Page 12 - Our God of Love, Mercy, and Justice

God's plan was unfolding, showing both His justice and His mercy, and fully
vindicating His wisdom and righteousness in His dealings with evil.
The holy inhabitants of other worlds were watching with the deepest interest the
events taking place on the earth. In the condition of the world that existed before the
Flood they saw illustrated the results of the administration which Lucifer had

endeavored to establish in heaven, in rejecting the authority of Christ and casting
aside the law of God. In those high-handed sinners of the antediluvian world they saw
the subjects over whom Satan held sway. The thoughts of men's hearts were only evil
continually. Every emotion, every impulse and imagination, was at war with the
divine principles of purity and peace and love. It was an example of the awful
depravity resulting from Satan's policy to remove from God's creatures the restraint of

His holy law. PP 78, 79.

The Flood
In the days of Noah a double curse was resting upon the earth in consequence of
Adam's transgression and of the murder committed by Cain. Yet this had not greatly
changed the face of nature. There were evident tokens of decay, but the earth was still
rich and beautiful in the gifts of God's providence. . . .

God bestowed upon these antediluvians many and rich gifts; but they used His
bounties to glorify themselves, and turned them into a curse by fixing their affections
upon the gifts instead of the Giver. . . . Not desiring to retain God in their
knowledge, they soon came to deny His existence. They adored nature in place of
the God of nature. They glorified human genius, worshiped the works of their own
hands, and taught their children to bow down to graven images. . . .

"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. . . . The earth also
was corrupt before God; and the earth was filled with violence." God had given men
His commandments as a rule of life, but His law was transgressed, and every
conceivable sin was the result. The wickedness of men was open and daring, justice
was trampled in the dust, and the cries of the oppressed reached unto heaven.
PP 90, 91.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at
his heart. Genesis 6:6.
Iniquity had become so deep and widespread that God could no longer bear with
it; and He said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the
earth." PP 92.

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Genesis 6:8.
Amid the prevailing corruption, Methuselah, Noah, and many others labored to
keep alive the knowledge of the true God and to stay the tide of moral evil. A hundred
and twenty years before the Flood, the Lord by a holy angel declared to Noah His

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