Woman Pounding on Noah's Ark During the FloodBible World
7:22Genesis 7:22
All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
All living on the dry land outside the ark, every person and every animal with the breath of life in its nostrils, died in the Flood with none left alive. Only Noah and his family, eight persons, were preserved alive, shut in by God and borne safely in the ark while the world outside was swept out of existence. The avenging waters prevailed by rain for forty days and forty nights joined with waters bursting from the bowels of the earth, rising until they covered even the highest peaks and left a shoreless ocean. It was God's judgment for universal corruption, violence and transgression of His law, when wickedness was great and every imagination was only evil continually. As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man, the Flood generation prefiguring a present age fast becoming as corrupt and violent and proving the end is at hand.
Extent of the Destruction
All that lived on dry land outside the ark, every human being and every land animal with the breath of life in the nostrils, died in the Flood, and not one living being outside was left alive. The waters rose until they reached even the highest points of land, so that even those who reached the highest ground perished when the flood covered it. For forty days and forty nights rain poured down until water filled houses, swept away idol temples, and rose higher and higher, while the crust of the earth broke and water hidden in its bowels burst out with such force that large stones were thrown into the air. Terrified people and animals fled for refuge, cried for safety, pleaded for admission to the ark, and some clung to it until washed away, while parents with children climbed trees and others climbed mountains only to be flung by wind and swept together into the boiling deep.
Only Noah and his family were preserved alive, riding safely in the ark after God shut in those who believed His word, while the vast impenitent world outside was swept out of existence. Of the vast, pleasure-loving, corrupt population only eight righteous persons accepted the warning, fled for refuge into the ark, and were saved, and death was the portion of all outside. Some carpenters who believed died before the Flood and other converts backslid, leaving only Noah and his helpers to build, preach more earnestly amid universal scorn through a probation of one hundred and twenty years, enter with cattle and all other living creatures two and two, and be shut in by an invisible hand for a final one-week trial with no rain that fully exposed mocking unbelief before steady rain fell until all unbelievers outside perished in their sins. As the waters rose one after another outside drowned, and what they would have given for a place within the ark came too late because no others could enter.
Animals that God had created were preserved in the ark, while creatures described as confused species resulting from amalgamation were destroyed by the Flood. The judgment also swept away beasts and the vegetation that had supplied food, because people had perverted God's gifts and left the earth desolate with the sinful generation extinguished. People were swept away together with the trees they had enjoyed and idolized, and groves, palaces, and costly works for pleasure were all swept away. Fruitful trees, shady avenues, forests, and gardens were utterly destroyed, with torrents of rain from above and the broken-up fountains of the great deep filling idolatrous places with masses of rubbish and earth and throwing up rocks concealed under the earth to cover the loveliest places men had adored.
The avenging waters rose higher and higher until they reached the tops of the mountains and the highest trees, sweeping the inhabitants of the old world away into the deep after they climbed in vain for safety. The rain began slowly, then the heavens were opened and poured down in torrents, and every one outside was swept away while the ark floated safely upon the troubled waters, leaving a shoreless ocean and a world of water.
How the Waters Prevailed
Rain fell for forty days and forty nights until houses filled and idol temples were swept away and the waters rose higher and higher. It began slowly and gently, then the heavens were opened and poured down in torrents. At the same time the crust of the earth broke and the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and waters hidden in the bowels of the earth burst out from beneath with such force that large stones and rocks concealed under the earth were thrown into the air. Torrents from above and the broken-up fountains from beneath united, the windows of heaven opened from above, and a great sea formed around the ark. The broken surface with its deep gorges and seamed and cleft rocks remains as evidence of that universal destruction.
Terrified people and animals fled for refuge when the waters prevailed. They cried for safety and pleaded for admission to the ark, and some clung to it until they were washed away. Parents with children climbed trees, and people and animals climbed to the tops of mountains and to the highest trees to escape. The waters rose to the tops of the highest trees and the highest peaks, driving them from groves, mansions, works of gold and temples of precious stones to flee for higher footholds until the last retreat was reached. They were flung by wind and swept together into the boiling deep and the black depths, leaving a shoreless ocean and only a world of water.
The ark had been built on dry land like a boat on land, an immense ark prepared for safety. It needed no iron standards or rail track to bear it up and carry it to the water. While every one outside was swept away, the ark floated safely upon the troubled waters. Noah and his family rode safely inside under God's protecting care and divine guidance amid tempest, thunder and lightning, because God had shut in those who believed His word and no others could enter.
After cattle and all other living creatures and Noah entered two and two under invisible leadership, those inside were shut in by divine power by an invisible hand and God's hand closed the door. Then a final one-week trial passed with no rain. That week fully exposed and revealed mocking unbelief, as the people mocked and derided and made light even after seeing the dumb animals quietly enter. Then steady rain began and continued until every living thing on dry land outside perished in sin and not one living being outside was left alive, so that what they would have given for a place within came too late.
Reasons for the Judgment
The death of everything on dry land that breathed through nostrils was God's judgment on a world corrupt before Him and filled with violence, where wickedness was great and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. In Noah's day men disregarded His law until almost all remembrance of the Creator had passed from the earth, and iniquity reached so great a height that He could bear with it no longer and brought a flood of waters to sweep away its wicked inhabitants. Justice was trampled, the marriage relation and the rights of property were disregarded, and the cries of the oppressed entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth until heaven was filled with them. The sinful generation was thus extinguished and the earth left desolate, and the judgment swept away even beasts and vegetation that had supplied food, because people had perverted His gifts.
They had put God out of their knowledge, forgotten Him, expelled Him from their thoughts, despised His law and trampled His standard of character in the dust. Though living in His house and sustained with food and clothing from His treasury, they were unmindful of His goodness and without thanks to Him, using His bounties and great strength of body and mind for selfish purposes, unlawful appetites, pride and sinful pleasure. They worshiped idols and became like them by beholding evil, were changed into its image, sank lower and lower, corrupted their ways before God and corrupted one another. Lifted up in their own finite wisdom, they took themselves out of His hands and thought in their human wisdom and supposed smartness that they could do much better left to their own imaginings, fully deciding they had no need of God until He decided He had no need of them, so they and all their wicked works perished.
Indulgence of appetite was the prevailing sin that filled the cup of iniquity until God cleansed the earth of its moral pollution. They did eat, they drank, becoming intemperate in eating and drinking, with gluttony and drunkenness inflaming the passions to violence, crime and debased passion. They demanded flesh-meats although at that time God had given man no permission to eat animal food, eating and drinking till indulgence of depraved appetite knew no bounds, and becoming so corrupt through perverted appetite that He could bear with them no longer. Since the first surrender to appetite health has been sacrificed on its altar, and the Flood proves that God tests fallen people just where He tested man before the fall, that indulgence of appetite is among the most flagrant sins of the fallen race and brings the greatest amount of human woe.
Their corruption included selfish pleasure, immorality, Sodomitish practices, strange abandonment of principle and a lowered standard of morality. Secret societies were formed to work in darkness to do violence, while selfishness and violence and crime marked the days of Noah. Though only a step from paradise and given rich gifts of strength and skill of which men now have but a faint idea, they used them for selfish purposes and revelled in sinful pleasure, turning blessings into a curse by using the precious things of earth with which He had surrounded them in love to gratify pride and glorify themselves, defiling the earth by violence, sinfulness and corrupting works. Long life was no blessing to the sinner, for His great forbearance did not repress wickedness but the longer men lived the more corrupt they became, as shown in sparing Cain whose life and teaching influenced his descendants toward the corruption that made the Flood necessary, proving that unless transgression is speedily punished sin permitted to go unpunished spreads until the earth becomes as corrupt as in Noah's day.
