What was the purpose of the flood in the time of Noah?

The Spirit of God has been pleased to state two grounds upon which God brought the judgment of the flood upon man. First, because of what he had done - "The wickedness of man was great in the earth;" and further on we read that this had assumed the twofold form of corruption and violence, those parent sins of Genesis 3 and 4, which will find their full consummation in the day of the Lord, the former in Jerusalem and the antichrist, and the latter in Babylon and the beast. Second, because of what he was - "Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually;" or, as the margin reads, "The purposes and desires of his heart" were such.

What was the result of this trial? "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen. 6:5). "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth" (ver. 11, 12). The evil rose to such a height, that God could no longer tolerate its existence; so the flood was sent to destroy man from off the face of the earth.

Noah had found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and was, with his family, preserved to people the earth. Man was thus put on trial once more. After the flood, a new element was introduced to restrain the violence which had before filled the earth. The ordinance, "Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," made man a check and a restraint upon the violence of his fellow-man. But how does man acquit himself under this new principle of human government, thus in its essence introduced? Alas! Noah, the one in whom the authority was naturally invested, debases himself with wine; and when thus degraded, his own offspring take advantage of his state to degrade him further still! Babel too, and the cities of the plain; Egypt, with its idolatries and oppressions; and the cities of the Amorites (see Deut. 18:9-12), all form specimens of what man proved himself to be in the interim between the flood and the giving of the law. Rom. 1:21-32 presents us with a gloomy picture of what man at this period proved the desires of his heart and the bent of his will to be; as well as of the consequences to which God gave up the Gentile world. But when He did thus give up the Gentiles, He made choice of Israel, that in His dealings with that nation, brought outwardly nigh to Himself and favoured with every possible advantage, further trial might be made, within a narrower sphere, of what the heart and will of man would produce. It was to this people that the law was given. And Moses, in recapitulating the dealings of God with this people in the wilderness, states that the object was "to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no" (Deut. 8:2).

The government of the earth, as is well known, was originally confided to Adam. When he had fallen, and subjected both himself and the creation over which he was placed to the dominion of the great deceiver, God did not at once introduce the Second Adam and establish His kingdom. In the curse pronounced on the serpent, there was an intimation of His coming, as the Seed of the woman, to bruise the serpent's head; while the mystery of His humiliation and sacrificial death was hinted at in the words, "Thou shalt bruise his heel." This precious light was afforded to faith, in whomsoever it might be found, throughout even the antediluvian age; but the race of mankind, as such, seem to have been left to make manifest what was in their hearts. The result is well known: the earth was filled with violence, and, by means of the flood, God interposed in judgment on the guilty, rebellious race.

A new order of things commenced with Noah. The judgment having vindicated God's holiness, and grace having triumphed in the deliverance of Noah and his house — the Lord having smelled, moreover, the sweet savour of Noah's burnt offerings, (types, as they doubtless were, of Christ's precious sacrifice,) He says in His heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done. While the earth remains, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." (Gen. 8:22.) Under this covenant with creation, of which the bow in the cloud is the sign or token, the earth has continued till the present time, And will continue throughout the millennial period, till, the kingdom being delivered up by Christ to the Father, the heaven and the earth shall pass away, giving place to the new heaven and the new earth — the everlasting state — in which God shall be all in all. The Millennium is the last of those dispensations under which the earth and its inhabitants were to be placed, during the continuance of God's covenant with creation after the flood.

1909 260 All government in the world has heretofore been of God. In the remarkable clash of opinions today, and wild projects for the improvement of the world, there has arisen a company of men more dangerous from their audacity than their number, who call themselves Nihilists in Russia, and in other places, Anarchists. The etymology of both names indicates the principles held — no government of any kind, no law, no worship, no God — nothing — nihil! Or, anarchy — without a chief, but with all that this chiefless lawlessness involves — mankind to be left to their own ungoverned impulses. And from this low-level swamp into which all evil will drain, the anarchists are deluded enough to expect that good will arise to humanity. Alas! for the neglected light of the Bible! Had they known the Scriptures they might have seen that in the varied demonstration of principles which God has wrought out on the platform of this world, man has already been tried on the very ground of no government; for that was the condition of the world before the deluge. There is no record, no trace of any government until then. Man, now that he had listened to Satan and rejected God, was allowed to display what he would come to without law and without interference. And what was the result? "The wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold I will destroy them from the earth" (Gen. 6:5, 11-13). That was the development of fallen human nature left to itself.

