Sometimes the Word of the Lord causes us to pause because our natural minds cannot wrap around the message and the greater purpose of it all. However, God’s Word never fails… it always accomplishes what it is sent to do, whether we understand and obey it or not. God’s thoughts are pure, deeper, and much holier than our human ones (Isaiah 55:8-9).
We see that in our passage this morning. It would be easier to read our text as an unthinkable and wrathful act of God against creation that is cruel, but is that the main focus of the story? No. Noah and the flood teach us something incredibly important about God’s plan to SAVE, not destroy.
At creation, humanity made a fatal mistake by disobeying God’s Word. Let’s not forget, humanity chose to eat from the wrong tree. Violence was covering the earth because the hearts of humanity were separated from the love of God (Genesis 6:11). Without God’s love ruling our hearts, we are capable of despicable things. We were created for love. In God’s love, we are cradled like a precious treasure from the flood of evil, which is something God must destroy in order to bring a new beginning.
Like Noah and his family, God holds, supports, and nurtures our spiritual growth in his love through Christ. As the world continues to be flooded with evil, we are spiritually carried by the love of God. Jesus gives us a new beginning. We no longer belong to the fallen world. A Way to salvation is the lesson of Noah. Make sure you have cut a covenant with God, and you are being held in the protective ark of His love.
Genesis 7 NLT The Flood Covers the Earth
7 When everything was ready, the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous. 2 Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others. 3 Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood. 4 Seven days from now I will make the rains pour down on the earth. And it will rain for forty days and forty nights, until I have wiped from the earth all the living things I have created.”
5 So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him.
6 Noah was 600 years old when the flood covered the earth. 7 He went on board the boat to escape the flood—he and his wife and his sons and their wives. 8 With them were all the various kinds of animals—those approved for eating and for sacrifice and those that were not—along with all the birds and the small animals that scurry along the ground. 9 They entered the boat in pairs, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. 10 After seven days, the waters of the flood came and covered the earth.
11 When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky. 12 The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights.
13 That very day Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and their wives. 14 With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal—domestic and wild, large and small—along with birds of every kind. 15 Two by two they came into the boat, representing every living thing that breathes. 16 A male and female of each kind entered, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them.
17 For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth. 18 As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface. 19 Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, 20 rising more than twenty-two feet[b] above the highest peaks. 21 All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people. 22 Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died. 23 God wiped out every living thing on the earth—people, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky. All were destroyed. The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat. 24 And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days.
Prayer: Lord, thank You for designing a Way for us to enjoy a covenant relationship with You. This lesson of Noah is beneficial to our understanding of a new beginning. We rise above the destructive floodwaters of this fallen world to be protected and held by You. Thank you for being faithful to the covenant that You have offered. We pray for grace to hold us so we will be faithful to You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.