1. The End of all Flesh.
That end came. “The flood came and destroyed them all.” It was a necessary judgment, and a terrible end.
But, then, we must remember that God is holy; and, although He may, and does, bear very long with the sinner, yet He must also vindicate His character as to absolute non-compliance with sin. His gracious long-suffering towards the sinner can never merge into indifference. Sin must be punished.
The mill of God’s judgment may grind slowly, but it also grinds surely.
Few chapters of Scripture are more worthy of study than is Genesis 6. We read that “all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (vs. 12); and again, “that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (vs. 5). A fearful description of the heart and ways of man!
But, now, contrast with this the feelings of God: “It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart” (vs. 6).
This is at least affecting. The heart of the Lord was just as full of grief on account of the condition into which man bad been brought, as man’s heart was full of evil continually.
What a study! How wicked man, how patient God!
Then, if judgment must follow, in the necessary maintenance of divine holiness, it came only when divine patience had exercised itself in the fullest way.
The end was thoroughly deserved. “Hast thou marked” (we read in Job 22:15, 1615Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden? 16Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood: (Job 22:15‑16)) “the old way which wicked men have trodden? which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood: which said unto God, Depart from us.”
Mark that way―that old way―they who trod it were wicked men, and haters of God. Their foundation was destroyed by a flood.
God took them at their word, and answered their awful prayer. He departed from them. He interposed a deluge of waters between Himself and them. This was the end of all flesh-a merited end. Only Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, one man-one solitary exception to prove the rule. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:3131It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:31)).
2. THE END OF THE WORLD.
Noah, the one man who found grace, escaped the flood-judgment by the ark. He entered afterward on the water-swept world, and had all the advantages of a new start. He had learned the double lesson of man’s wickedness and of God’s holiness; and, thus instructed, he had a new life before him.
Alas, the seeds of evil were in his heart too. He failed. His son failed. Their sons failed. The lesson had not been truly learned. Babel, and another judgment, followed. Confusion of tongues and confusion of every kind, dogged the human family then and now. Under the sun there is but vanity of vanities!
Another end must therefore be expected, and it came. The “end of the world,” says our passage, was marked by another judgment than a flood, It was that which fell upon, not a world of sinners, but a world’s Saviour. How different. The end of the world, here, should be the consummation of the ages,” and it refers to the winding up of those periods in which, by various means, God was demonstrating to man the simple fact that the seeds of sin are just as ineradicable as they are inherent. Nothing can mend man, and what cannot be mended must be ended. It only cumbers the ground.
Well, then, these ages of probation over, the end comes―Christ appears to―reign? Nay, not yet―to establish His kingdom gloriously? No, but to put away sin. Blessed Saviour. Ah! He might have appeared to put away the sinner as the flood of old, but He appeared in grace, not to judge, but to save. This was the object of His first appearing―to put away sin! and how? By the sacrifice of Himself! That was at Calvary. Then the judgment that should have fallen on us fell on Him. He was our voluntary substitute―He who alone, in virtue of His person as Son of God, could render a sacrifice adequate for such a demand as the awful sin of man―He gave Himself! “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” What an offering!
And now, risen and glorified, He is the perfect witness of the value of the offering. God wants “no more offering for sin.” No priestly addition is of the smallest worth. His blood cleanseth from all sin!
Dear reader, let it suffice for your guilty conscience. That which can cleanse a universe can avail for you!
3. THE END OF ALL THINGS.
“The end of all things is at hand” (1 Peter 4:77But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. (1 Peter 4:7)). A solemn fact indeed! and one that should weigh increasingly with our hearts. If that end were al hand when the apostle penned these words, how much nearer must it be today! “A thousand years are with the Lord as one day.” To Him time is nothing. He dwells in eternity. To us nineteen hundred years may seem long, but not to Him; and were things to continue for another nineteen hundred years, even that were as nothing. Yet the fact should have an immense moral effect on us.
Water once destroyed the world; fire shall do it again. He is the wisest whose treasure is in heaven, and whose heart is there too. There things are without end. They bear the stamp of eternity. If here there is vanity, there truly is eternity. “We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:11For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)); and the knowledge of this―the sweet and blessed assurance it carries to the heart―enables the child of God to view calmly the end of all things” here. He has received a kingdom that cannot be shaken; he belongs to another country― a heavenly; he awaits the Saviour thence who shall change his vile body, and fashion it like His own; he patiently anticipates his home in his Father’s House; and he walks today by faith.
Well it is to know God. He is made known in Jesus. The cross is the center of revelation. But for the death of the Son of God salvation and the knowledge of God were impossible. Now all is revealed; the truth is disclosed; “God is love,” and “God is light.” On this revelation of Him the soul may rest for time and eternity.
J. W. S.