The old world fell through unbelief and disobedience to God's word and requirements, rejecting His message through Noah. They thought they were right and Noah was wrong, claimed to know more than that faithful servant, closed their ears to words of truth, and darkness came upon them, so that walking contrary to His Word stirred rebellion and brought His displeasure until they drank the waters that covered the earth. They explained away truth by false science, reasoning from science and the laws controlling nature that He would not fulfil His word and treating the order of nature as unchangeable, arguing it was foolish to say rain would come when no signs of such had ever existed and concluding the threatened destruction could not happen. Great men and good men, philosophers, scientific men, learned men and wise men saw no consistency in the warning and called it illusion, fanaticism, insanity and parables, branding Noah a crazy fanatic, caricaturing and criticizing his peculiar earnestness and intense feeling about coming judgments, laughing and mocking and scoffing at him as a preacher of righteousness. Their unbelief and mockery did not hinder the predicted event or make the message of no effect, for nature is not above God who governs it and can bring judgment as He has warned; if they had obeyed they would not have perished, but as all outside the ark perished so only Noah and his family, eight persons, were saved while all the rest of the vast world were swept out of existence.
The corruption and apostasy associated with the sons of God marrying the daughters of men ended in that destruction of the world by the waters, showing how seemingly small unfaithful choices lead to grave and lasting consequences.
Warning and Probation Rejected
God granted the old world one hundred and twenty years of probation in mercy before the Flood swept away all with the breath of life on dry land. During that time Noah stood as preacher of righteousness, warning of what was coming while building the immense ark on dry land as a shelter where the obedient could remain until the indignation was overpast. He and his helpers kept constantly at work, and he preached all the more earnestly in proportion to the universal scorn heaped upon God's law and upon himself, without losing reverence and love for the law. Some believed and helped, many kept the faith and died triumphant, while each passing day left one less day of mercy as men followed their own pleasure and mocked and derided the messages sent from heaven. The destruction came because men exceeded the bounds of long-suffering and the limits of grace, presuming upon mercy, going decidedly counter to His will, despising all warnings and continuing in disobedience, self-importance, swelling pride, unrighteousness and disgraceful transgression of His law.
The given sign was the dumb animals quietly entering the ark two and two under invisible leadership, without a visible leader. Believers were shut in by an invisible hand, and cattle and all other living creatures entered two and two with the obedient distinguished from the disobedient by the standard of God's law. Some carpenters who believed died before the Flood and other converts backslid, and many who helped build the ark perished because they did not believe the startling message, did not cleanse themselves from wrong principles, and did not overcome temptation to do and say things contrary to the mind and will of God. A final one-week trial passed with no rain after the shutting in, which fully exposed mocking unbelief before steady rain fell until all unbelievers outside perished in their sins.
The shut door shut Noah in and shut out the world, closing the refuge once open to all who believed. It ended long forbearance, mercy, hope, warning and opportunity, and gave place to justice and wrath with mercy cut off. Their doom was fixed before they recognized it, as they continued ordinary careless lives and mocked the warnings after Noah was shut inside and they were shut out. So the Flood became an example of the sudden, unnoticed close of human probation before Christ returns.
The despisers denounced Noah as visionary, fanatic and alarmist, laughed his warning to scorn as superstitious fear, branded him a fanatic, and said he speaks in parables. They thought they were right and Noah was wrong, claimed to know more than that faithful servant, closed their ears to words of truth, explained away truth by false science, and argued it was foolish to say rain would come when no signs of such had ever existed. In their doom on the highest peaks they longed for the opportunities they had slighted and pleaded for one hour's probation, one more privilege of mercy, one more call from the lips of Noah, but the sweet voice of mercy was no more to be heard by them. They felt remorse but not repentance, remembered his sermons and denunciations, and vainly desired his prayers when the voice of mercy was silent forever.
Their unbelief could not hinder the predicted event, for rejecting a divine warning does not avert its announced consequence. Their mockery did not make the message of no effect, but the Flood came as warned and none but Noah and his family were saved in the ark while all others on dry land died. The old world's destruction warns that people who dismiss God's warnings and remain careless will perish when judgment comes. If they had repented and obeyed they would have been saved, for God would have saved every obedient soul, and their perishing proves disobedience to God's word brings death while reaping time comes without fail with no blast to blight that crop and no worm to destroy it.
God allows all nations a certain period of mercy, goodness and compassion, bearing long with sins and sending faithful warning to turn from sin. After one hundred and twenty years given to choose between evil and good and to repent or be destroyed, men deliberately chose their own wicked ways, would not repent, set their hearts fully to do evil, engaged in all kinds of violence, and remained impenitent to the very close of probation. When these mercies are trifled with and the measure of iniquity is full and the boundaries of divine mercy are passed, nothing remains but an outbreak of wrath at the end of allotted probation and grace. So the destruction came as the result of rejected probation, and stands as a pattern for the present when before the great destruction by fire men are again granted a period of test and trial to show whether they will be loyal and obedient to the law of God.
Changed Earth and Witnesses
The death of every breathing thing on dry land left the earth itself broken and remade, its lovely home turned into a broken, uneven surface and frightful solitude still seen in deep gorges and seamed and cleft rocks of varied shapes and structures. People were swept away together with the trees they had enjoyed and idolized, with groves, fruitful trees, shady avenues, forests, gardens, palaces, costly works for pleasure, and idolatrous places where they worshiped works of their own hands utterly destroyed. Torrents from above uniting with the broken-up fountains of the great deep filled those places with masses of rubbish and earth and threw up rocks concealed under the earth to cover and bury the loveliest places men had adored. Trees and flowering shrubs perished, forests were later changed into coal, and the surface was broken up with great changes.
People, animals, and trees many times larger than those now living were buried and preserved in the earth when that destruction came. Their remains differ from present life and were intended as evidence of that destruction, testifying to the life that existed before, to the great changes wrought, and to the reality of the inspired history, whose age can be known only from the biblical record. The broken surface itself registers the Lord's power in gigantic rocks and towering mountains, including rocks around Patmos thrown up from the deep by waters breaking forth with force. Those rocks and mountains remain as precious things containing treasures of wisdom and knowledge, God's school to educate mind and morals, to display the majestic works of the Infinite One and show a living God of unlimited power, to refine the soul, soften the roughness of man's nature, and help in character building.
Noah carried seeds in the ark, and a few kinds of trees and shrubs were miraculously preserved for future generations. With the long-lived race blotted out perished the knowledge they had used only for evil, and more was lost in many ways than is now known, including valuable ideas and arts once worked out and learned even from the formation and habits of animals. God had given those men knowledge, wisdom, tact, and judgment to carry out His plan, but seeing intellect perverted, imagination evil continually, and every quality of mind used to glorify self, He destroyed them and thereafter trusted His wisdom to men more sparingly, giving only ability needed for His great plan. Since that flood the curse on earth greatly increased, and through continued disobedience it has rested more heavily on people, animals, trees, and all vegetation.
