story of the flood just as much as I do the third
chapter of John. I pity any man that is picking the old Book to
pieces. The moment that we give up any one of these things, we touch
the deity of the Son of God. I have noticed that when a man does begin
to pick the Bible to pieces, it doesn't take him long to tear it all
to pieces. What is the use of being five years about what you can do
in five minutes?

A Solemn Message.

One hundred and twenty years before God spake the words of my text,
Noah had received the most awful communication that ever came from
heaven to earth. No man up to that time, and I think no man since, has
ever received such a communication. God said that on account of the
wickedness of the world He was going to destroy the world by water. We
can have no idea of the extent and character of that antediluvian
wickedness. The Bible piles one expression on another, in its effort
to emphasize it. "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man
on the earth, and it grieved him at His heart. . . . The earth also
was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And
God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh
had corrupted his way upon the earth." Men lived five hundred years
and more then, and they had time to mature in their sins.

How the Message was Received.

For one hundred and twenty years God strove with those antediluvians.
He never smites without warning, and they had their warning. Every
time Noah drove a nail into the ark it was a warning to them. Every
sound of the hammer echoed, "I believe in God." If they had repented
and cried as they did at Nineveh, I believe God would have heard their
cry and spared them. But there was no cry for mercy. I have no doubt
but that they ridiculed the idea that God was going to destroy the
world. I have no doubt but that there were atheists who said there was
not any God anyhow. I got hold of one of them some time ago. I said,

"How do you account for the formation of the world?"

"Oh! force and matter work together, and by chance the world was
created."

I said, "It is a singular thing that your tongue isn't on the top of
your head if force and matter just threw it together in that manner."

If I should take out my watch and say that force and matter worked
together, and