Genesis 7:23
And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
Every living thing outside the ark was swept out of existence from the earth, and only Noah remained alive with the seven of his family shut in with him. The waters rose until they covered the highest mountains and treetops, wrecking palaces and temples, while the ark floated safely as the only refuge. This was God's just judgment for continual transgression of His law, for corruption and violence filling the earth, with every imagination of the heart only evil continually. For one hundred and twenty years Noah warned of what was coming, yet the world mocked and disbelieved until God Himself shut the door and mercy ceased. As it was then so shall it be before the Son of Man comes, when water cleansing the earth by uniting waters above and beneath patterns the final fire from heaven uniting with fire in the earth.
Extent of Destruction
Every living substance upon the face of the ground outside the ark was destroyed and swept out of existence from the earth, man and cattle and creeping things and fowl of heaven. The rebellious people and living creatures left outside perished under the foretold death for disobedience, while the few shut in with Noah survived. Only Noah remained alive with those that were with him in the ark.
The waters rose until they covered even the highest ground, reaching to the tops of the highest trees and mountains and peaks. Flight to trees and mountains gave no escape, and people and beasts alike who fled there perished beneath them. At last the earth became a shoreless ocean and the avenging waters swept over the last retreat, so that all outside the ark perished in the black depths.
Forty days and nights of rain flooded houses and swept away idolatrous temples. The crust of the earth was broken so that hidden waters burst forth, water from the heavens uniting with water in the bowels of the earth, and the flood of waters from above and beneath formed a great sea. Large stones were thrown into the air, and men, women, children and animals together were flung into the boiling, foaming deep and swept away together.
Amid that destruction the ark floated upon the troubled waters as the only place of refuge. It was preserved by the power of God and guided by a divine hand, riding safely upon the waters with Noah and his family safe inside while every other refuge failed. Around it on the boiling waters tossed uprooted trees and wrecked palaces and temples amid roaring tempest, thunder and lightning.
Survivors Preserved Alive
The flood destroyed every living thing upon the face of the ground outside the ark, so that not one living person or dumb animal left outside remained alive, while Noah only remained alive and they that were with him in the ark. Only eight souls out of that vast population were saved, Noah and his family, Noah with the seven others with him shut safely inside. After one hundred and twenty years of warning while the immense ark was built on dry land for the obedient to find shelter, only a few repented, for some believing workmen died beforehand and other converts backslid, and the mockers who followed their own pleasure perished in their sins. When the ark was finished and stocked and cattle and all other living creatures were housed two and two, the believers were shut in by an invisible hand, and after a one-week testing time with no rain the steady rain set in until destruction was complete.
Every species God had created was preserved in the ark, while the confused, uncreated species resulting from amalgamation were destroyed. Amalgamation of humans and beasts is taught by those who held it to have occurred again after the Flood, producing varieties of animals and certain human races. Noah also carried seeds in the ark, and after the trees and flowering shrubs of the earth had been destroyed God miraculously kept a few kinds of trees and shrubs alive for future generations.
The preservation of Noah in the ark He had prepared for him is the pattern for the last days of destruction and calamity, when God Himself will be the refuge of His believing ones and keep them safe. As Noah and those with him alone remained alive amid the Flood's destruction, so the righteous will be kept safe by God amid the future destruction of the wicked and the earth's convulsions, for God does not forget His faithful people in times of judgment and danger. At the height of the waters covering the earth like a boundless lake, Noah and the seven others with him were preserved in the ark as an example of God's power to preserve the New Jerusalem and the faithful from the final fire that consumes the earth. The picture of safety at the close of time reflects this same deliverance, that those who take refuge in the place of safety are saved while those who remain outside are lost, and their deliverance illustrates that God will protect His faithful people who warn the world of coming judgment and refuse the beast's decree and mark from being destroyed by the wicked.
While the flood destroyed living things on the earth and Noah and those with him survived in the ark, the ark riding through the deep serves as an image of the Word of God surviving the storms that threaten its destruction. Just as Noah and those with him were preserved in the ark while destruction overtook the earth, so God's word survives the forces that threaten to destroy it.
