The Great Second Advent Movement: Its Rise and Progress

Hope Centered on Noah

In the brief record of events from the time of Adam to the birth of Noah, but little more than the genealogy of the race is given. In the birth of Noah (“the upright,” margin) hope sprang up again, and the people said, “This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.” ⁹ The divine word is silent as to how, or the way, they expected comfort; but the hope was entertained that the curse upon the earth was in some way to be mitigated. A knowledge of the wickedness that existed in Noah’s day, when men were to so fill the world with sin and violence that the race would be swept from the earth by a flood, and only Noah and his family escape the destruction; and the fact that he was for one hundred and twenty years to warn the world of the impending destruction, were all withheld from them. GSAM 40.2