"And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the
earth."--_Gen. 6:17._
THE Lesson this morning told the sad history of how Adam and Eve did
the very thing that God forbade; so that He drove them out of the
Garden of Eden, and sin and death came into the world.
[Illustration: AFTER THE BANISHMENT FROM EDEN.--Gen. 3:19.]
After that they had children. Some were good, but not so good as Adam
and Eve had been at first; and some were bad. And as time went on the
bad ones grew worse, and the good ones were tempted, and many of them
grew wicked too. And so all the world was getting wicked, and God saw
nothing but evil when He looked down on it. And He said that He would
destroy these wicked people, and wash away the evil from the earth by a
great flood. But there was one good man, whose name was Noah; and God
said He would save him.
He bade Noah build an Ark. It was to be a great ship, all made of wood,
and it took a great many years to build; and all that time people
laughed at Noah, for they would not believe that anything was going to
happen. Noah made the Ark, and stored it with food. And God sent him a
pair of all sorts of animals that were in the world, and he put them
into pens in the Ark. Then Noah and his wife, and his three sons, Shem,
Ham, and Japhet, and their wives, went into the Ark, and God shut them
in.
[Illustration: SACRIFICE OF CAIN AND ABEL.--Gen. 4;4, 5.]
Then it began to rain. It rained for forty days and forty nights
without stopping, and the rivers came out of their banks, and the sea
came upon the land, and the ground was covered up. Even the tops of
the highest hills were hidden, and everybody and every creature was
drowned--all but Noah and those that were with him. There was the Ark
all the time floating quite safe on the water. The storm could not
upset it nor the sea get into it, for God took care of it and all that
was in it.
The reason Noah was saved was because, first, he tried to be good, and
not do like the bad people round him; and next, because he believed
what God said to him, and went on making the Ark, even when he saw no
danger. If we wish God to save us, then we must take care that we do
just what we are told--not what seems pleasant now, but what is really
right.