Flood
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is coming. The earth will again be swept by the desolating wrath of
God, and sin and sinners will be destroyed.
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.
A similar condition of things exists now. That which is lawful
in itself is carried to excess. Appetite is indulged without restraint.
Professed followers of Christ are today eating and drinking with the
drunken, while their names stand in honored church records. Intem-
perance benumbs the moral and spiritual powers and prepares the way
for indulgence of the lower passions. Multitudes feel under no moral
obligation to curb their sensual desires, and they become the slaves
of lust. Men are living for the pleasures of sense; for this world and
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this life alone. Extravagance pervades all circles of society. Integrity
is sacrificed for luxury and display. They that make haste to be rich
pervert justice and oppress the poor, and “slaves and souls of men” are
still bought and sold. Fraud and bribery and theft stalk unrebuked in
high places and in low. The issues of the press teem with records of
murder—crimes so cold-blooded and causeless that it seems as though
every instinct of humanity were blotted out. And these atrocities have
become of so common occurrence that they hardly elicit a comment
or awaken surprise. The spirit of anarchy is permeating all nations,
and the outbreaks that from time to time excite the horror of the world
are but indications of the pent-up fires of passion and lawlessness that,