Read Genesis 6&7 and 2 Peter
We must remember that this world is not our home, and just like the last world that was destroyed because of sin, the rampant wickedness of this world will meet a similar end. God communicated to Noah that He saw that the world was wicked. God told Noah that He was going to destroy it. And then He commanded Noah to obey some specific direction. By grace, Noah obeyed. Had Noah disobeyed, there would have been no ark to climb into when the rains came. And after it was completed, Noah had to further obey God’s command by getting into the ark. 2 Peter 3:7 says that “by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” And we wait, just as Noah waited. And God commands us to “be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.” God’s grace enabled Noah to be found in this way, and by God’s grace we are enabled to endure to the end, so that we may be found the same way. As God commanded Noah to “Come into the ark”, He commands us to “Come to Christ”. The only hope that anyone had of surviving the flood was to be in that ark. There were those who scoffed and laughed. But the flood still came. There were those who evaluated the ark and decided it was not worthy of consideration. Noah himself could have surveyed the ark and then decided not to get in. But he had grace. If you hear the Gospel and respond by desiring to obey God and keep His commands, it is only by grace that you have done so. And you will be able to persevere, even through heart-breaking loss and circumstances, as God provides you with peace, when everything else is hard to understand. As Noah was called out of the world and into the ark, we are called out of this world and into Christ, renouncing its ways and obeying God’s commands.
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Every time I had studied through this, I had always concentrated on just the outward stuff. Like exactly how big the ark was, how long it took to build, etc. I'd never thought what it would be like to actually be Noah in doing the same things he did for those hundred years between God's command and the coming of the flood. I saw "and Noah did all God's commands" and just went, "Okay, well yeah." I never thought about how much it would take to actually do it.
Another thing I'd never considered was the scope of the flood. Yes, I knew it covered the entire world, everything in it was wiped out, the people had never seen rain before, etc. But I took it so face-value, and never took any thought as to what it really, really meant. We get impressed when there's some really heavy rain now. But in comparison to the flood, anything we have now is just a sprinkle. I really don't think that it's like the rainforest where it just rains constantly and pretty heavily, it had to be a literal WALL of water dropping from the sky and exploding from the ground. Flash-flood doesn't even begin to cover it. And even while this absolute DELUGE of water is coming down, there's Noah and his family sitting in the Ark, seeing this complete carnage around them as the first water hits, and then as everything disappears, and they can't see a single thing at all outside of just water. Where there used to be houses, cities, countries, mountains... You're right, that had to be a quiet boat. And even if someone had spoken, I doubt they'd be able to hear over the water pounding away at the roof of the ark. God wanted that window there for a reason.
Here's a rough figure I pulled up: There were (very roughly) 8,926,260,000,000,000,000 CUBIC FEET. OF WATER. Encompassing the earth. In fourty days. That's 225,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of water per DAY. That's if it were constant, not if it started out heavier and slacked off over time. That equals to about 1,800,000,000,000,000 cubic feet per MINUTE. That...is some SERIOUS rainfall! I don't quite think there would be much time to grab the babies and hold them over their heads. I think there'd be just enough time to say, "Maybe Noah was right" immediately before you get slammed with a wall of water. And the wall of water continues on to flatten the city you lived in and blow away every structure in it a few seconds later.
You wanna know why the ark was so big? A raft wouldn't be able to stand a split-second in this kind of water.
Meanwhile, we take you back to Noah and his family as they watch all this, staring open-mouthed, barely able to grasp what's going on.
The more I think about this, the more real it gets, the more powerful the whole message gets. If there was a real, good quality movie about the Flood, the special effects from the sheer amount of carnage would be bigger than any other movie, ever. In fact, probably bigger than several of the biggest put together.
And then you skip forward a hundred and ninety days to the ark finally touching down. And Noah and his family get off the ark. And they begin an entirely new part of their lives. Because everything in the old was completely blown away.
Just goes to show how much we think we've "got" the Bible and then it comes back and slaps us in the face. Man...
Wow...you did a great job, Alec, of really expanding on the depth of everything we talked about last night.
I totally agree with how we think we've got it but when you stop to really consider the enormity of it all, it's almost too much to really comprehend. Even at 22 years old, I've still kind of got the little kids' Sunday School version of Noah and the Ark in my mind. I never even stopped to think about what was really happening. I was reminded of the scene in the movie Titanic when the lifeboats are all away and the boat has sunk. Everyone is just sitting there in silence watching, listening to the screams, waiting...I imagine it must have been something like that, only on a much grander and much more morose level, of course.
And I'd never even considered that Noah's daughters-in-law would be leaving behind their families. Man...the more I think about it, the more it hits me and I realize that this is way heavier than any Veggie Tales version of the Flood.
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