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Noah Proclaimed God’s Word with Force, November 5
Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
Genesis 6:22
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The words that had been spoken to Adam were rehearsed [by Noah]—that
sin and Satan should not always triumph. There was to be victory for those who
feared God. When his voice was lifted in warning of what God was about to bring
upon the world in judgment because of the wickedness of men, great opposition
was manifested against the words of the messenger. The opposition, however, was
not entirely worldwide; for some believed the message of Noah, and zealously
repeated the warning.
But the men who were accounted wise were sought, and were urged to present
arguments by which the message of Noah might be counteracted. And as the world
was at peace and not at war with the prince of evil, they were glad of any excuse to
set aside the “Thus saith the Lord” and to listen to the philosophers of the age, who
presented the impossibility of such a change taking place in the forces of nature
as Noah predicted. There is no enmity between fallen man and fallen angels; both
are evil through apostasy, and evil, wherever it exists, is in league against God.
Fallen men and fallen angels were united for the dethronement of God.
Thus it was that the wise men of this world talked of science and the fixed laws
of nature, and declared that there could be no variation in these laws, and that this
message of Noah could not possibly be true. The talented men of Noah’s time set
themselves in league against God’s will and purpose and scorned the message and
the messenger that He had sent.... Noah could not controvert their philosophies,
or refute the claims of science so called; but he could proclaim the word of God;
for he knew it contained the infinite wisdom of the Creator, and, as he sounded it
everywhere, it lost none of its force and reality because men of the world treated
him with ridicule and contempt.
Noah did not mix the soft, pleasing deceptions of Satan with his message.
He did not utter the sentiment of many of his day who declared that God was
too merciful to do such a terrible work. Many asserted that God would grant the
wicked another season of probation; but Noah did not indulge them in the faintest
hope that those who neglected the present opportunity, who rejected the present
message, would be favored with another opportunity of salvation.... He knew the
power of God, and realized that God would fulfill His word. His fear of God did
not separate him from God, but served to draw him closer to Him, and to lead him
to pour out his soul in earnest supplication.—
The Signs of the Times, April 18,
1895
.
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