Earth Changed Afterwards
God sent a powerful wind and drew back the waters to bury the dead bodies of people and animals left across the earth beneath earth and trees and stones, making the whole earth a vast burial ground. The lovely home given to man was thereby turned into a broken, uneven, frightful solitude of deep gorges and seamed and cleft rocks, whose changed surface remains as evidence of the flood. The torrents of rain from heaven and the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep threw up rocks concealed under the earth to cover the lovely places men had adored.
The Flood broke up and re-formed the surface of the earth with great changes. The violence when waters broke forth from the great deep and from the earth threw up rocks that remain around as witnesses of the flood and its terrors. The time-worn rocky walls and battlements of the mountains have stood since that destruction when the waters rose to the highest points of land and the unbelieving perished for great wickedness. The broken surface in gigantic rocks and towering mountains is registered as the fact and revelation of that destruction and of the Lord's unlimited power in doing it, proof that there is a living God.
That burial preserves evidence that men, animals, and trees before the Flood were many times larger than those now living, and that the antediluvians perished in the Flood. The earth was left desolate, with its animals and abundant vegetation swept away, and as its crust was re-formed it preserved evidence of the abundant plant and animal life that existed before. Vast forests buried at that time later became coal and oil. The age and meaning of such remains can be known only from inspired history, not from geology alone, and their discovery was intended to strengthen faith in that inspired history of the Flood.
The world before the Flood was far more beautiful in grandeur and loveliness than the present earth with its majestic mountains and rocks. God had surrounded people with the precious things of earth because He loved them, but they turned those blessings into a curse by using them to gratify pride and glorify themselves, perverting His gifts until guilt was complete. At last the Lord destroyed them and the earth defiled by their violence and corrupting works. Man with cattle, idolized trees, groves, gardens, forests, palaces, and costly works for pleasure-lovers were uprooted and swept away, fruitful trees, shady avenues, forests and gardens were destroyed, and places of idol worship were filled and buried with masses of rubbish and earth and rocks thrown up from beneath the surface. Even now the earth would be a happy place if the curse of sin were not corrupting it, but every place inhabited by human beings is debased with sin.
The rocks and mountains left by the flood contain treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The ever-varying scenery formed by God's wisdom is God's school to supply man's mental as well as physical wants. It is appointed to educate the mind and morals, to bear upon intellectual and moral character, to lead men to discern that there is a living God, and to refine the soul and soften the roughness of man's nature to help him in character building.
Causes of Judgment
The destruction was God's just judgment and penalty for continual transgression of His divine law and commandments, rebellion, disobedience and disloyalty, for law that has no penalty is of no force. Men had disregarded His law until almost all remembrance of the Creator had passed away, their iniquity reached so great a height that He brought a flood of waters and swept away its wicked inhabitants. It was the portion of death for the impenitent, fulfilling the warning that all who would not keep the commandments of heaven should drink the waters of the flood, and thereby exemplified and demonstrated the truth of God's word. The rocks raised from the deep by the breaking forth of the waters stand as witnesses to that awful outpouring of wrath and its terrors.
Men put God out of their knowledge, forgot His admonitions and disregarded Him until almost all remembrance passed away. They lifted themselves up in finite wisdom, took themselves out of His hands, decided they had no need of God, and thought in human wisdom and imaginings they could do much better left to themselves. When they fully decided they had no need of God, He decided He had no need of them, and cut them off from the earth to stop their evil and prevent ruin to those who would be born and come in contact with them. The need is to choose to be led by His unerring counsel rather than own wisdom.
By beholding idols and worshiping creatures of imagination and works of their own hands, men became like them, sank lower and lower, clothed deities with human attributes and passions, and degraded the standard of character to sinful humanity. Though only a step from paradise and given rich gifts with strength of body and mind, they used them for selfish purposes, unlawful appetites, pleasure, pride, vanity and self-glorification, expelled God from their thoughts, despised His law and trampled His standard in the dust. They were ungrateful for gifts, unmindful of goodness, never gave thanks though living in His house and provided food and clothing from His liberal treasury, yet continually worked in opposition to their Creator. By beholding evil they were changed into its image until He could bear with their wickedness no longer.
Every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually, the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence and crime. Brute force ruled, men intimidating and compelling others by threatened punishment, neither the marriage relation nor the rights of property respected, justice trampled in the dust, wickedness open and daring. Secret societies were formed to work in darkness to do violence, and evil grew at a fearful pace. The cries of the oppressed reached unto heaven and entered into His ears.