The world before that destruction was far more beautiful in grandeur and loveliness than present mountains and rocks, for God surrounded people with the precious things of earth because He loved them. They turned those blessings into a curse by using them to gratify pride and glorify themselves, and the earth was defiled by violence, sinfulness, and corrupting works, so the Lord destroyed them and the earth. Afterward descendants remembered the act differently: some denied that God existed and explained the flood by natural causes, while others believed God had brought it but rebelled against Him for destroying the people and cursing the earth. The dwellers on the plain of Shinar, complaining of the destruction as arbitrary and severe rather than gratefully remembering mercy to Adam and the gracious covenant with Noah not to bring a flood again, carried a tower much higher than the waters had reached to secure safety against another deluge, thinking height would place them beyond danger and hoping by ascending to the region of the clouds to ascertain its cause.
Justice and Mercy Displayed
The death of every land creature with the breath of life fulfilled the prophetic warning that all who would not keep the commandments of heaven should drink the waters of the flood, and by that fulfillment the truth of God's word was exemplified. The inspired history of that sweeping away of the rebellious race is to be kept before the mind and read and understood as a warning while wars and rumors of wars increase, nation rises against nation, and selfishness and covetousness lead to violence, crime, and grasping ambition to gain strength by robbing others. The flood came after sin entered through Adam's transgression and men grew bolder in disobedience, until the Lord looked down on the impenitent world and purposed to destroy it, telling Noah of the purpose and warning the people for one hundred and twenty years while the ark was built as shelter where the obedient could remain until the indignation was overpast. Only a few repented, and only eight righteous persons, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark, while some carpenters who believed died before the flood and other converts backslid, leaving death as the portion of all outside.
The destruction proclaimed the verdict, Incurable, upon the old world. Those destroyed had insulted the Spirit of God in the face of conscience, made a free choice of the wrong side, rebelled against God, despised mercy and defied justice, becoming spiritually palsied not because they could not submit but because they would not, with feet set in the way of the froward and no desire to turn back, in corruption beyond hope of recovery. God's wrath came not merely for sins committed but for choosing to continue in resistance after light and knowledge were given, refusing to repent and reform. After rejecting the message they plunged into sin with greater abandon than ever before and doubled the enormity of their corrupting practices, with minds set to carry their spirit of revolt, taking up rebellion afresh every day in refusal to repent, giving themselves to Satan to be controlled by him, and they are not and never will be forced to submission.
Love no less than justice demanded that the judgments should put a check on sin, so the despisers of God who had ridiculed Noah's solemn warnings perished in the black depths when the avenging waters swept over the last retreat on the highest peaks. Their destruction was an act of mercy to the world, stopping corruption and violence from continuing to lead others into sin. God as guardian as well as sovereign cuts off those determined upon rebellion so they will not lead others to ruin, and unless transgression is speedily punished the earth becomes as corrupt as in the days of Noah. When men increased and almost the whole world joined rebellion and Satan seemed to have gained the victory, omnipotent power cut short the working of iniquity and cleansed the earth by the flood from its moral pollution. In their doom the lost longed for the opportunities they had slighted and pleaded for one hour's probation, one more privilege of mercy, one more call from the lips of Noah, but the sweet voice of mercy was no more to be heard by them.
God drowned the vast world because sinners refused to be obedient to His requirements. His goodness and long forbearance, His patience and mercy and bounties of grace, do not hinder Him from punishing the transgressor. He is a moral governor as well as a Father, the Lawgiver who makes and executes His laws, and law that has no penalty is of no force; He destroyed that generation in strict justice for the good and safety of His subjects. Sin against such a God is aggravating beyond measure, and a loving Father with power to relieve suffering still sees His children suffer punishment when justice requires, working in infinite justice that man has no right to exercise toward fellow man. Noah would have displeased God to have drowned one of the scoffers and mockers that harassed him, but God could drown the vast world, and man, himself a criminal against holy law pardoned only through Christ's death to preserve the changeless law, cannot dictate to God what punishment lawbreakers should receive.
It is a fearful thing for the unrepenting sinner to fall into the hands of the living God. The death of all on the dry land came in consequence of sin, the transgression of God's law, with wrath falling upon a sinful world in retribution, giving a conception of the character of sin and of the retribution that will come upon those who continue in sin. The wages of sin is death, while the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ to the repenting, believing sinner, a wrath proved by the flood but never to so great an extent as in the agony of Christ in Gethsemane when He bore the wrath of God for a sinful world. That death was the execution of the final penalty, not a merciful washing straight into glory, proving that mercy does not save transgressors without obedience and that obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life.
When the warning was rejected, the Spirit of God was withdrawn from that sinful race and ceased striving with them, though refuge had been offered, and the people perished. Long life is not a blessing to the sinner, for God's great forbearance did not repress wickedness, and the longer men lived the more corrupt they became. The destruction was the result of permitting sin to go unpunished, as demonstrated in sparing the life of Cain, whose life and teaching influenced his descendants toward the corruption that made the flood necessary.
Mercy was mingled with judgment, for Noah and his family were saved. Wickedness had become so great that God would no longer bear with them, with violence, crime and every kind of sin intensely active until almost all remembrance of Him had passed from the earth, yet after bearing long He declared the limits of forbearance, sent His faithful servant with warning, and gave one hundred and twenty years to turn from sin. They rejected and despised love, and when the measure of iniquity was full and the boundaries of mercy were passed, He swept the wicked race from the earth to vindicate His authority and punish transgressors of His law. The flood reveals His manner of working to be mindful of what is passing upon the earth and to reveal Himself and interpose to hinder Satan's plans when matters come to a crisis, and stands as the pattern for His future interposition when defiance of the law is almost universal and His people are pressed in affliction.
Pattern for Final Judgment
The generation swept away in the flood prefigures the present age, for human nature uninfluenced by God's Spirit is the same now as then, and present society is fast becoming as corrupt and violent as that which was destroyed, proving the end is at hand. The flood came because men exceeded the bounds of long-suffering and passed the limits of grace, presuming upon mercy, going decidedly counter to God's will, despising warnings and continuing in disobedience, pride and transgression of His law until He could bear with wickedness no longer. Only a step from paradise and endowed with strength of body and mind of which men now have but a faint idea, they used bounties, strength and skill for selfish purposes, unlawful appetites, pride and sinful pleasure, expelled God from thought, despised His law, corrupted one another and filled the earth with violence until the cries of the oppressed entered the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. The same disregard for God and His law and the same love of pleasure, selfish gratification, pride, vanity and immorality now prevail, especially in the large cities fast becoming hotbeds of iniquity, and the same attitude that denounced Noah as visionary, fanatic and alarmist and laughed his warning to scorn as superstitious fear is repeated in the days of the Son of man, whose unbelief cannot hinder the predicted event. As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be in the days of the Son of man, and as it is today the wicked do wickedly.
The flood illustrates the sudden, unnoticed close of human probation before Christ returns, for doom was fixed before it was recognized when Noah was shut in and the world shut out. The world went on in ordinary careless life, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, planting and building, absorbed in amusements, gains, traffic, moneymaking and dishonest practices, asleep in carnal security and full of rioting and godless pleasure, putting afar off the coming of the Lord. Minds are diverted from eternal realities by racing, gambling, games and fashion, while men walk the broad road to ruin, declare God's law of no consequence, cry peace and safety, and call those who would arouse them fanatics, enthusiasts and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, awake only to plans of iniquity. Then destruction comes as a thief in the day when the Son of man is revealed, and the likeness of this pleasure-loving, worldly, unprepared generation to Noah's proves the end of all things is at hand and must stir earnest, untiring, Spirit-powered effort to proclaim a crucified and risen Saviour to souls ready to perish.
