“AND God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and why sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee.... And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him; every beast, every creeping thing, and ever fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.”MEDM September 9, 1908, page 727.1

“And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him saying, And behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations; I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and ever living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”MEDM September 9, 1908, page 727.2

“And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.” Genesis 9:8-17.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 727.3

The rainbow is the natural consequence of the sun’s shining through water. How, then, is it a token that there shall never be a flood to destroy the earth? Easily and naturally enough; for, whenever a rainbow is seen anywhere on earth, that is certain witness that the sun is shining somewhere on earth. And when the sun is shining anywhere on earth, that is certain evidence that the rain is not falling everywhere on earth, so certainly there is no danger of there being a flood to cover the world as there was before. And as certainly as the cloud with its rain does not cover all the earth at once, so certainly the sun is shining somewhere on the earth, and so certainly there will be a rainbow, and in it the faithfulness of God’s pledge that there shall no more be a flood to destroy the earth.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 727.4

And this of itself tells the deep truth that at the time of the Flood the cloud and the rain did certainly compass and cover the whole earth; and this so thick, so dense, and so dark that for the whole forty days and forty nights no rays of the sun shone through. For as certainly as the sun had shone through, there would have been a rainbow. And this in turn and of itself certifies to the certainty of the fact of the universality of the Flood.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 727.5

So the rainbow is not the token that there shall be no more an outpour of water that will drown the earth, but it is also the token of the certainty that in the time of Noah there was such a universal cloud and outpour that for forty days and forty nights there was no shining of the sun anywhere on earth; and that so at that time there was a Flood that destroyed the earth.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 727.6

Further, the fact of the rainbow since the flood, when the rainbow is only the natural consequence of the sun’s shining through rain, is very certainly that before the flood there was never any rain.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.1

How, then, was the earth watered when there was no rain? That was easy enough, too, in the fact that before the flood the earth war watered instead of drained by the rivers.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.2

Let us go back to Genesis 2 and see how plainly this is told: “A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison.... And the name of the second river is Gihon.... And the name of the third river is Hiddekel.... And the fourth river is Euphrates.”MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.3

First, there was one river; and this one river “went out of Eden to water the garden.”MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.4

Next, “from thence”—from watering the garden—this one river was “parted and became into four heads,” and each “head” was a “river,” so that these four “heads” were four “rivers.”MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.5

Each of the four head-rivers watered the part of the earth to which it flowed, just as the one river watered the garden before it was parted into the “four heads.” And just as the one river was “parted and became into four heads,” so each of these four head-rivers as it flowed was parted and became into other streams, as creeks, rivulets, and rills. And thus the whole earth was watered. And from this watered earth “there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground” (Genesis 2:6); because there was always the abundant flow of water everywhere to supply the moisture that arose by evaporation and was condensed and fell as dew watering “the whole face of the ground.” Thus there was never any rain, and so there was never any rainbow.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.6

It will be seen at a glance that the water-system of the world now, is the reverse of what it was in the beginning and before the flood. Then the head-rivers, the rivers, the creeks, the rivulets, and the rills, always flowing full, watered the earth. Now the rills, the rivulets, the creeks, the rivers, and the great rivers drain the earth. And except for the grand system by which precipitation—rain and snow—is supplied, there would not be any streams, and the whole earth would be only a parched waste.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.7

But while “all the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” (Ecclesiastes 1:7.) The place whence the rivers come, is the snows of the mountains and the rains of the valleys. And these snows and rains are poured down from the vapors which “He causeth to ascend from the ends of the earth,” when He “calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of the earth.” Jeremiah 10:13; Amos 5:8.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.8

And as He poureth out the waters on the earth in rain, wherever it may be, and the sun shining, there is the blessed rainbow, the token of his divine faithfulness in keeping the earth alive by his gracious rain, and also the token of his divine faithfulness to the promise that the earth shall no more be destroyed by the waters of a flood.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.9

And whether or not any human eye, or eye of any kind, is there to see the bow, that blessed bow is there all the same, and is the token of His everlasting faithfulness in his everlasting covenant.MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.10

And though no earthly eye of any kind ever see the bow, there is always the bow, and ever the same. And though all earthly eyes utterly disregard the bow and all its blessed meaning, yet there is One who always sees it, and never forgets nor disregards any of the fulness of its divine meaning; for there it stands written, “I do set, MY bow in the cloud... and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth,” and “between Me and the earth.”MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.11

And though man “believe not, yet He abideth faithful.” O, the faithfulness of the faithful God! Ever “the same, yesterday, and to-day, and forever.”MEDM September 9, 1908, page 728.12

August 26, 1908

September 16, 1908