Indulgence of appetite and intemperance helped bring the end, for gluttony and drunkenness were prevailing sins that led to other crimes. The antediluvians were intemperate in eating and drinking, demanding flesh meat though no permission had then been given to eat animal food, indulging depraved appetite without bounds until health was sacrificed to appetite. That indulgence inflamed passions and with idolatry and violence made the world morally corrupt and polluted, so that corruption was complete, the cup of iniquity full, and beyond remedy. Since the fall He has tested His people just where man was tested before the fall, in appetite, and indulgence of appetite is among the most flagrant sins and causes the greatest amount of human woe.
The judgment included Sodomitish practices, strange abandonment of principle and lowered standard of morality. Part of the apostasy came when the sons of God married the daughters of men, showing how seemingly small acts of self-indulgence can lead to grave consequences for many.
Satan overcame Adam upon appetite and gained control of his descendants, and through indulgence led them to provoke God by iniquity until their crimes required destruction. He demonstrated and worked out his principles of falsehood, misrepresentation and hostility against God in that world, until he seemed to have gained the victory and almost the whole world joined rebellion. The sin introduced through Adam's disobedience opened the floodgates of woe upon the world and cursed the earth with moral defilement. Then omnipotent power cut short the working of iniquity.
Before the Flood there were talented, long-lived men with God-given intellect, valuable ideas, skill, knowledge, arts, tact, judgment and efficiency that could have done marvelous things if connected with Him who is infinite in wisdom. They became lifted up in imagination, left God out of plans and councils, perverted intellect to glorify self and for evil only, becoming clever to do what He never told them and wise to do evil. With them perished knowledge, arts, wisdom and more than is now known in many ways, and when the earth was repeopled He trusted wisdom to men more sparingly, giving only ability needed to carry out His great plan. Triumphing in own power and glorifying self after their example brings like perishing, for man is only mortal and has no independent spiritual life apart from Christ.
Men exceeded the bounds prescribed through long-sufferance and the limits of grace by presuming upon mercy, going decidedly counter to His will, despising warnings and continuing in unrighteousness, self-importance, pride and disgraceful transgression. He may bear long and allows to all nations a certain period of probation and grace, but declares the limits of forbearance, and when goodness, mercy and compassion are trifled with and the measure of iniquity is full and boundaries of mercy passed, nothing remains but outbreak of indignation. So after one hundred and twenty years of warning He interfered in wrath to vindicate the honor and authority of His law, repress the increase of unrighteousness, limit human life, and prevent sinners spoiling one another in continual disobedience and defiance. He beholds all works though the wicked say their way is hidden, and interposes in His own time.
Sparing Cain demonstrated to the universe the result of letting sin go unpunished, and the influence of his life and teaching upon descendants led to the corruption that demanded the Flood. The history proves long life is no blessing to the sinner, for forbearance did not repress wickedness but the longer men lived the more corrupt they became. It was mercy that thousands suffered speedily at Sinai to prevent necessity of visiting judgment upon millions again.
Warning Rejected Beforehand
God granted one hundred and twenty years of probation in which Noah as preacher of righteousness warned what was coming while building the immense ark on dry land. He did not work alone, for Methuselah and some of his family received his instruction and helped build, along with other helpers and believing ones who kept the faith, some dying triumphant before the flood. He and those with him worked constantly and preached more earnestly under scorn, not tempted by universal ridicule against the law and against themselves to have less reverence and love for it. During that time the obedient were distinguished from the disobedient by the standard of the law, yet only a few repented, other converts backsliding, so only eight righteous remained.
The animals quietly entering two and two under invisible leadership, without visible leader, was the final sign that hardened hearts still refused to humble themselves before. After the ark was finished and stocked and cattle and all other living creatures were housed, believers were shut in by an invisible hand, while even obedient beasts and fowls went for refuge and men remained disobedient. God Himself shut the door, shutting Noah and his family safely in and the guilty world out. Up to that time an open door of refuge stood if they believed, but when shut no man could open it, probation ended, mercy ceased, and justice took the sword of vengeance.