The cleansing by water uniting from the heavens with water in the bowels of the earth foreshadows the last purification when fire from heaven uniting with fire stored in the earth will purify the earth in general conflagration. As all outside the ark perished, including great and good men, philosophers, scientific and learned men who saw no consistency in the warning and called it illusion and insanity, so all the sinful and disobedient will perish in the fire, and only the few who believe the message of warning to fear God and keep His commandments, including the Sabbath, will be spared, contrary to the claim that God is too good and merciful to consume men for disbelief. That destruction is the pattern for the coming day of final separation when humanity will be forever divided into only two centers, Christ and Antichrist, and sudden destruction will come upon the apostate side as it came in the flood.
Noah's preaching before the flood was of heavenly origin with a certain and special work to warn, test and prove the inhabitants before they were destroyed, condemning the world so that of the vast, impenitent, pleasure-loving population only eight accepted, fled for refuge and were saved. God's truth for these last days does a similar work of warning, testing and proving the world, and publications carrying that truth bear the signet of the Eternal as they are scattered through the land and to all nations. All will have sufficient light to accept saving truth, obey all God's commandments in self-denial and lifting the cross and be saved, and those with the last message of mercy must keep close connection with God to reach hearts, carry the work to regions beyond, and show professing children of God their transgressions, and the message will be to some a savor of life unto life and to others a savor of death unto death, deciding destiny as men are tested by light to turn from transgression to obedience.
The flood stands in one line with Sodom, Jerusalem and the final destruction, teaching in all time the sure result of transgressing God's holy law. The old world was destroyed by water because of widespread wickedness, Sodomitish practices, strange abandonment of principle and lowered morality, and the same practices are fast increasing now as the earth becomes as Sodom. As Sodom was destroyed for not obeying the laws of God's kingdom and Jerusalem for not heeding the messages given to Israel, so the antediluvian world was destroyed for transgressing the holy law as Adam transgressed it, and so the whole world will be finally destroyed for the transgression and impenitence of its inhabitants in the closing period, when continuing in even one transgression causes loss of the soul unless victory is gained while probationary time lasts.
The ark floating through the destructive waters images preservation amid destruction and the contrast between entering safety and remaining outside and lost when danger comes. In the great deluge the flood took away all on the dry land outside while Noah was preserved in the ark God had prepared for him, and so in the coming days of destruction and calamity God will be the refuge of His believing ones as He preserved Noah. God looks upon the world today as He looked upon it then and sends His messages today as He sent them in Noah's day, because this age repeats that wickedness, and many who helped build the ark died because they did not believe, did not cleanse themselves from wrong principles, and did not overcome temptation to do contrary to God's mind and will. Calamities, earthquakes, floods and disasters by land and sea will increase, and the cries of suffering humanity from India, Africa, China and many places with misery, anguish and physical suffering go up to God. After admonitions are given He will soon sweep the earth of moral corruption again, not by water but by a sea of fire no human devising can quench, and will avenge His own elect who cry to Him day and night, yea avenge them speedily.
Call to Present Obedience
The destruction of every breathing creature on dry land shows that indulgence of appetite was the prevailing sin that brought the flood to wash moral pollution from the world. Gluttony and drunkenness, eating and drinking without restraint, led on to other crimes and to the greatest amount of human woe. Since the fall, fallen people are tested just where man was tested before the fall, and indulgence of appetite stands among the most flagrant sins of the race. Those who perished in the waters perished because they were not obedient to the word of God, and if they had obeyed they would not have died. Disobedience to God's word brings death, while living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God brings life and blessing.
The death of all the disobedient in the waters is the sure reaping of what was sown, with no blast to blight that crop and no worm to destroy it under a God who understands every action of life. God would have saved every soul that obeyed, giving the world one hundred and twenty years of probation with offers of mercy, but they refused and perished. The same surrounding influences that then took attention from God and heavenly things make forming a character for future eternal life no more favorable now than it was then.
Nearly all the inhabitants of the world died in the waters that covered the earth because they rejected the message through Noah, thinking they were right and he was wrong. They claimed to know more than that faithful servant, closed their ears to words of truth until darkness came upon them, explained away truth by false science, branded him a fanatic, argued it was foolish to say rain would come when no signs of such had ever existed, and laughed and mocked his words as parables. Their unbelief did not prevent the flood, and walking contrary to God's Word stirred rebellion and brought displeasure upon them until they finally drank the waters that covered the earth. The whole world perished leaving only a few alive, which proves numbers do not decide truth and following the majority leads to destruction and loss of heaven. Those who know their duty must therefore obey the commandments of God and lift the cross without turning to the right or left and without being discouraged by small numbers, for those who refuse the cross after knowing duty will meet destruction and will not see heaven, while those found on the side of the loyal and true will stand approved when Christ comes.
Wrath came not merely for sins committed but for choosing to continue in resistance after light and knowledge were given, refusing to repent and reform by accepting Christ. After rejecting the message they plunged into sin with greater abandon than ever before and doubled the enormity of corrupting practices, with minds set to carry their spirit of revolt. Their condition was declared incurable because they could yield yet would not, taking up rebellion afresh every day in refusal to repent, giving themselves to Satan to be controlled by him, and they are not and never will be forced to submission. All on dry land perished when the hour to close the ark came at last, after the sign was given in the dumb animals quietly coming two by two without a visible leader, and once the ark was closed mercy was cut off. The last call of mercy is now unheard by men blinded by peace and safety theories, wickedness is increasing as in the days of Noah, time is very short and the world faces the same end, so no man can serve two masters but all must humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, wake up and get ready before character becomes fixed as holy still or filthy still and delay is everlastingly too late. All that was on the dry land died because the inhabitants lifted themselves up in finite wisdom, took themselves out of the hands of God, thought in human wisdom and supposed smartness they could do much better left to their own imaginings, and when they fully decided they had no need of God He had no need of them so they and all their wicked works perished. Self-exaltation and refusal to be led and guided by God brings destruction, and what is needed is the knowledge of God and choosing to be led by His unerring counsel.
The days of Noah were marked by selfishness and violence and crime, and the same selfishness and violence and crime prevail as the close of this earth's history approaches. Bible believers must therefore take their position for righteousness and truth. The inhabitants of Noah's day were swept away in a time of overwhelming iniquity, and the inhabitants of the world are fast becoming like them, with minds diverted from eternal realities by racing, gambling, games and fashion, with the world filled with violence, revelling and drunkenness, walking the broad road to eternal ruin while the law of God is declared of no consequence. This likeness proves the end of all things is at hand and must stir followers of Christ to take new life from the Source of all life and go forth with earnest, untiring, Spirit-powered effort to proclaim a crucified and risen Saviour to save souls ready to perish. Men were transgressing God's commandments as Adam transgressed them until the world was like Sodom, and continuing that transgression even of one law will cause loss of the soul, so victory over transgression must be gained now while probationary time lasts.
The flood brought death to the inhabitants of the old world who continued to transgress God's law, and their fate stands as warning of judgment against those who persist in disobedience. Disregard of God's law had filled the earth with rebellion, corruption and violence in the days before the flood, when all that was in the dry land died. The present world stands in the same open rebellion and disregard for God, honoring the spurious Sabbath instead of His Sabbath, and that disregard has again made the world full of violence. God in a moment could extinguish every soul that breathes the breath of life.
