and no rail track to carry it to the water, for the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened and the waters from above and beneath formed a great sea that floated it. Noah's family and others who received his instruction helped build it. This included carpenters he employed and many who helped do the work without believing the startling message.
It belongs to the history that dates the remains found in the earth to the world before the Flood. The people, animals, and trees of that time could be much larger than those living in later generations, and the Flood brought great changes to the earth.
Causes and Course of Judgment
The Flood came because that generation forgot God, were ungrateful for His gifts, and disobeyed and transgressed His holy law, becoming corrupt through unrestrained appetite and indulgence, and in mercy to the world God blotted out the wicked and cleansed the earth of its moral pollution. The waters that rose to the highest points declared His verdict on those who would not submit to divine authority. The destruction gives a lesson embracing all time on the sure result of transgression.
God gave that guilty generation one hundred and twenty years to turn from sin, repent, overcome bad habits, form righteous characters, choose between good and evil, and find refuge. Noah preached more earnestly amid universal scorn while men presumed on mercy, went decidedly counter to His will though they had a thus saith the Lord to guide them, and despised all warnings in continual disobedience and defiance of His law. When the measure of iniquity was full, the bounds of long-suffering and grace were exceeded, and crime, violence, and repeated rejection of messages wore out His patience, a crisis having come and the limits of forbearance declared. Then God interfered in wrath to vindicate His authority and the honor of His law, to punish transgressors, repress the increase of unrighteousness, and limit human life by sweeping that wicked race from the earth.
For forty days and forty nights rain poured down in torrents from heaven, the crust of the earth was broken with water bursting from beneath and large stones and rocks thrown into the air, the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened, and the waters from beneath united with the waters from heaven to form a great sea that covered the land to the highest points. The immense boat built on dry land, as strange as a great steamer set up on land for repairs, needed no iron standards on wheels to bear it up and no rail track to carry it to the water, for those united waters floated it while the wicked inhabitants were drowned. The flood was an awful outpouring of God's wrath, terrible in its power.
The earth's surface was transformed as vegetation, trees, groves, gardens, forests, palaces, costly pleasure works, houses, idol temples, and places of idolatry were uprooted and swept away with people and terrified animals fleeing to trees and high mountains and swept together into the angry flood. God moved water, soil, rocks, trees, rubbish, and the dead, burying bodies and hiding the treasures people had idolized, throwing up masses concealed under the earth over the loveliest places men had adored. Noah carried seeds into the ark, God preserved some kinds of trees and shrubs alive for later generations, seeds also survived in rock crevices and sprouted as the waters receded, and God used a powerful wind to dry the earth. The fruitful home God had given man was turned to a broken, uneven, frightful solitude, broken and disordered.
The Flood greatly increased the curse on the earth, which has since rested more heavily on people, animals, trees, and other vegetation as human disobedience continued, lying most heavily where the earth's riches had been. Seamed and cleft rocks, deep gorges, caverns, channels, and upthrown rocks remain as evidences and witnesses to the judgment. They declare God's verdict on those who would not submit to divine authority.
The Flood proves that transgression of God's law brings destruction, for the inhabitants deliberately chose their own wicked ways and did not repent and turn to Him. Its lesson stands in a line with the destruction of Sodom for not obeying the laws of God's kingdom, the destruction of Jerusalem because Israel would not heed the messages the Lord gave them, and the final destruction of the whole world by fire in the closing period of its history because of transgression and impenitence. Before that great destruction by fire God again grants a period of test and trial for men to show whether they will be loyal to God and obey His law.
Warning Rejected by Many
God made His purpose known to Noah and charged him to warn the world while building the ark as a preacher of righteousness, proclaiming for one hundred and twenty years the coming rain and flood though such rain had never been seen, preaching all the more earnestly as scorn increased and never losing reverence and love for the law. That long probation was given to turn from sin, and each passing day left one less day of grace while those who followed pleasure mocked the messages from heaven. By the standard of God's law the obedient were thus distinguished from the disobedient in a most critical time, and the history was kept to prepare later generations for Christ's advent.