Then came a one-week testing time with no rain, enclosed in the ark while mockers fully revealed unbelief in words and acts of reviling. Rain at first fell slow and gentle and was remembered against Noah's sermons, then increased in power and poured in steady torrents until destruction was complete. After six days the steady rain set in and continued until not one living person or dumb animal left outside remained alive.
The people would not believe because they had separated far from God, thought they were right and Noah wrong, claimed to know more than His faithful servant, and closed ears to words of truth. They branded him fanatic, visionary, alarmist, crazy and not levelheaded, denounced his message as parables, superstition, illusion and superstitious fear, and laughed and mocked and scoffed though the world could not endure the truth of it. They explained away warning of rain where no sign had ever existed by false science, and reasoned that wise, great, good, learned and scientific men could not all perish. Righteous men including Seth, Enoch, Noah, Methuselah and others had kept knowledge of God and truth continually before the world, but the people despised it.
Their unbelief, mockery, and trust that nature could not change did not prevent fulfillment and did not make the message of no effect, for they drank the waters that covered the earth. They fled from place to place for higher ground till only a world of water remained, pleaded for admission, clung to the ark till washed away, and perished in the black depths when the avenging waters swept over the last retreat. The doomed longed for slighted opportunities, for one hour's probation, one more privilege of mercy, one call from his lips, but the sweet voice of mercy was heard no more. They perished in remorse but not repentance as his sermons came to mind, left in the darkness and curse their own sinful hearts had chosen, their salvation having depended on response to the message sent from heaven after whose rejection the Spirit was withdrawn. Fulfillment vindicated his solemn warnings so they were no longer a subject for ridicule and scorning.
Only eight persons out of that vast population accepted the warning, fled for refuge into the ark, and were saved, condemning the world. Some believing workmen died before, other converts backslid, and many who helped build, including carpenters who helped yet did not enter, did not believe, did not cleanse wrong principles nor overcome temptation to do and say things contrary to the mind and will of God, and were destroyed. Hearing truth and having every advantage to become of moral worth and grow in grace and be fitted for holy heaven does not save those who choose corrupt society and unheavenly influence, and even acting a part in preparing truth to stand in the day of the Lord does not save, so such workers perish in the general ruin.
Justice Tempered With Mercy
Love no less than justice demanded that judgment put a check on sin, and the sweeping away of every living substance except Noah and those with him in the ark was mercy to the world and to the universe, cutting short iniquity, cleansing moral pollution, and stopping evil and ruin to posterity, with mercy mingled in the saving of Noah and his family. Talented men of skill and knowledge had become lifted up in imagination, left God out of plans and councils, grown clever to do what He never commanded and clever to do evil, and their wisdom would have brought ruin on all born afterward who came in contact with them, so the old world was cut off to stop its evil after one hundred and twenty years of warning through Noah, when mercy and forbearance were exhausted and probation ended amid ridicule, caricature, criticism, laughter at him as a crazy fanatic, and reasoning about science and laws of nature. The flood declares the divine verdict of Incurable upon those who freely choose the wrong side, rebel, despise mercy and defy justice, becoming spiritually palsied not because they cannot submit but because they will not, until corruption is far-reaching and beyond recovery. Their rebellion was shown incurable because after rejecting the message sent for salvation and plunging into sin with greater abandon and doubled enormity of corrupting practice, they set the mind to carry the spirit of revolt, refused to reform by accepting Christ, found nothing reformative in sin, and are not and never will be forced to submission, with wrath coming not merely for sins committed but for choosing to continue resistance while having light and knowledge, repeating past sins, refusing to repent and submit to be pardoned, and taking up rebellion afresh each day until ruin. Their fate depended on how they treated the message, and when it was rejected the Spirit was withdrawn and the sinful race perished while Noah and those with him remained alive, for after life ends there is no turning from transgression to obedience or from hatred to love.