All living on the dry land outside the ark, every person and every animal with the breath of life in its nostrils, died in the Flood with none left alive. Only Noah and his family, eight persons, were preserved alive, shut in by God and borne safely in the ark while the world outside was swept out of existence. The avenging waters prevailed by rain for forty days and forty nights joined with waters bursting from the bowels of the earth, rising until they covered even the highest peaks and left a shoreless ocean. It was God's judgment for universal corruption, violence and transgression of His law, when wickedness was great and every imagination was only evil continually. As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man, the Flood generation prefiguring a present age fast becoming as corrupt and violent and proving the end is at hand.
Extent of the Destruction
All that lived on dry land outside the ark, every human being and every land animal with the breath of life in the nostrils, died in the Flood, and not one living being outside was left alive. The waters rose until they reached even the highest points of land, so that even those who reached the highest ground perished when the flood covered it. For forty days and forty nights rain poured down until water filled houses, swept away idol temples, and rose higher and higher, while the crust of the earth broke and water hidden in its bowels burst out with such force that large stones were thrown into the air. Terrified people and animals fled for refuge, cried for safety, pleaded for admission to the ark, and some clung to it until washed away, while parents with children climbed trees and others climbed mountains only to be flung by wind and swept together into the boiling deep.
Only Noah and his family were preserved alive, riding safely in the ark after God shut in those who believed His word, while the vast impenitent world outside was swept out of existence. Of the vast, pleasure-loving, corrupt population only eight righteous persons accepted the warning, fled for refuge into the ark, and were saved, and death was the portion of all outside. Some carpenters who believed died before the Flood and other converts backslid, leaving only Noah and his helpers to build, preach more earnestly amid universal scorn through a probation of one hundred and twenty years, enter with cattle and all other living creatures two and two, and be shut in by an invisible hand for a final one-week trial with no rain that fully exposed mocking unbelief before steady rain fell until all unbelievers outside perished in their sins. As the waters rose one after another outside drowned, and what they would have given for a place within the ark came too late because no others could enter.
Animals that God had created were preserved in the ark, while creatures described as confused species resulting from amalgamation were destroyed by the Flood. The judgment also swept away beasts and the vegetation that had supplied food, because people had perverted God's gifts and left the earth desolate with the sinful generation extinguished. People were swept away together with the trees they had enjoyed and idolized, and groves, palaces, and costly works for pleasure were all swept away. Fruitful trees, shady avenues, forests, and gardens were utterly destroyed, with torrents of rain from above and the broken-up fountains of the great deep filling idolatrous places with masses of rubbish and earth and throwing up rocks concealed under the earth to cover the loveliest places men had adored.
The avenging waters rose higher and higher until they reached the tops of the mountains and the highest trees, sweeping the inhabitants of the old world away into the deep after they climbed in vain for safety. The rain began slowly, then the heavens were opened and poured down in torrents, and every one outside was swept away while the ark floated safely upon the troubled waters, leaving a shoreless ocean and a world of water.
How the Waters Prevailed
Rain fell for forty days and forty nights until houses filled and idol temples were swept away and the waters rose higher and higher. It began slowly and gently, then the heavens were opened and poured down in torrents. At the same time the crust of the earth broke and the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and waters hidden in the bowels of the earth burst out from beneath with such force that large stones and rocks concealed under the earth were thrown into the air. Torrents from above and the broken-up fountains from beneath united, the windows of heaven opened from above, and a great sea formed around the ark. The broken surface with its deep gorges and seamed and cleft rocks remains as evidence of that universal destruction.
Terrified people and animals fled for refuge when the waters prevailed. They cried for safety and pleaded for admission to the ark, and some clung to it until they were washed away. Parents with children climbed trees, and people and animals climbed to the tops of mountains and to the highest trees to escape. The waters rose to the tops of the highest trees and the highest peaks, driving them from groves, mansions, works of gold and temples of precious stones to flee for higher footholds until the last retreat was reached. They were flung by wind and swept together into the boiling deep and the black depths, leaving a shoreless ocean and only a world of water.
The ark had been built on dry land like a boat on land, an immense ark prepared for safety. It needed no iron standards or rail track to bear it up and carry it to the water. While every one outside was swept away, the ark floated safely upon the troubled waters. Noah and his family rode safely inside under God's protecting care and divine guidance amid tempest, thunder and lightning, because God had shut in those who believed His word and no others could enter.
After cattle and all other living creatures and Noah entered two and two under invisible leadership, those inside were shut in by divine power by an invisible hand and God's hand closed the door. Then a final one-week trial passed with no rain. That week fully exposed and revealed mocking unbelief, as the people mocked and derided and made light even after seeing the dumb animals quietly enter. Then steady rain began and continued until every living thing on dry land outside perished in sin and not one living being outside was left alive, so that what they would have given for a place within came too late.
Reasons for the Judgment
The death of everything on dry land that breathed through nostrils was God's judgment on a world corrupt before Him and filled with violence, where wickedness was great and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. In Noah's day men disregarded His law until almost all remembrance of the Creator had passed from the earth, and iniquity reached so great a height that He could bear with it no longer and brought a flood of waters to sweep away its wicked inhabitants. Justice was trampled, the marriage relation and the rights of property were disregarded, and the cries of the oppressed entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth until heaven was filled with them. The sinful generation was thus extinguished and the earth left desolate, and the judgment swept away even beasts and vegetation that had supplied food, because people had perverted His gifts.
They had put God out of their knowledge, forgotten Him, expelled Him from their thoughts, despised His law and trampled His standard of character in the dust. Though living in His house and sustained with food and clothing from His treasury, they were unmindful of His goodness and without thanks to Him, using His bounties and great strength of body and mind for selfish purposes, unlawful appetites, pride and sinful pleasure. They worshiped idols and became like them by beholding evil, were changed into its image, sank lower and lower, corrupted their ways before God and corrupted one another. Lifted up in their own finite wisdom, they took themselves out of His hands and thought in their human wisdom and supposed smartness that they could do much better left to their own imaginings, fully deciding they had no need of God until He decided He had no need of them, so they and all their wicked works perished.
Indulgence of appetite was the prevailing sin that filled the cup of iniquity until God cleansed the earth of its moral pollution. They did eat, they drank, becoming intemperate in eating and drinking, with gluttony and drunkenness inflaming the passions to violence, crime and debased passion. They demanded flesh-meats although at that time God had given man no permission to eat animal food, eating and drinking till indulgence of depraved appetite knew no bounds, and becoming so corrupt through perverted appetite that He could bear with them no longer. Since the first surrender to appetite health has been sacrificed on its altar, and the Flood proves that God tests fallen people just where He tested man before the fall, that indulgence of appetite is among the most flagrant sins of the fallen race and brings the greatest amount of human woe.
Their corruption included selfish pleasure, immorality, Sodomitish practices, strange abandonment of principle and a lowered standard of morality. Secret societies were formed to work in darkness to do violence, while selfishness and violence and crime marked the days of Noah. Though only a step from paradise and given rich gifts of strength and skill of which men now have but a faint idea, they used them for selfish purposes and revelled in sinful pleasure, turning blessings into a curse by using the precious things of earth with which He had surrounded them in love to gratify pride and glorify themselves, defiling the earth by violence, sinfulness and corrupting works. Long life was no blessing to the sinner, for His great forbearance did not repress wickedness but the longer men lived the more corrupt they became, as shown in sparing Cain whose life and teaching influenced his descendants toward the corruption that made the Flood necessary, proving that unless transgression is speedily punished sin permitted to go unpunished spreads until the earth becomes as corrupt as in Noah's day.
