The Flood

Up until Noah, it had never rained before (Gen 2:5). No doubt, this  was partially why folk were dismissive of Noah’s warning and call to repentance. Seemingly, Satan had the upper hand, certainly in numbers! He had successfully gained global buy-in that God was passive towards sin, the norm of the day was go with your urge to merge – just do it (Gen 6:5)! Sound familiar?

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…I will destroy man whom I have created…But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Gen 6:5-8

Have you ever heard a suffering person scream for help or even an animal? It is an extremely difficult experience. God in His benevolence shut the ark door, not Noah. God in His benevolence designed the ark so that there were no windows, save one at the top. And it was God Who executed judgment upon the wicked. Those who refused to repent of their sins met the validity and surety of God’s Word!

The Scriptures infer that God was silent during this time and doesn’t

record Him speaking to Noah until the horror of this devastating historical

account was over. But when He speaks to Noah, we have a hint of what was going on in the heart of God,

Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” Gen 8:21-22

We would do well to hear the tone in this verse that it pained God to exercise such complete and fierce wrath. Like a parent who will choose to suffer the personal pain involved with correcting their child, so God suffered the pain of this necessary global cleansing of wickedness. It is the same pain that He was more than willing to suffer on the Cross for our sins and it will be the same pain at the end of time when He will no longer extend His mercy to the unretentive of heart and He will deal with the wickedness of evil at large. 

The word and concept of wrath is uncomfortable for us, no doubt Noah and his family was uncomfortable as well, but we are not suppose to be comfortable with it – God’s wrath is not comfortable to think about or experience, nonetheless  it is coming.

In our culture today, folk have a pshaw view of the promised judgment. Regretfully, the Western Church is no longer a legitimate voice warning of the destruction to come. Partially because of our sin-rampant culture, and partially because we, too, drank the Kool-Aid that God is passive towards sin. By the way, who do you think served up that Kool-Aide? 

Again, as mentioned in Section One, Biblical freedom is to be free from sin, but the world demands their freedom to sin. The cross paid for the penalty debt of sin, made provision if we sin, but make no mistake, it did not make provision to sin – Jesus still hates sin and if we are His, we do too!

But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Matt 24:37-39

Friend, God is not waiting to pounce on us in judgment, He would much rather forgive us! In fact, I don’t know anyone as cheerful than The Lord! However, He will not dictate our choices, and if we choose sin and rebel against Him, He accepts it. Likewise, we must accept the consequences of our choices. God gave us a choice between life or death, we are the ones who pass judgment on ourselves by our choices, God is the One Who exercises that judgment,

Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and the fear of Me is not in you… Jerm 2:19

Our longggggg-suffering, Righteous and Holy God has given each one of us time to get right with Him, get on-board His Ark and be saved from the destruction to come. God punctuate Earth’s mikvah with the promise of the rainbow – one, that God promised to never destroy the earth by water again and also, it was an amazing big picture illustration of His divisionary process and new beginnings!