God is a moral governor as well as a Father, a Lawgiver who makes and executes His laws, and law that has no penalty is of no force. Noah himself would have displeased God to drown even one of the scoffers and mockers that harassed him, but God in strict justice drowned the vast world, doing infinite justice that man has no right to do before his fellow man, for the good and safety of His subjects. His goodness and long forbearance, His patience and mercy, do not hinder Him from punishing the sinner who refuses obedience and persists in wickedness, even though men plead that a loving Father with power to relieve would not see His children suffer punishment by fire. The fulfillment exemplified and demonstrated the truth of His word, fulfilling the prophetic warning that all who would not keep the commandments of heaven should drink the waters of the flood as the penalty of transgression and portion of death for the impenitent, after one hundred and twenty years of warning while the ark was building as shelter till indignation was overpast, when only a few repented, some believing workmen dying beforehand and other converts backsliding, so only eight righteous remained alive. It demonstrated that God, not nature, governs the natural order and can bring what human reasoning calls impossible, contrary to the trust that nature could not change. He is mindful of what passes on earth, and when crisis comes He reveals Himself and interposes to hinder Satan's plans and sustain and vindicate His people, a pattern to repeat when defiance of law is almost universal and His people, pressed in affliction, pray with fervent united cry, and He arises as protector and avenger to end violence and abuse.
The destruction of the old world proves it is a fearful thing for the unrepenting sinner to fall into the hands of the living God, coming in consequence of transgression of law and revealing wrath and the character of retribution upon continuance in sin, standing with the fire that destroyed Sodom, yet neither proves this so greatly as the agony Christ endured in Gethsemane when He bore divine wrath for a sinful world, which broadens, deepens and extends the conception of sin and its retribution. It is to be gratefully remembered together with mercy to Adam and the gracious covenant with Noah, not murmured at as arbitrary severity as the builders of Babel did in calling it proof that God is arbitrary and severe. The sparing of Noah alone with those in the ark shows that no one is compelled, but humanity is given the privilege of gaining back God-given manhood and womanhood so that the immortal image may be restored, after Adam and Eve in Eden fell and opened the floodgates of woe. The drowning of all the disobedient after one hundred and twenty years of refused mercy, though every obedient soul would have been saved, proves that whatsoever a man sows he must also reap without failure, because every action of life is understood and a reaping time is brought, with the same distracting influences that kept minds from God and heavenly things then making it no more favorable to form character for eternal life now. The flood was a great increase of the curse on the earth following Adam's fall and Abel's murder, and since then continued disobedience has made the curse rest more heavily on people, animals, trees and vegetation.
Pattern for Last Days
As in the days of Noah so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man, for the generation destroyed in the flood prefigures the present age before Christ appears in the clouds with power and glory. Those now living share the same human nature as those who lived before the flood, and wickedness is increasing as was declared it would, with rebellion against God and His law ending in destruction. Men today reject the truth of God just as they did in Noah's time, after a total destruction of every living man and animal outside the ark left Noah only remaining alive with those in the ark. That destruction came after widespread moral corruption and violence which indulgence in food and drink helped bring about, and comparable indulgence and corruption will mark the world before the Son of man comes.
Judgment can be certain even while people continue ordinary careless lives, for after Noah entered the ark the people had seven days before the flood came, unaware their doom was fixed. This illustrates the final closing of probation before Christ's return, when people will still be living on earth but their destinies have been decided, and the flood's sudden surprise serves as pattern for the sudden end at the second coming. As it was then so it will be prior to the second coming, when the world absorbed in pleasure-loving, amusements, gains, traffic, moneymaking, dishonest practices, luxury, extravagance, wine-drinking, reveling and robbing the poor will be eating and drinking, planting and building unprepared. The church follows the world in blind slumber with ministers crying peace and safety, while lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God boast all things remain as from the beginning and tomorrow shall be as this day only much more abundant, asleep in carnal security, full of rioting and godless pleasure, putting afar off the coming of the Lord. Sudden destruction will then break upon them as a snare and overtake them as a thief, as judgment fell suddenly on Noah's world and on Sodom while they pursued plans and inventions of iniquity, laughing at warnings and calling those who arouse them fanatics, enthusiasts, visionaries and not levelheaded.
The waters of the flood cleansed the earth by destroying every living substance except Noah and those with him, when water from the heavens united with water in the bowels of the earth. It is a pattern of the last great day, when the fire of God will purify the earth as fire from heaven unites with fire stored up in the earth. That destruction by water will not be repeated, but God will soon sweep the earth of moral corruption again, this time by a sea of unquenchable fire that no human devising can quench, in response to cries of misery and suffering and to avenge His elect who cry day and night. This calls for preparation now rather than wasting time and money on pride, vanity, pleasure-seeking and display, because Christ is soon coming to take those who loved Him and waited for His appearing, while those devoted to perishing riches and pleasure will hear depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.