The old world fell through unbelief and disobedience to God's word and requirements, rejecting His message through Noah. They thought they were right and Noah was wrong, claimed to know more than that faithful servant, closed their ears to words of truth, and darkness came upon them, so that walking contrary to His Word stirred rebellion and brought His displeasure until they drank the waters that covered the earth. They explained away truth by false science, reasoning from science and the laws controlling nature that He would not fulfil His word and treating the order of nature as unchangeable, arguing it was foolish to say rain would come when no signs of such had ever existed and concluding the threatened destruction could not happen. Great men and good men, philosophers, scientific men, learned men and wise men saw no consistency in the warning and called it illusion, fanaticism, insanity and parables, branding Noah a crazy fanatic, caricaturing and criticizing his peculiar earnestness and intense feeling about coming judgments, laughing and mocking and scoffing at him as a preacher of righteousness. Their unbelief and mockery did not hinder the predicted event or make the message of no effect, for nature is not above God who governs it and can bring judgment as He has warned; if they had obeyed they would not have perished, but as all outside the ark perished so only Noah and his family, eight persons, were saved while all the rest of the vast world were swept out of existence.
The corruption and apostasy associated with the sons of God marrying the daughters of men ended in that destruction of the world by the waters, showing how seemingly small unfaithful choices lead to grave and lasting consequences.
Warning and Probation Rejected
God granted the old world one hundred and twenty years of probation in mercy before the Flood swept away all with the breath of life on dry land. During that time Noah stood as preacher of righteousness, warning of what was coming while building the immense ark on dry land as a shelter where the obedient could remain until the indignation was overpast. He and his helpers kept constantly at work, and he preached all the more earnestly in proportion to the universal scorn heaped upon God's law and upon himself, without losing reverence and love for the law. Some believed and helped, many kept the faith and died triumphant, while each passing day left one less day of mercy as men followed their own pleasure and mocked and derided the messages sent from heaven. The destruction came because men exceeded the bounds of long-suffering and the limits of grace, presuming upon mercy, going decidedly counter to His will, despising all warnings and continuing in disobedience, self-importance, swelling pride, unrighteousness and disgraceful transgression of His law.
The given sign was the dumb animals quietly entering the ark two and two under invisible leadership, without a visible leader. Believers were shut in by an invisible hand, and cattle and all other living creatures entered two and two with the obedient distinguished from the disobedient by the standard of God's law. Some carpenters who believed died before the Flood and other converts backslid, and many who helped build the ark perished because they did not believe the startling message, did not cleanse themselves from wrong principles, and did not overcome temptation to do and say things contrary to the mind and will of God. A final one-week trial passed with no rain after the shutting in, which fully exposed mocking unbelief before steady rain fell until all unbelievers outside perished in their sins.
The shut door shut Noah in and shut out the world, closing the refuge once open to all who believed. It ended long forbearance, mercy, hope, warning and opportunity, and gave place to justice and wrath with mercy cut off. Their doom was fixed before they recognized it, as they continued ordinary careless lives and mocked the warnings after Noah was shut inside and they were shut out. So the Flood became an example of the sudden, unnoticed close of human probation before Christ returns.
The despisers denounced Noah as visionary, fanatic and alarmist, laughed his warning to scorn as superstitious fear, branded him a fanatic, and said he speaks in parables. They thought they were right and Noah was wrong, claimed to know more than that faithful servant, closed their ears to words of truth, explained away truth by false science, and argued it was foolish to say rain would come when no signs of such had ever existed. In their doom on the highest peaks they longed for the opportunities they had slighted and pleaded for one hour's probation, one more privilege of mercy, one more call from the lips of Noah, but the sweet voice of mercy was no more to be heard by them. They felt remorse but not repentance, remembered his sermons and denunciations, and vainly desired his prayers when the voice of mercy was silent forever.
Their unbelief could not hinder the predicted event, for rejecting a divine warning does not avert its announced consequence. Their mockery did not make the message of no effect, but the Flood came as warned and none but Noah and his family were saved in the ark while all others on dry land died. The old world's destruction warns that people who dismiss God's warnings and remain careless will perish when judgment comes. If they had repented and obeyed they would have been saved, for God would have saved every obedient soul, and their perishing proves disobedience to God's word brings death while reaping time comes without fail with no blast to blight that crop and no worm to destroy it.
God allows all nations a certain period of mercy, goodness and compassion, bearing long with sins and sending faithful warning to turn from sin. After one hundred and twenty years given to choose between evil and good and to repent or be destroyed, men deliberately chose their own wicked ways, would not repent, set their hearts fully to do evil, engaged in all kinds of violence, and remained impenitent to the very close of probation. When these mercies are trifled with and the measure of iniquity is full and the boundaries of divine mercy are passed, nothing remains but an outbreak of wrath at the end of allotted probation and grace. So the destruction came as the result of rejected probation, and stands as a pattern for the present when before the great destruction by fire men are again granted a period of test and trial to show whether they will be loyal and obedient to the law of God.
Changed Earth and Witnesses
The death of every breathing thing on dry land left the earth itself broken and remade, its lovely home turned into a broken, uneven surface and frightful solitude still seen in deep gorges and seamed and cleft rocks of varied shapes and structures. People were swept away together with the trees they had enjoyed and idolized, with groves, fruitful trees, shady avenues, forests, gardens, palaces, costly works for pleasure, and idolatrous places where they worshiped works of their own hands utterly destroyed. Torrents from above uniting with the broken-up fountains of the great deep filled those places with masses of rubbish and earth and threw up rocks concealed under the earth to cover and bury the loveliest places men had adored. Trees and flowering shrubs perished, forests were later changed into coal, and the surface was broken up with great changes.
People, animals, and trees many times larger than those now living were buried and preserved in the earth when that destruction came. Their remains differ from present life and were intended as evidence of that destruction, testifying to the life that existed before, to the great changes wrought, and to the reality of the inspired history, whose age can be known only from the biblical record. The broken surface itself registers the Lord's power in gigantic rocks and towering mountains, including rocks around Patmos thrown up from the deep by waters breaking forth with force. Those rocks and mountains remain as precious things containing treasures of wisdom and knowledge, God's school to educate mind and morals, to display the majestic works of the Infinite One and show a living God of unlimited power, to refine the soul, soften the roughness of man's nature, and help in character building.
Noah carried seeds in the ark, and a few kinds of trees and shrubs were miraculously preserved for future generations. With the long-lived race blotted out perished the knowledge they had used only for evil, and more was lost in many ways than is now known, including valuable ideas and arts once worked out and learned even from the formation and habits of animals. God had given those men knowledge, wisdom, tact, and judgment to carry out His plan, but seeing intellect perverted, imagination evil continually, and every quality of mind used to glorify self, He destroyed them and thereafter trusted His wisdom to men more sparingly, giving only ability needed for His great plan. Since that flood the curse on earth greatly increased, and through continued disobedience it has rested more heavily on people, animals, trees, and all vegetation.