How little do men reflect or even know, that for 1,600 years man has been tried on the very principles which anarchists now advocate; and that the awful product was a chaos of iniquity — corruption on the one hand, and violence on the other, such as brought down the vengeance of the Almighty upon the whole race, Noah (the "just man and perfect," Gen. 6:9) and his family being alone saved. Is it not strange that the Flood, the greatest event which the world has witnessed (except the visit and murder of the Son of God), is totally ignored, and its moral significance unknown or despised? But there is a will in this ignorance. Men do not wish to be reminded of the judgment Of God, either past or future. Hence they ignore that the earth has already once been swept by judgment, and is now reserved to a more awful visitation. Meanwhile the fact of the deluge remains a testimony: (1) That the world has not continued from its creation as it now is. (2) That the race has already been visited with appalling judgment for wickedness. (3) That man left to himself, so far from developing in the direction of goodness and happiness, sinks lower and lower into filthy corruption and frightful violence. THAT IS THE LESSON OF THE DELUGE. "There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water, and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men" (2 Peter 3:3-7).

Again, there is the Flood; it was sent as a divine protest against universal corruption, and as a terrible witness to God’s hatred of sin. Mercy did not interfere with the desolation of the forty days’ rain, nor the extinction of everything that had life, till the very mountains was submerged and the entire race (save eight) absolutely obliterated. Sin and judgment followed as cause and effect. Moral consequence was necessary in the maintenance of divine holiness.

God having for fifteen hundred years manifested His patience towards the guilty antediluvian world, He, after warning the people by the preaching of Noah, bore witness to His righteousness and His power by the deluge, and at the same time manifested His grace in saving Noah and his family in the ark.

The greatest evidence that man has a darkened mind and a corrupt nature is not the existence of the gambling den, nor the house of ill fame. The greatest evidence is unbelief; the fact that the human heart definitely and positively refuses to listen to the voice of God; that there is a heart which hates the light and loves darkness; and the greater the light which is rejected and refused, the greater the darkness, and finally God who is Love and Mercy can do nothing else. In fact, He must mete out judgment for a race which refuses to listen to His voice. That has been the story of the race from the beginning. God did not leave man, after he had transgressed, without light. Man had the light of creation and though there was not a written word, yet there was the Word of God nevertheless, and yet as you follow the Divine Record, you find that man's evil nature was evidenced by turning away from that Light. And though in 1650 years of the first age of this earth, they built cities, invented instruments, were lovers of art and music--the race wandered away from God, the earth became filled with violence and vileness, the voice of God was rejected and finally God had to bring a judgment upon the earth. And let no one imagine that that judgment, the deluge, is a myth; it is not. It is written in the Book and it is verified by science, by geology and by tradition.

Although there was so much in Cain's city for man's pride and pleasure, there was nothing to gratify the heart of God, for when God looked down, He saw that the earth was corrupt, and filled with violence, "and it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart" (Gen. 6:5, 11). Man's prosperity, music, art and science had not in the least degree improved his state of moral depravity. So great was the evil in God's sight that He swept the earth with a deluge, removing man and all his works from the face of the earth, only sparing Noah and his sons, and their wives, for "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord," being "a just man and perfect in his generations."

Corruption and violence, the former of the flesh and the latter of the devil, fill the earth and dominate the race less than two thousand years from the fall. And if there are a few that will hearken to the voice of God, they can neither purify that filthy human river, nor alter its disastrous course; they can only testify to the sure judgment of an angry God, that shall bring to an end that horrible state of things resulting from the lawless behaviour of the godless creature. In the judgment of the flood, that world so offensive to God disappears, eight persons alone finding refuge in the ark.

For about sixteen or seventeen hundred years of this time of trial men are left to themselves (God never leaving Himself without a witness) till the flood, when the earth was "corrupt before God, and … was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt: for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world" having been "clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead," leaving them "without excuse." And so God said, "The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them: and behold I will destroy them with the earth." "And so he brought in the flood upon the world of the ungodly … and the world that then was being overflowed with water perished," and thus ended the trial of man left to himself.