inds with these and a hundred more curious
questions, as learned men have done in all ages. But--shall we
become really the wiser by so doing? More learned we may become.
But being learned and being wise are two different things. True
wisdom is that which makes a man a better man. And will such
puzzling questions and calculations as these, settle them how we
may, make us BETTER men? Will they make us more honest and just,
more generous and loving, more able to keep our tempers and control
our appetites? I cannot see that. Will it make us better men
merely to know that there was once a flood of waters on the earth?
I cannot see that. If we look at the hills of sand and gravel round
us, a little common sense will show us that there have been many
floods of waters on the earth, long, long before the one of which
the Bible speaks: but shall we be better men for knowing that
either? I cannot see why we should. Now the Bible was sent to make
us better men. How then will the history of the flood do that?

Easily enough, my friends, if we will listen to the Bible, and
thinking less about the flood itself, think more about him who, so
the Bible tells us, sent the flood.

The Bible, I have told you, is the revelation of the living Lord
God, even Jesus Christ; who, in his turn, reveals to us the Father.
And what we have to think of is, how does this story of the flood
reveal, unveil to us the living Lord of the world, and his living
government thereof? Let us look at the matter in that way, instead
of puzzling ourselves with questions of words and endless
genealogies which minister strife. Let us look at the matter in
that way, instead of (like too many men now, and too many men in all
ages) being so busy in picking to pieces the shell of the Bible,
that we forget that the Bible has any kernel, and so let it slip
through our hands. Let us look at the matter in that way, as a
revelation of the living God, and then we shall find the history of
the flood full of godly doctrine, and profitable for these times,
and for all times whatsoever.

God sent a flood on the earth.

True; but the important matter is that GOD sent it.

God set the rainbow in the cloud, for a token.

True; but the important matter is that GOD set it there.

Important? Yes. What more important than to know that the flood
did not come of itself, that the rainbow did not come of itself, and
therefore that no flood comes of itself, no rainbow