The world before that destruction was far more beautiful in grandeur and loveliness than present mountains and rocks, for God surrounded people with the precious things of earth because He loved them. They turned those blessings into a curse by using them to gratify pride and glorify themselves, and the earth was defiled by violence, sinfulness, and corrupting works, so the Lord destroyed them and the earth. Afterward descendants remembered the act differently: some denied that God existed and explained the flood by natural causes, while others believed God had brought it but rebelled against Him for destroying the people and cursing the earth. The dwellers on the plain of Shinar, complaining of the destruction as arbitrary and severe rather than gratefully remembering mercy to Adam and the gracious covenant with Noah not to bring a flood again, carried a tower much higher than the waters had reached to secure safety against another deluge, thinking height would place them beyond danger and hoping by ascending to the region of the clouds to ascertain its cause.
Justice and Mercy Displayed
The death of every land creature with the breath of life fulfilled the prophetic warning that all who would not keep the commandments of heaven should drink the waters of the flood, and by that fulfillment the truth of God's word was exemplified. The inspired history of that sweeping away of the rebellious race is to be kept before the mind and read and understood as a warning while wars and rumors of wars increase, nation rises against nation, and selfishness and covetousness lead to violence, crime, and grasping ambition to gain strength by robbing others. The flood came after sin entered through Adam's transgression and men grew bolder in disobedience, until the Lord looked down on the impenitent world and purposed to destroy it, telling Noah of the purpose and warning the people for one hundred and twenty years while the ark was built as shelter where the obedient could remain until the indignation was overpast. Only a few repented, and only eight righteous persons, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark, while some carpenters who believed died before the flood and other converts backslid, leaving death as the portion of all outside.
The destruction proclaimed the verdict, Incurable, upon the old world. Those destroyed had insulted the Spirit of God in the face of conscience, made a free choice of the wrong side, rebelled against God, despised mercy and defied justice, becoming spiritually palsied not because they could not submit but because they would not, with feet set in the way of the froward and no desire to turn back, in corruption beyond hope of recovery. God's wrath came not merely for sins committed but for choosing to continue in resistance after light and knowledge were given, refusing to repent and reform. After rejecting the message they plunged into sin with greater abandon than ever before and doubled the enormity of their corrupting practices, with minds set to carry their spirit of revolt, taking up rebellion afresh every day in refusal to repent, giving themselves to Satan to be controlled by him, and they are not and never will be forced to submission.
Love no less than justice demanded that the judgments should put a check on sin, so the despisers of God who had ridiculed Noah's solemn warnings perished in the black depths when the avenging waters swept over the last retreat on the highest peaks. Their destruction was an act of mercy to the world, stopping corruption and violence from continuing to lead others into sin. God as guardian as well as sovereign cuts off those determined upon rebellion so they will not lead others to ruin, and unless transgression is speedily punished the earth becomes as corrupt as in the days of Noah. When men increased and almost the whole world joined rebellion and Satan seemed to have gained the victory, omnipotent power cut short the working of iniquity and cleansed the earth by the flood from its moral pollution. In their doom the lost longed for the opportunities they had slighted and pleaded for one hour's probation, one more privilege of mercy, one more call from the lips of Noah, but the sweet voice of mercy was no more to be heard by them.
God drowned the vast world because sinners refused to be obedient to His requirements. His goodness and long forbearance, His patience and mercy and bounties of grace, do not hinder Him from punishing the transgressor. He is a moral governor as well as a Father, the Lawgiver who makes and executes His laws, and law that has no penalty is of no force; He destroyed that generation in strict justice for the good and safety of His subjects. Sin against such a God is aggravating beyond measure, and a loving Father with power to relieve suffering still sees His children suffer punishment when justice requires, working in infinite justice that man has no right to exercise toward fellow man. Noah would have displeased God to have drowned one of the scoffers and mockers that harassed him, but God could drown the vast world, and man, himself a criminal against holy law pardoned only through Christ's death to preserve the changeless law, cannot dictate to God what punishment lawbreakers should receive.
It is a fearful thing for the unrepenting sinner to fall into the hands of the living God. The death of all on the dry land came in consequence of sin, the transgression of God's law, with wrath falling upon a sinful world in retribution, giving a conception of the character of sin and of the retribution that will come upon those who continue in sin. The wages of sin is death, while the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ to the repenting, believing sinner, a wrath proved by the flood but never to so great an extent as in the agony of Christ in Gethsemane when He bore the wrath of God for a sinful world. That death was the execution of the final penalty, not a merciful washing straight into glory, proving that mercy does not save transgressors without obedience and that obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life.
When the warning was rejected, the Spirit of God was withdrawn from that sinful race and ceased striving with them, though refuge had been offered, and the people perished. Long life is not a blessing to the sinner, for God's great forbearance did not repress wickedness, and the longer men lived the more corrupt they became. The destruction was the result of permitting sin to go unpunished, as demonstrated in sparing the life of Cain, whose life and teaching influenced his descendants toward the corruption that made the flood necessary.
Mercy was mingled with judgment, for Noah and his family were saved. Wickedness had become so great that God would no longer bear with them, with violence, crime and every kind of sin intensely active until almost all remembrance of Him had passed from the earth, yet after bearing long He declared the limits of forbearance, sent His faithful servant with warning, and gave one hundred and twenty years to turn from sin. They rejected and despised love, and when the measure of iniquity was full and the boundaries of mercy were passed, He swept the wicked race from the earth to vindicate His authority and punish transgressors of His law. The flood reveals His manner of working to be mindful of what is passing upon the earth and to reveal Himself and interpose to hinder Satan's plans when matters come to a crisis, and stands as the pattern for His future interposition when defiance of the law is almost universal and His people are pressed in affliction.
Pattern for Final Judgment
The generation swept away in the flood prefigures the present age, for human nature uninfluenced by God's Spirit is the same now as then, and present society is fast becoming as corrupt and violent as that which was destroyed, proving the end is at hand. The flood came because men exceeded the bounds of long-suffering and passed the limits of grace, presuming upon mercy, going decidedly counter to God's will, despising warnings and continuing in disobedience, pride and transgression of His law until He could bear with wickedness no longer. Only a step from paradise and endowed with strength of body and mind of which men now have but a faint idea, they used bounties, strength and skill for selfish purposes, unlawful appetites, pride and sinful pleasure, expelled God from thought, despised His law, corrupted one another and filled the earth with violence until the cries of the oppressed entered the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. The same disregard for God and His law and the same love of pleasure, selfish gratification, pride, vanity and immorality now prevail, especially in the large cities fast becoming hotbeds of iniquity, and the same attitude that denounced Noah as visionary, fanatic and alarmist and laughed his warning to scorn as superstitious fear is repeated in the days of the Son of man, whose unbelief cannot hinder the predicted event. As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be in the days of the Son of man, and as it is today the wicked do wickedly.
The flood illustrates the sudden, unnoticed close of human probation before Christ returns, for doom was fixed before it was recognized when Noah was shut in and the world shut out. The world went on in ordinary careless life, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, planting and building, absorbed in amusements, gains, traffic, moneymaking and dishonest practices, asleep in carnal security and full of rioting and godless pleasure, putting afar off the coming of the Lord. Minds are diverted from eternal realities by racing, gambling, games and fashion, while men walk the broad road to ruin, declare God's law of no consequence, cry peace and safety, and call those who would arouse them fanatics, enthusiasts and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, awake only to plans of iniquity. Then destruction comes as a thief in the day when the Son of man is revealed, and the likeness of this pleasure-loving, worldly, unprepared generation to Noah's proves the end of all things is at hand and must stir earnest, untiring, Spirit-powered effort to proclaim a crucified and risen Saviour to souls ready to perish.