Nearly all held themselves right and Noah wrong, claiming to know more than he did, closing their ears to truth, trusting their own reasoning, explaining it away by false science, and calling him a fanatic, visionary, alarmist, enthusiast, and not levelheaded. They laughed, mocked, and scoffed at his words as parables, superstition, and impossibility, reasoning it was fanatical because they had had no rain. They said the warning could not be, could not be endured, and denounced the preacher of righteousness while living in rioting and godless pleasure, asleep in carnal security, putting judgment far off and boasting that all things remain as from the beginning. They kept to their plans and inventions of iniquity and the routine of work without regard to principle.
Great men and good men, philosophers, scientific men, learned men, and men of wisdom saw no consistency in the message, called it a fanciful doctrine and an illusion of the brain inconsistent with God's character, and concluded Noah was deceived, for the learned and wise could not perish while he alone was spared. Some of the carpenters he employed believed but died before the Flood, others of his converts backslid, and many helpers and believing ones worked on the immense boat on dry land without believing the startling message, without cleansing themselves from wrong principles, and without overcoming temptation to do and say things contrary to God's mind and will, though many believing ones kept the faith and died triumphant.
God gave another sign by causing cattle and all other living creatures to come to the ark two and two to be housed inside, beasts going on dry land and fowls darkening the heavens as they came from every quarter through the forest, quietly and without visible leader under God's invisible leadership. Noah walked by faith, and the dumb animals' obedience in finding refuge was a wonderful witness for salvation and remarkable evidence meant to impress the hardened inhabitants. The sight briefly impressed the scoffers, yet they would not believe, were not impressed, put it from their minds in unbelief and corruption, would not humble themselves before God, and made light of Noah and his family.
When the ark was finished and provisioned there was a one-week trial with no rain in which mockery was fully revealed. Then Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives were bidden to enter, ending probation for the world, and an invisible hand shut them in, an angel in bright light shutting the massive door, shutting Noah and his family safely inside and shutting the unrighteous out as mercy was withdrawn from that corrupt generation. Though the perishing cried for safety, pleaded for admission, and clung to the ark till washed away, no others could enter after God shut the door. Their unbelief did not make the message of no effect, did not hinder the predicted event, and did not prevent fulfillment; steady rain fell until no living being or animal outside was left alive, the scoffing world was submerged, the rebellious race drank the waters covering the earth, and death was their portion, fulfilling the prophetic warning and exemplifying the truth of God's word.
Only eight persons, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark and were saved out of that vast population, while the whole vast world perished and was swept out of existence. All were tested by the truth Noah preached, those who believed and turned from unrighteousness being saved, and the message condemned the rejecting world. The small number shows that great numbers do not follow God and the majority will be lost, so following the majority will not bring heaven.
Preservation and Refuge Inside
Every kind that God had created was kept alive through the Flood by being brought into the ark, while the confused kinds that had come from amalgamation were not His creation and were swept away to destruction. That later amalgamation of humans and beasts after the Flood is what produced many varieties of animals and certain human races.
Going into the ark was entering the only refuge and shelter from the coming storm, the place where the obedient could remain until the divine indignation was overpast. Entry was the only safety, provided in the immense boat built on dry land under divine direction for all who would believe and enter. All were tested by the truth Noah preached for one hundred and twenty years, and those who believed the warning and turned from unrighteousness were saved, while only eight persons, Noah and his family, lived to enter.
God Himself shut in those who believed His word and preserved Noah and his family by His power through the Flood. The immense boat rode safely upon the waters with them secure inside while houses, idol temples, people, and terrified animals fleeing to trees and mountains were swept together into the angry flood and all outside perished. Their preservation as the obedient few who found shelter from judgment showed His word fulfilled, and it illustrates how He will deliver His people after they warn the world of coming judgment and protect the faithful from the wicked who seek to destroy them.