The flood stands in line with Sodom for disobeying the laws of God's kingdom, Jerusalem because Israel would not heed God's messages, and the final destruction of the whole world by fire in the closing period of its history because of transgression and impenitence. The antediluvian world was destroyed, every living thing swept away, because after one hundred and twenty years granted to choose between evil and good men deliberately chose their own wicked ways and would not repent and turn. After another granted period of test and trial to show whether men will obey God's law and be loyal to Him the world will face great destruction by fire, and as men reasoned in Noah's day they reason today against the warning to fear God and keep His commandments and the Sabbath. They say God is too good and too merciful to save just a few and consume the many with fire for unbelief, as men then reasoned great and good men, philosophers, scientific and learned men could not all perish while Noah alone was spared and his doctrine was an illusion of the brain. The flood came because of strange abandonment of principle, lowered morality and Sodomitish practices, and the same practices are fast increasing through indulgence of appetite and intemperance beyond remedy until the earth is fast becoming as Sodom.
Before destruction the preaching of Noah warned, tested and proved them, and that same work of warning, testing and proving before destruction is now done by the truth of God for the last days, scattered through publications that decide destiny and test all nations by light turning men from transgression to obedience of the law. Only eight persons out of that vast population accepted the warning, fled for refuge and were saved while every other living substance was destroyed, condemning the world, and God has now a last message of mercy requiring self-denial, the cross and keeping all commandments, a savor of life to acceptors and of death to rejecters. The same unbelief that prevailed before the flood will prevail prior to Christ's coming, yet moral darkness covering earth and gross darkness the people does not change the duty to warn. On that coming final day the distinction between Christ's and the apostate's will be fully marked, with only two great centers left, Christ the Prince of life and immortality and Antichrist the center of rebel apostasy, the parties forever separated, as judgment comes as in the flood when only Noah and those with him remained alive.
Some descendants denied God caused the flood and explained it by natural causes, while others believed God destroyed the people yet rebelled against Him for doing so and for cursing the earth again. Many on Shinar's plain attributed the flood to nature and denied God and His covenant not to bring a flood again, while others acknowledged a supreme being had destroyed the world yet rebelled like Cain. Knowing the waters rose to a height that destroyed every living substance, man and cattle and creeping things and fowl, leaving only Noah and those in the ark, they built a tower much higher than the floodwaters to place themselves beyond another deluge and to ascend to clouds to ascertain its cause. Exalting pride they turned future generations from God to idolatry.
Noah preserved the law and taught the Ten Commandments to his descendants, and continual transgression brought the flood while Noah and his family were preserved because they did right. Having warned the people who mocked him, Noah and his family alone survived as the ark preserved them while waters rose. Their deliverance illustrates that God will protect His faithful people, who warn the world of coming judgment and refuse the beast's decree and mark, from being destroyed by the wicked.
Call to Present Obedience
Safety in the judgment requires standing loyal and true to the law of God even if the whole world opposes it, for walking contrary to His Word stirs rebellion and brings displeasure and destruction. The first world was swept away because its people did not obey the law, and if they had obeyed with the obedience that is the highest education and builds character after the divine similitude they would not have been destroyed. They lifted themselves up in finite wisdom, took themselves out of the hands of God, fully decided they had no need of God, and thought in human wisdom and imaginings they could do better left to themselves, so the Lord decided He had no need of them and they perished. Their destruction from the earth was God executing the final penalty for transgressing His law, not washing them by the waters straight into glory, proving obedience to all His law is absolutely essential to eternal life and giving no assurance that transgressors can get to heaven as well as those who obey. Men must therefore choose to be led and guided by His unerring counsel rather than their own wisdom, keeping all the commandments including the Sabbath, and not repeat the unbelief of those who thought they were right and Noah wrong, claimed to know more than God's faithful servant, closed ears to truth, branded him fanatic, explained away warning of rain where no sign had ever existed by false science, and laughed and mocked his words as parables.