The cleansing by water uniting from the heavens with water in the bowels of the earth foreshadows the last purification when fire from heaven uniting with fire stored in the earth will purify the earth in general conflagration. As all outside the ark perished, including great and good men, philosophers, scientific and learned men who saw no consistency in the warning and called it illusion and insanity, so all the sinful and disobedient will perish in the fire, and only the few who believe the message of warning to fear God and keep His commandments, including the Sabbath, will be spared, contrary to the claim that God is too good and merciful to consume men for disbelief. That destruction is the pattern for the coming day of final separation when humanity will be forever divided into only two centers, Christ and Antichrist, and sudden destruction will come upon the apostate side as it came in the flood.
Noah's preaching before the flood was of heavenly origin with a certain and special work to warn, test and prove the inhabitants before they were destroyed, condemning the world so that of the vast, impenitent, pleasure-loving population only eight accepted, fled for refuge and were saved. God's truth for these last days does a similar work of warning, testing and proving the world, and publications carrying that truth bear the signet of the Eternal as they are scattered through the land and to all nations. All will have sufficient light to accept saving truth, obey all God's commandments in self-denial and lifting the cross and be saved, and those with the last message of mercy must keep close connection with God to reach hearts, carry the work to regions beyond, and show professing children of God their transgressions, and the message will be to some a savor of life unto life and to others a savor of death unto death, deciding destiny as men are tested by light to turn from transgression to obedience.
The flood stands in one line with Sodom, Jerusalem and the final destruction, teaching in all time the sure result of transgressing God's holy law. The old world was destroyed by water because of widespread wickedness, Sodomitish practices, strange abandonment of principle and lowered morality, and the same practices are fast increasing now as the earth becomes as Sodom. As Sodom was destroyed for not obeying the laws of God's kingdom and Jerusalem for not heeding the messages given to Israel, so the antediluvian world was destroyed for transgressing the holy law as Adam transgressed it, and so the whole world will be finally destroyed for the transgression and impenitence of its inhabitants in the closing period, when continuing in even one transgression causes loss of the soul unless victory is gained while probationary time lasts.
The ark floating through the destructive waters images preservation amid destruction and the contrast between entering safety and remaining outside and lost when danger comes. In the great deluge the flood took away all on the dry land outside while Noah was preserved in the ark God had prepared for him, and so in the coming days of destruction and calamity God will be the refuge of His believing ones as He preserved Noah. God looks upon the world today as He looked upon it then and sends His messages today as He sent them in Noah's day, because this age repeats that wickedness, and many who helped build the ark died because they did not believe, did not cleanse themselves from wrong principles, and did not overcome temptation to do contrary to God's mind and will. Calamities, earthquakes, floods and disasters by land and sea will increase, and the cries of suffering humanity from India, Africa, China and many places with misery, anguish and physical suffering go up to God. After admonitions are given He will soon sweep the earth of moral corruption again, not by water but by a sea of fire no human devising can quench, and will avenge His own elect who cry to Him day and night, yea avenge them speedily.
Call to Present Obedience
The destruction of every breathing creature on dry land shows that indulgence of appetite was the prevailing sin that brought the flood to wash moral pollution from the world. Gluttony and drunkenness, eating and drinking without restraint, led on to other crimes and to the greatest amount of human woe. Since the fall, fallen people are tested just where man was tested before the fall, and indulgence of appetite stands among the most flagrant sins of the race. Those who perished in the waters perished because they were not obedient to the word of God, and if they had obeyed they would not have died. Disobedience to God's word brings death, while living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God brings life and blessing.
The death of all the disobedient in the waters is the sure reaping of what was sown, with no blast to blight that crop and no worm to destroy it under a God who understands every action of life. God would have saved every soul that obeyed, giving the world one hundred and twenty years of probation with offers of mercy, but they refused and perished. The same surrounding influences that then took attention from God and heavenly things make forming a character for future eternal life no more favorable now than it was then.
Nearly all the inhabitants of the world died in the waters that covered the earth because they rejected the message through Noah, thinking they were right and he was wrong. They claimed to know more than that faithful servant, closed their ears to words of truth until darkness came upon them, explained away truth by false science, branded him a fanatic, argued it was foolish to say rain would come when no signs of such had ever existed, and laughed and mocked his words as parables. Their unbelief did not prevent the flood, and walking contrary to God's Word stirred rebellion and brought displeasure upon them until they finally drank the waters that covered the earth. The whole world perished leaving only a few alive, which proves numbers do not decide truth and following the majority leads to destruction and loss of heaven. Those who know their duty must therefore obey the commandments of God and lift the cross without turning to the right or left and without being discouraged by small numbers, for those who refuse the cross after knowing duty will meet destruction and will not see heaven, while those found on the side of the loyal and true will stand approved when Christ comes.
Wrath came not merely for sins committed but for choosing to continue in resistance after light and knowledge were given, refusing to repent and reform by accepting Christ. After rejecting the message they plunged into sin with greater abandon than ever before and doubled the enormity of corrupting practices, with minds set to carry their spirit of revolt. Their condition was declared incurable because they could yield yet would not, taking up rebellion afresh every day in refusal to repent, giving themselves to Satan to be controlled by him, and they are not and never will be forced to submission. All on dry land perished when the hour to close the ark came at last, after the sign was given in the dumb animals quietly coming two by two without a visible leader, and once the ark was closed mercy was cut off. The last call of mercy is now unheard by men blinded by peace and safety theories, wickedness is increasing as in the days of Noah, time is very short and the world faces the same end, so no man can serve two masters but all must humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, wake up and get ready before character becomes fixed as holy still or filthy still and delay is everlastingly too late. All that was on the dry land died because the inhabitants lifted themselves up in finite wisdom, took themselves out of the hands of God, thought in human wisdom and supposed smartness they could do much better left to their own imaginings, and when they fully decided they had no need of God He had no need of them so they and all their wicked works perished. Self-exaltation and refusal to be led and guided by God brings destruction, and what is needed is the knowledge of God and choosing to be led by His unerring counsel.
The days of Noah were marked by selfishness and violence and crime, and the same selfishness and violence and crime prevail as the close of this earth's history approaches. Bible believers must therefore take their position for righteousness and truth. The inhabitants of Noah's day were swept away in a time of overwhelming iniquity, and the inhabitants of the world are fast becoming like them, with minds diverted from eternal realities by racing, gambling, games and fashion, with the world filled with violence, revelling and drunkenness, walking the broad road to eternal ruin while the law of God is declared of no consequence. This likeness proves the end of all things is at hand and must stir followers of Christ to take new life from the Source of all life and go forth with earnest, untiring, Spirit-powered effort to proclaim a crucified and risen Saviour to save souls ready to perish. Men were transgressing God's commandments as Adam transgressed them until the world was like Sodom, and continuing that transgression even of one law will cause loss of the soul, so victory over transgression must be gained now while probationary time lasts.
The flood brought death to the inhabitants of the old world who continued to transgress God's law, and their fate stands as warning of judgment against those who persist in disobedience. Disregard of God's law had filled the earth with rebellion, corruption and violence in the days before the flood, when all that was in the dry land died. The present world stands in the same open rebellion and disregard for God, honoring the spurious Sabbath instead of His Sabbath, and that disregard has again made the world full of violence. God in a moment could extinguish every soul that breathes the breath of life.