Their deliverance was a miracle connected with Noah's right-doing, for God saved and preserved him in the ark He had prepared through the great deluge. Noah in turn preserved God's law and taught it to his descendants. As he was kept safe in the ark, so God will be the refuge of His believing ones in the days of destruction and calamity.
After Adam and Eve fell the floodgates of woe were opened and the world became corrupt before God, and because people would not believe only a few, Noah and his family, were saved in the ark. God does not compel anyone to take part in His work, but He laid out the great plan of redemption and gave humanity the privilege of regaining God-given manhood and womanhood, that the immortal image of God may be restored for future eternal life.
End-Time Pattern and Application
Noah's generation is the pattern for the age before Christ appears, for as the Flood came and swept away inhabitants who ignored warning and were taken by surprise, so it will be in the days of the Son of man. The Flood is the pattern for the last message of mercy to be given to the world and carried to regions beyond. That coming will find men rejecting the truth of God as they did then, with the same unbelief that prevailed before the Flood existing prior to the coming of Christ, when moral darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people.
The inhabitants then lived in rioting and godless pleasure, asleep in carnal security, putting judgment far off. They boasted that all things remain as from the beginning and that tomorrow shall be as today only much more abundant, keeping to their plans and inventions of iniquity and the routine of work without regard to principle until sudden destruction came. The world was absorbed in pleasure, amusements, gain, traffic, moneymaking and dishonest practices, while the church and ministers were lulled in security crying peace and safety, until sudden destruction comes as a snare and overtakes the unprepared as a thief. So shall it be prior to Christ's second appearing, when warnings are again met with unbelief and Christ comes as a thief, and this condition is the pattern for the world in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
The same condition of increasing wickedness and unbelief exists today, with very short time left to prepare. Calamities, earthquakes, floods, and disasters by land and by sea are increasing, as warning is sent now as it was sent through Noah then. Before Christ comes everything in nature will be convulsed with burning mountains, boiling waters, mighty earthquakes, and great destruction of human life before the Son of man appears. The same fallacious reasoning is used today when the warning is proclaimed to fear God and keep His commandments because the wrath of God is soon to fall on all the sinful and disobedient and they will perish in the general conflagration. Unfaithful professed servants lull themselves to carnal security that God is too good and too merciful to save just a few who keep the Sabbath and believe the message of warning, that great and good men, philosophers and men of wisdom would see the Sabbath and the shortness of time if it were true, and that a merciful God who made men would not consume them with fire for not believing the warnings because this is not in accordance with God.
As Noah was kept safe in the ark God had prepared, so God will be the refuge of His believing ones in the days of destruction and calamity, and as Noah was kept safe in the ark so believers will be kept safe in God. The last call of mercy will likewise go unheard by men blinded by peace and safety theories, every person will be fixed holy still or filthy still, and all must humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, serve one master, wake up and get ready before it is everlastingly too late. That moral darkness does not change the duty to lift up the voice in warning, showing professing children of God their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins. All will have sufficient light to accept saving truth, obey God's requirements in keeping all His commandments, and be saved, yet the message condemns the rejecting world, requiring self-denial and the lifting of the cross to obey. Noah's faithfulness in warning even when rejected is the example of the duty to keep giving God's warning.
Safety is found only in walking according to God's Word and God's law on the side of the loyal and true even if the whole world opposes, and not in walking contrary to God in rebellion under condemnation and displeasure or following the voice of man. Great numbers do not follow God and the majority will be lost, so following the majority will not bring heaven. The small number who now regard the commandments of God and believe present truth should not be discouraged, for strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life and few find it. The Flood proves transgression of God's law brings destruction, and it warns that before the great destruction of the world by fire God again grants a period of test and trial for men to show whether they will be loyal to God and obey His law. This history of extended probation of one hundred and twenty years in which Noah preached, ending when crime and violence and repeated rejection wore out long-suffering patience, was known to the sons of the prophets and taught to the children of Israel to prepare them for the advent of Christ, and sins increasing in the present will also bring certain punishment.