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," (Genesis 6:5) and, "the earth was filled with violence" (Genesis 6:11) ... through them." (Genesis 6:13)
When conditions had reached the point where the spring of every thought the very fountain of every desire, and 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.
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." (2 Peter 3:15)
But when existence has been corrupted 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 bitterness, then continued existence means only the heaping up of distress and misery for the soul in the great day of account.
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.
And this is the story and the philosophy of the all-sweeping calamity that befell in the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim; the inhabitants of Canaan, Pompeii and Herculanaeum; the fall of Babylon and of Rome,--and every other such; and the fall of the world again at the last. Read: "And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And He said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake." (Genesis 18:32) "And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)" (2 Peter 2:5-8) "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." (Genesis 15:16) "Defile not yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomits out her inhabitants." (Leviticus 18:24-25) "Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote." (Daniel 5:1-5) "And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up." (Daniel 8:23) "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." (2 Timothy 3:1-5) "And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." (Luke 17:26-30)
And it is all ever the story of the mercy of God to irredeemably wicked man. 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;" (Genesis 7:11) and when the blackness and darkness and tempest reigned so ruinously for forty days and forty nights. Note the gradations:
1. "And the waters increased and bore up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth." (Genesis 7:17)
2. "And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters." (Genesis 7:18)
3. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered." (Genesis 7:19)
4. "Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail and the mountains were covered." (Genesis 7:20)
"And all flesh that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth, and every man; All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. 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. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days." (Genesis 7:21-24) "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 assuaged; The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven werestopped, 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. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. 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. ... 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. And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried." (Genesis 8:1-5,13-14)--Medical Missionary, September 23, 1908.