As a stone, hurled from some mountain peak, crashes its way toward the valley beneath, gaining velocity with each foot of descent, until, wrapped within it, lies a power of destruction unmeasured, so man, turning from the gate of Paradise, began a downward career which in intensity and rapidity can be measured only by the height from which he started.
Giant minds held mighty powers in abeyance. Before the strong will of men of the first ten centuries few forces could stand. As the plane to which it was possible for him to attain was perfection, so the level to which he descended was confusion itself. Men's lives, instead of being narrowed by the brief span of threescore years and ten, were measured by centuries; and intellects, mighty by birth, had time as well as power to expand. The man of seventy was then but a lad, with life and all its possibilities spread out before him. Adam lived to see his children to the eighth generation; and when we think that from his own lips Enoch learned the story of the fall, of the glories of the Eden home; when we bear in mind that Enoch probably saw this same ancestor laid in the earth, there to molder to dust, we better understand the relation he desired to sustain to his God. After a life of three hundred years, in which, the Sacred Record says, he "walked with God," earth's attraction grew so slight that he himself was taken into heaven. This was less than sixty years after the death of Adam.
Two Schools Before the Flood
Passing beyond the gate of Eden, two classes of minds developed. Clear and distinct as light from darkness was the difference between the two. Cain, by exalting his own reasoning powers, accepted the logic of Satan. Admitting the physical plane to be the proper basis for living, he lost all appreciation of spiritual things, and depended wholly upon feeling. True, for a time he adhered to the form of worship, coming week by week to the gate of Eden to offer sacrifice; but his eye of faith was blind. When he saw his brother's sacrifice accepted, a feeling of hatred sprang up in his breast; and, raising his hand, he took that brother's life. Men are startled at the rapidity of the descent from Edenic purity to a condition where murder was easy, but it was the natural result of the educational system chosen by Cain. Reason exalted above faith makes man like the engine without, the governor.
Character Developed in the Worldly School
Murder, however, was but one result of the decision made by Cain. He fled from the presence of God, and, with his descendants built the cities of the East. Physical needs predominated, so that the whole attention of this people was turned to the gratification of fleshly desires. Pride increased, love of wealth was a ruling passion; the artificial took, more and more, the place once occupied by the natural. In the place of God-worship was self-worship, or paganism. This was the religious aspect, and here are to be found the first worshipers of the sun, the human progenitors of the modern papacy.
Affects Government
As there was a change in religion, so there was a change in government. There could no longer be a theocracy, the father of the family being the high priest unto God; for God had been lost sight of, and his place was filled by man himself. Hence, these descendants of Cain flocked together into cities, where the strong bore rule over the weak, and thus developed an absolute monarchy, which is perpetuated to-day in the kingdoms of eastern Asia.
The education which upheld paganism in religion and monarchy in government was the same as that which in later days controlled Greece, and is known by us to-day as Platonism. It is but another name for an education which exalts the mind of man above God, and places human philosophy ahead of divine philosophy.
Origin of False Philosophy
The philosophy which was thus exalted,--this science falsely so-called,--deified nature, and would to-day be known as evolution. You think the name a modern one. It may be, but the philosophy antedates the flood, and the schools of those men before the flood taught for truth the traditions of men as truly as they are taught to-day.
We think, perhaps, that there were no schools then, but that is a mistake. "The training of the youth in those days was after the same order as children are being educated and trained in this age,--to love excitement, to glorify themselves, to follow the imaginations of their own evil hearts." Their keen minds laid hold of the sciences; they delved into the mysteries of nature. They made wonderful progress in inventions and all material pursuits. But the imaginations of their hearts were only evil continually.
City Life Unfitted Minds for Truth
Children educated in the cities had their evil tendencies exaggerated. The philosophical teaching of the age blotted out all faith; and when Noah, a teacher of righteousness, raised his voice against the popular education, and proclaimed his message of faith, even the little children scoffed at him.
So polluted were the cities that Enoch chose to spend much time in retired places, where he could commune with God, and where he would be in touch with nature. At times he entered the cities, proclaiming to the inhabitants the truth given to him by God. Some listened, and occasionally small companies sought him in his places of retirement, to listen to his words of warning. But the influence of early training, the pressure brought to bear by society, and the philosophy of the schools, exerted a power too strong to resist, and they turned from the pleadings of conscience to the old life.
Antediluvian Science Teaching Was Contrary to God's Word
As Noah told of the coming flood, and as he and his sons continued to build the ark, men and children derided. "Water from heaven! Ah, Noah, you may talk of your spiritual insight, but who ever heard of water coming out of the sky? The thing is an impossibility; it is contrary to all reason, to all scientific truth, and to all earth's experience. You may think such things were revealed to you; but since the days of our father Adam, no such thing ever happened." Such statements seemed true. Generation after generation had looked into a sky undarkened by storm-clouds. Night after night dew watered the growing plants. Why should they believe otherwise? They could see no reason for it. To those antediluvians, the possibility of a flood seemed as absurd as does its recital as a matter of history to the modern higher critic. It was out of harmony with men's senses, hence an impossibility.
