Noah's Message Our Prototype

The type of evangelism most needed today was born during the generation before the flood. We need, as then, to extend the over­tures of God's grace, and utter the prophetic warning of an impending world-wide catas­trophe as a result of trampling God's law under­foot. Evangelists today, giving God's last mes­sage, early discover practically all the features of present-day evangelism in that of Noah. Jesus refers to it in Matthew 24:38-40 and Luke 17:27, and Peter gives us the key to its use today in his two epistles ( I Peter 3 :19, 20; 2 Peter 2 :5 ; 2 Peter 3).

There are certain marked advantages which current evangelistic effort has over Noah's time, however. For instance, it can point to the definite fulfillment of most of the details of Bible prophecy to stabilize faith in the word, and on this strong foundation it can present the many prophecies proving that the day of the Lord is now very near, even at the door.

In order to appeal to the science-mindedness of today, and as a clay ointment for the science-blindness of the times, evangelism can present scientific proof that the flood actually happened, thus substantiating the sermons of Noah and proving the greatest catastrophe in the history of the earth. This greatly strengthens faith in the Bible, and helps people to take hold of salvation and God's last message. For those under the influence of evolution, scientific proof of the flood disproves the main basis of evolu­tion, which is the doctrine of uniformity, the crux of modern opposition to God's last mes­sage.

The philosophy of uniformity affirms that the laws of nature are eternal and unchangeable, and that the operation of those laws, as at present, has produced the present natural world from vaguely conceived origins. Bible believ­ers can easily see how utterly fatal this is to faith in all supernatural events as described in the Bible, beginning with creation itself and taking in the flood, the origin of the ten com­mandments, the miracles, the virgin birth of Christ, the experience of being born of the Spirit, the resurrection of Christ, the second coming of Christ, and the resurrection of man.

Uniformity is the antithesis of such passages as I Corinthians 15: 1-4. In this passage, Paul defines the gospel as based upon four great facts : (I) The fall of man ; (2) the vicarious death of a sinless Saviour; (3) the resurrection of Christ; and (4) the inspiration of the Scrip­tures. And all four of these facts break the so-called "law of uniformity." This is true because sin, if it exists, proves a moral relation­ship of man to God. And if a sinless Saviour appeared in history, He superseded mere natural law. The resurrection of Christ was an inter­vention by God in the realm of nature, and the inspiration of the Scriptures is a fourth break in the law of uniformity. To be a Christian, one must believe these four facts. And these facts are all contrary to the law of uniformity, which is the foundation of all evolutionary teachings. This we should constantly stress.

All around, among all civilized peoples today, especially among the educated classes—and seeping rapidly into the minds of the masses—the cold theory of this ghastly creed, under the cloak of science, has well-nigh taken possession of the thinking of the day. It points mostly to the strata of the earth as proof of its position. But deluge geology is showing that those very strata are only the layer-by­layer deposits of the flood of Noah, thus com­pletely blasting the supposed foundation from under the whole temple of uniformitarianism with its many high steeples, spires, and turrets of modernistic interpretations and interpolations. Great will be the fall thereof if these labors can be sufficiently developed.

When we reach the only hope of man today, the second coming of Christ, Peter pictures the conflict with uniformitarianism. It is willingly ignorant of the work of the flood, and for that reason is scoffing at "the promise of His com­ing" as a disturbance in the even course of nature. Peter (2 Peter 3) points the way and sounds the note of last-day evangelism as it points back to the actual fact of the world's most terrible catastrophe of old, and forward to an even more tremendous transformation of the earth in the future, all the while preaching Christ and spiritual transformation to go with it.

To sum up, Noah was the first "last-day" evangelist. Today's evangelist, however, has the vast advantage of practically the whole field of Bible prophecy back of him, instead of in front of him as Noah had. Today's evangelist can offer scientific proof that the flood actually happened, as an evidence of the reality of God's wrath. Since the wrath is one of the main features of today's message, how can we justly fail to cite it? The proof of that event satisfies reasonable and proper scientific demands of today, and breaks the fatal, endless chain of uniformity as the underlying basis of unbelief.

This kind of evangelism opens minds and hearts to belief in and adjustment to the super­natural as well as the natural, thus escaping the deadly grasp of materialism and providing free­dom to have saving faith in the atonement and resurrection of Christ and in His second coming.