Genesis 7

Genesis 7 captures the events leading up to the big flood. Noah had built an ark even though they had never seen rain before. He gets this commendation in scripture: “Noah did everything God commanded him”. Now that is a great thing to strive for to be written on our tomb stone….do everything God commands. I miss that on occasion, ok – a lot. But Noah didn’t. I hadn’t really noticed before that God tells him to take “seven pairs of every clean animal….one pair of unclean”. I always thought he took one pair of each. But he loaded the boat and the rains came. Noah was 600 years old plus a couple months and 17 days – who said God isn’t into details. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights and the water covered the earth for 150 days. But before the rains came, I was grabbed by this: “then God shut the door behind him”. I hadn’t thought about how Noah would have closed the hole in the side of the boat. It had to be pretty darn big because he had to load the big animals through it. They didn’t have winches and pulleys and motors then. I wonder if Noah had figured out how to get the door shut when he built the boat. Anyway, God shut it for him. “The flood got worse until all the highest mountains were covered”. This was no little rainstorm. I am sure many of you have seen the majesty of the mountains God created. There are some tall ones out there. The amount of water needed to cover those mountains would be unimaginable. “Everything died”. That is pretty complete. “He wiped out the whole works”. God was really pretty ticked. He really can’t tolerate evil. He created it all and in one fell swoop he wiped them out. Not most, but all. Only Noah and his three sons and their wives are spared. This is a big indication of just how seriously God takes how people live. It isn’t ok to assume God will just overlook our sin. He won’t. He can’t. He has to deal with sin. Fortunately He has. Jesus came to set us free from that sin. But we have to accept that gift! Have super day in your world!