Sabbath Afternoon - April 16
Memory Text:
“But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” KJV — Matthew 24:37
“In the days of Noah a double curse was resting upon the earth in consequence of Adam's transgression and of the murder committed by Cain…” PP 90.1
“Men put God out of their knowledge and worshiped the creatures of their own imagination; and as the result, they became more and more debased…The worshipers of false gods clothed their deities with human attributes and passions, and thus their standard of character was degraded to the likeness of sinful humanity. They were defiled in consequence. “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that 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.” God had given men His commandments as a rule of life, but His law was transgressed, and every conceivable sin was the result. The wickedness of men was open and daring, justice was trampled in the dust, and the cries of the oppressed reached unto heaven. PP 91.2
Sunday - April 17
Preparation for the Flood
Genesis 6:13-7:10
What lessons can we learn from this amazing account of early human history?
You remember that while Noah was preaching that a destruction would come from the Almighty, he was also preparing a place of refuge building the ark. Those who doubted Noah's announcement of the flood, and who scoffed at the idea that they should enter the ark for safety at a time when there was not even the slightest sign of threatening rain, were doubters no longer when the elements of nature were unleashed. Then they madly rushed to the ark; but to their dismay and utter disappointment, they found the door tightly closed against them. Thus all, both good and bad who chose to remain outside the ark, perished. The antedeluvians' experience should serve as a reminder to us that we be not presumptuous as were they. We should instead take to heart the clear warning that is pertinent to this hour, for we are told that as it was in the days of the flood, so shall it be at the time of the Lord's coming.
The ark of today is "Zion and Jerusalem," "for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem:" Mic. 4:2
Monday - April 18
The Event of the Flood
Genesis 7
What does the description of the Flood remind us of?
Now we go back to clear the apparent Scriptural complication in recording the duration of the flood and the confinement in the ark. “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” (Gen. 7:11.) The second month and the seventeenth day of the month was the date of the solar year according to the antediluvian calendar when the raging flood began its violent rush against every living thing upon the earth. The same indignation of nature vehemently continued forty days, and when it had reached its climax and wiped out the inhabitants it suddenly quieted down. Adding forty days to the foregoing date would show that the rain ceased on the twenty-seventh day of the third month. “And the ark rested [quieted] in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.”
Therefore, from the day the rain started to the day the ark rested, (not on the ground but from drifting) was exactly five months. The same is recorded in Gen. 8:3, “And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.” This fact proves that the antediluvian monthly calendar consisted of thirty days to a month (5 x 30 = 150).
“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.” (Verse 5.) That is, from the day the waters were abated to the day the mountains appeared, there were seventy-four days. (13) to complete the seventh month, (30) in the eighth, (30) in the ninth, and (1) day from the tenth month = 74 in all.
“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.” (Verse 13.) That is, from the day the mountain tops had appeared to the day the waters returned to their proper place, there were ninety days – (29) to complete the tenth month, (30) in the eleventh, (30) in the twelfth, and (1) day from the first month of the commencement of the new year, making a total of ninety days.
The following record will give us the number of days to dry the earth’s surface and solidify from the effects of the waters: “And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.” (Verse 14.) Therefore, the earth had dried in the space of fifty-six days from the day the waters were taken away – (29) days to complete the first month, and (27) from the second month, making a total of (56) days.
The following is a summary of a grand total of days: (40) while raining, 110 to the time they began to subside, and 164 days for the waters to recede in the bowels of the earth, and (56) for the earth to dry, making a total of 370 days; and seven before the flood had started, reaching a grand total of 377 days – twelve months and seventeen days in all (30 days to the month).
Certainly no one would suppose that this arrangement of the flood with fixed number of days to each act was thoughtlessly devised by a just and all wise God. Why should Noah and his family with all the living creatures that went into the ark be shut in seven days before the rain began? It would have been unwise and cruel on the part of God, also costly to Noah, and burdensome to all the inmates of the ark in prolonging their captivity if it had no object lesson for future generations. Why consume forty days to flood the earth while He could have done it in much less time? Why lengthen the captivity of His creatures in the ark, by restraining the liberty of the waters in their downward course, and compel them to keep their elevation fifteen cubits upward for 110 days? Or why not more or less? Why should He cause the waters to rise upward in forty days, and consume 164 (over four times as long) in going down? Is it not contrary to nature?
The earth had been under water for over ten months, and as the rushing torrents from underneath had violently inverted the form of the earth on their upward course, it had become one slimy mass of mud. But after the waters had descended into the lower lands, and in the bowels of the earth, He caused the earth to dry in but fifty-six days. Everything God did in connection with the flood was contrary to nature and to human judgment or reason. Unquestionably, it was thus devised for an object lesson for those upon whom the end of the world is come.
The following will not only prove that what has been said is correct, but it will also show that the closing of the door of the ark seven days before the destruction by the flood had begun, is a type representing the time from the close of probation to the commencement of the plagues. It will further prove that the rain of forty days and forty nights is a type of the destruction of the wicked in the plagues. The 110 days (after the rain had stopped and before the waters were abated) is a time-type of the wicked, both during the millennium and for one hundred years after. Also, that the clearing of the earth from the waters is a type of the destruction of the wicked by fire (the second death) after the millennium, and the fifty-six days in which the earth was dried is a type of the cooling of the earth after its purification from sin and sinners.