As men reasoned in Noah's day they reason today against the warning to fear God and keep His commandments, saying God is too good and too merciful to save just a few and consume the many with fire for unbelief. The flood destroyed every living substance on the face of the ground, man and cattle and creeping things and fowl of heaven, swept out of existence, while Noah only remained alive and they that were with him in the ark, eight persons only. The small number of the saved made the message seem contrary to the character of God, and men reasoned that great and good men, philosophers and scientific and learned men could not all perish while Noah alone was found worthy, that if the warning were truth the wise would know it, and that Noah was deceived and his doctrine an illusion of the brain. Great numbers do not follow God and only a few are saved, so believers must not be discouraged when only a few believe present truth and regard the commandments, and must not follow the majority, for following the majority keeps them from heaven and brings destruction and missing heaven. Those who lift the cross after knowing duty and enter the strait gate and narrow way find life, while following Christ is not by great numbers.
Hearing the truth and having every advantage to become of moral worth and to grow in grace and knowledge of the truth and become fitted for holy heaven does not save those who will not choose good society but choose the corrupt, gathering to their side and uniting with influence that is not heavenly. Acting a part in the preparation of the truth that fits a people to stand in the day of the Lord does not save, for many helped Noah build the ark who did not believe the warning message, who did not cleanse themselves from all wrong principles, and who did not overcome temptation to do and say things entirely contrary to the mind and will of God. Such workers perish like Noah's carpenters who helped to build the ark but did not enter it, destroyed with the rest in the general ruin in which every living thing on the face of the ground was destroyed and only Noah and those with him remained alive.
The hour to close the ark came at last and the inhabitants of the old world perished, with the animals coming two by two without a visible leader as the final sign before the closing. Wickedness increasing as in the days of Noah shows time is very short and the same closing of mercy is coming for this world, when the last call will not be heard. Therefore no one can serve two masters, all must humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, become holy, wake up and get ready now lest it be everlastingly too late. Destruction overtook a world filled with overwhelming iniquity, and present inhabitants fast becoming like them, with minds diverted from eternal realities and filled with violence, revelling and drunkenness, walking the broad road to eternal ruin, will meet the same destruction, proving the end of all things is at hand and demanding earnest, untiring effort to save souls ready to perish.
This history of the old world is to be read, understood, and kept before the mind as a warning while calling attention to the signs of the times. It was taught to the sons of the prophets and to the children of Israel in the Word of God that they might prepare for the advent of Christ, after God's long-suffering patience was worn out by despisers of mercy through crime and violence and repeated rejection of messages sent during an extended probation of one hundred and twenty years, so they were made to drink the waters of the flood. The same looking of God upon worldwide wickedness and the same sending of His messages is now repeated, with the wickedness before the flood repeated in this age and with calamities, earthquakes, floods, and disasters by land and by sea increasing. Because destruction came upon that generation when selfishness and violence and crime prevailed, and they prevail again as earth's history closes, Bible believers now must take their position for righteousness and truth and stand for righteousness and truth in a time of violence and crime like the Old World.
God's people are now called to come out from among them and be separate and touch not the unclean thing, as it was in the days of Noah so it will be in the days of the Son of man. The condition that brought destruction when iniquity abounded was marked presentations, free circulation of the Lord's money by those who do not take the Word as guide, honoring of multitudes, holding great festivities, interest in making everything possible of men, and seeking own pleasure, and that same condition exists now. The world absorbed in pleasure-loving, amusements, gains, traffic, moneymaking, dishonest practices, luxury, extravagance, wine-drinking, reveling and robbing the poor, with the church following the world in blind slumber and ministers crying peace and safety, will be eating and drinking, planting and building unprepared till sudden destruction breaks upon them as a snare and overtakes them as a thief, as unbelief that laughed Noah to scorn and mocked rain as impossible and fanatical did not prevent fulfillment when rain came and the wicked perished. Preparation is required now rather than wasting time and money on pride, vanity, pleasure-seeking and display, because Christ is soon coming to take those who have loved Him and waited for His appearing, while those devoted to perishing riches and pleasure will hear depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.
God's destruction in the waters came because men transgressed His commandments, as Adam transgressed and as men are transgressing all over the world now. That transgression made the world then like Sodom, and the same transgression is making the world now the same. Christ died to win back the world from that condition, to draw it back into favor with God and make it loyal to God in keeping the commandments. No one can afford to lose the soul by transgressing one of God's laws or showing disrespect to it.