The student in the nineteenth century finds in the earth's crust great beds of coal, or the remains of monsters which once lived upon the face of the earth, and he accounts for these by saying that "time is long." In the words of Dana, "If time from the commencement of the Silurian age included forty-eight millions of years, which some geologists would pronounce much too low an estimate, the Paleozoic part, according to the above ratio, would comprise thirty-six millions, the Mesozoic nine millions, and the Cenozoic three millions." Modern text-books are filled with these and related ideas of evolution, which account for the effects of the flood by gradual changes consuming millions of years.
An Education of Sight and Not Faith
The Word of God is again laid aside, and man by his own power of reasoning draws conclusions contrary to the testimony of the Inspired Record. The theory of evolution is thus substantiated in the human mind; and as the antediluvians were, by their scientific research and wisdom, falsely so called, unfitted to receive the message of the flood, so people today, by pursuing a similar course, are unfitting themselves for the message of Christ's appearance in the clouds of heaven. When will man learn that there are things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, and yet which exist as really as do those few things--few compared with the many in the regions beyond--which fall within our range of vision?
Before the flood, no peal of thunder had ever resounded among the hills, no lightning had ever played through the heavens. You who to-day have read the works of earth's greatest authors, who have delved into the secrets of science, have you discovered the soul of man? Have you yet found the golden cord of faith? Should the Almighty question you as He did His servant Job, how would you pass the examination? To you would befall the fate of the generation of Noah. Four men built the ark. Such a thing had never been seen before. "How unshapely," say they. "How absurd to think of water standing over the earth until that will float!" But in the ears of the faithful four whispered the still, small voice of God, and the work went steadily on.
Flood a Result of Wrong Education
The controversy was an educational problem. Christian education was almost wiped from the earth. Worldly wisdom seemed about to triumph. In point of numbers its adherents vastly exceeded those in the schools of the Christians. Was this seeming triumph of evil over good a sign that evil was stronger than truth? -- By no means. Only in the matter of scheming -- and deceiving does the devil have the advantage; for God can work only in a straightforward manner.
The tree of life was still upon the earth, an emblem of the wisdom of God. Man, however, had turned his back upon it. Eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil brought death, and this the inhabitants of the earth were about to realize, although their worldly wisdom taught them the contrary.
Wrong Methods of Education Cause the Withdrawal of God's Spirit
The tree of life was taken to heaven before the flood (Rev. 2:7), thus symbolizing the departure of true wisdom from the earth. The flood came. Deep rumblings of thunder shook the very earth. Man and beast fled terrified from the flashes of lightning. The heavens opened; the rain fell,--at first in great drops. The earth reeled and cracked open; the fountains of the great deep were broken up; water came from above, water from beneath. A cry went up to heaven, as parents clasped their children in the agony of death; but the Spirit of the Life-giver was withdrawn. Does this seem cruel? God had pleaded with each generation, with each individual, saying, "Why will ye, why will ye?" But only a deaf ear was turned to Him. Man, satisfied with schooling his senses, with depending upon his own reasoning powers, closed, one by one, every avenue through which the Spirit of God could work; and nature, responding to the loss, was broken to her very heart, and wept floods of tears.
One family, and only one, bound heaven and earth together. Upon the bosom of the waters rocked the ark in safety. God's Spirit rested there, and in the midst of greater turmoil than angels had ever witnessed, a peace which passeth all understanding filled the minds andhearts of that faithful company.
The waters subsided; the earth lay a desolate, mass. Mountains stood bleak and barren where once stretched plains of living green. Trees, magnificent in their towering strength, lay dying as the waters left the earth. Great masses of rock covered places hitherto inhabited. This family came forth as strangers in a strange land.
Faith the Basis of the New Education
The plan of education must start anew. Each successive step away from God rendered more difficult man's access to his throne; it had lengthened, as it were, the ladder one more round. There was at first this one lesson to be taken by faith, -- that God was true in saying, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." It was a lesson of faith versus reason. Next came two lessons of faith: first, faith opposed by reason; and, second, the plan of redemption through Christ. Then came the third lesson,--the flood. Would that man could have grasped the first, or, missing that, he had taken the second, or even losing hold of that, he could have taken the third by faith, and prevented the flood.
From beginning to end it was a matter of education. Christians to-day exalt the material to the neglect of the spiritual, as surely as did men before the flood. Shall we not look for similar results, since similar principles are at work?
The education of the popular schools advocated nature study; but, leaving God out, they deified nature, and accounted for the existence of all things by the same theories which are to-day termed evolution. This is man's theory of creation with faith dropped out of the calculation.
"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." (2 Peter 3:5-7)
"As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." (Luke 17:26)