Tuesday - April 19
The End of the Flood
Genesis 8:1
What was the attitude of Noah’s family after the Flood?
But having survived the flood, the descendants of Noah's family straightway forgot the priceless lesson. So it came to pass that the post-diluvians were as determined to believe that there could be a second universal flood as the antediluvians were that there could not be a first one. Thus unbelief in Noah's inspiration became as pronounced after the flood as it had been before, with the result that in the effort to gain security of life, men attempted to build the tower of Babel, the world's first skyscraper and the earliest monument to the folly of man's prodigious labors to secure his salvation without the assistance of Divine Inspiration. This insulting attitude of the builders toward the Lord's promise through Noah, so aroused His displeasure that He blotted from their memory the language which He had given them through Adam and, in its stead, inspired in them all the diverse languages of earth, with the result that the builders became confused among themselves and could no longer continue building (Gen. 11:7-9).
In this preternatural event which so radically changed the course of human society, we see another form of Inspiration revealing that while one individual or a group of individuals may deliberately work at cross-purposes with God, He can bestow His gift even on them, to frustrate their own evil designs (Gen. 11:1-9) while promoting His eternal purpose and getting praise to His name (Ps. 76:10).
Wednesday - April 20
The Covenant: Part 1
Genesis 8:20; 9:2-4
How did the Flood affect the human diet?
Thus, in the beginning, man's diet did not include flesh food. Not till after the flood, when every green thing on the earth had been destroyed, did he receive permission to eat flesh. Then God said: "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things." Gen. 9:3.
Later, though, while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, God provided them with manna. But when they murmured against it, and attributed its phenomenon only to circumstances, claiming that it was impossible to obtain flesh foods in the desert, He literally and angrily heaped quail upon them. At what price, though! Thousands died in order to teach the lesson that the manna was not the mere result of circumstances but rather a purposive Providence. For "while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague." Num. 11:33.
Because the Exodus movement was to fit up a people to take the promised land and to set up the kingdom then, as we are now, they were charged to abstain from all flesh foods. And because John the Baptist bore an important message in his day ("Repent ye: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand"--Matt. 3:2) similar to ours today, his diet was of honey and of the fruit of the locust tree. How much more important, then, as our types teach, that we who have the culminating message of the gospel, and who are the vanguard of the hosts of the eternal kingdom, defile not the temples of our souls with that which our types were forbidden to eat.
Furthermore, as the Elijah of Malachi 4:5 and Matthew 17:11 is to restore all things before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, then necessarily he will restore vegetarianism, man's original dietary. Then, not only man but beast as well, will be strict vegetarians, and all will once again consort together in the renewed fellowship of Edenic peace.
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Isa. 11:6-9.
Thursday - April 21
The Covenant: Part 2
Genesis 4:17-24
What is the significance of the rainbow?
Notwithstanding this punishment and its object lesson, as soon as the earth’s inhabitants multiplied after the deluge, sin likewise multiplied. And though the people could but give credit to Noah’s correct prediction of the flood, they mistrusted him in his next prediction: the prediction that there would be no more “flood to destroy the earth.” Gen. 9:11. Even the rainbow in the clouds, the Lord’s own token of His covenant not to flood the earth a second time, failed to convince them.
What a mystery sin indeed is! First they did not believe in even the possibility of a flood, and next they did not believe in the impossibility of one! Actually, the judgment of the unbelieving is as foolish as the judgment of the country woman who, when she first saw a train idling on the rails, emphatically declared, “It will never start out!” Then after she saw it start off, she again declared, just as emphatically as before, “It will never stop!” So while the spirit of unbelief in the Word has always benumbed the mind and subjected the body to sin and decay, even in the days when men were strong and long-lived, the same spirit is having an even greater hold on humanity today.
Rather than to set them free from fear, the Word of God spoken through Noah impelled the post-diluvians to feel that there was an unavoidable necessity to build the tower of Babel as a defense against a second flood. Disapproving of their unbelief and false alarm, however, the Lord demonstrated His displeasure by interfering with their wicked and foolish project: He destroyed their tower and confounded their language. Thus it was that the confusion at Babel (Gen. 11:8, 9) gave birth to the existing races and languages.
Finally, as the confused builders parted in groups, the neighboring ones began to quarrel one with another. And as they at length grew into nations, their quarrels grew into wars. Hence, the historical truth that wars for the first time broke out after the confusion of tongues.
Friday - April 22
Further Study
“The sins that called for vengeance upon the antediluvian world exist today. The fear of God is banished from the hearts of men, and His law is treated with indifference and contempt. The intense worldliness of that generation is equaled by that of the generation now living. Said Christ, “As in the days that were before the Flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the Flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Matthew 24:38, 39. God did not condemn the antediluvians for eating and drinking; He had given them the fruits of the earth in great abundance to supply their physical wants. Their sin consisted in taking these gifts without gratitude to the Giver, and debasing themselves by indulging appetite without restraint. It was lawful for them to marry. Marriage was in God's order; it was one of the first institutions which He established. He gave special directions concerning this ordinance, clothing it with sanctity and beauty; but these directions were forgotten, and marriage was perverted and made to minister to passion.” PP 101.2