WE have seen how wickedness and violence increased in the earth till the whole race was so absorbed in it that “every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually,” and “the earth was filled with violence through them.”MEDM September 23, 1908, page 757.1

When conditions had reached the point where the spring of every thought the very fountain of every desire, an the spontaneous impulse of every purpose, was only evil continually; when both the source and the consequence of every thought was evil and nothing but evil continually with no variation; and when they simply would not hear any call to anything better; then in the very nature of things, in the righteousness and mercy of God, the only thing to be done was to put an effectual estoppel to their opportunity to do evil. And in the conditions which they had created, this could be done in no other way than by putting a stop to the very existence of those who created the awful conditions.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 757.2

And it was only mercy on the part of God to do this. For, when absolutely all the use that they would make of existence was to heap up overtowering iniquity and violence, then all the consequence of their existence was to heap up only misery for themselves. Every soul must answer in the judgment for everything that he has done here, and must meet there and bear the consequence of what he has done here. While there is any hope at all that a man may turn from his evil way, while there is any hope at all that anything good shall be found, the long-suffering of the Lord can endure the perversity of the natural heart, waiting for the man to come to himself, and the soul to awake to righteousness, the sins be blotted out forever and the soul be saved in everlasting righteousness. And thus “the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation.” But when existence has been competed at its very source; when the fountain both in its spring and in its utmost flow, is only evil and unto evil continually; and when every call of God is repelled with scoffing and bitter- ness, then continued existence means only the heaping up of distress and misery for the soul in the great day of account.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 757.3

But the mighty and eternal God has no pleasure in the distress and misery of feeble and finite man. He wants man to turn and escape forever from all distress and misery and from all that could ever cause any such thing. When men will not do this, but will only confirm themselves irredeemably in the way of distress and misery; then the ever merciful God in mercy stops their heaping up distress and misery for themselves by stopping their existence.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.1

And this is the story and the philosophy of the all-sweeping calamity that befell in the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, Adma and Zeboim; the inhabitants of Canaan, Pompeii and Herculaneum; the fall of Babylon and of Rome,—and every other such; and the fall of the world again at the last. Read Genesis 18:32; 2 Peter 2:5-8; Genesis 15:16; Leviticus 18:24, 25; Daniel 5:1-5; 8:23; 2 Timothy 3:1-5; Luke 17:26-30. And it is all ever the story of the mercy of God to irredeemably wicked man.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.2

And so the Flood came. No mind can imagine the awful portent and terror of that upheaval and downpour when “the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened;” and when the blackness and darkness and tempest reigned so ruinously for forty days and forty nights.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.3

Note the gradations:—MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.4

1. “And the waters increased and bore up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.” Genesis 7:17.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.5

2. “And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.” V, 18.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.6

3. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.” V, 19.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.7

4. “Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail and the mountains were covered.” V, 20.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.8

“And all flesh that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man; all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.9

“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.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.10

“And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.11

“And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged; the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; and the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.12

“And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.13

“And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.14

“And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.15

“And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.” Genesis 7:21; 8:14.MEDM September 23, 1908, page 158.16

September 16, 1908

September 30, 1908