The Flood Day 2

I promised myself that I would never make this blog about me, its about God and His awesome Word and nothing else. With that in mind though I must share something personal with you. Yesterday the Lord gave clear and wonderful answers to 2 direct prayers of mine. Both were answered in unexpected ways and blessed me ridiculously. I offer this to you as encouragement as we study His Word together, He is truly beyond measure.
"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" Luke 11:11-13
Now to the Flood!
Think for a moment about where you live. Imagine if your neighbor on the right was married and had a few children, and was having an affair with the neighbor on your left. Every night after the families went to sleep you could see the two sneak off into the darkness. Now imagine that the guy across the street loved to walk over and brag to you about how he swindled the life savings from elderly women, and bounced his mortgage check. He would wink at you as he explained how he would only pay enough on the house to keep from being evicted but had no intentions of paying what he owed. Through your kitchen window you could see into the house behind you. There the owner had turned the kitchen into a meth lab, and every night he was busy mixing, boiling and creating the tiny pills you'd sometimes see him selling down by the high school.
If this was your neighborhood you'd probably want to move. To be surrounded on all sides by sin would be painful and discouraging. How could you raise godly children in that environment? But what if there was nowhere to go? If every street in every city was like that. If you were the only one who loved the Lord, would you be able to be the light in such a dark community? What if the flagrant sin all around you was even worse then you could imagine?
The first 8 verses of Genesis 6 paint a very bleak picture.
"The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." Genesis 6:5
Paul does a pretty good job of describing the lives of wicked men in Romans 2:28-32,
"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; They invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
He goes on to say in Colossians, "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming." Colossians 3:5 & 6
From the moment that Adam and Eve left the Garden, sin spread like a plague though the hearts and lives of mankind. Every thought that every person had was self-serving and sinful, God could no longer watch while His beloved children continued to corrupt themselves.
"The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain." Genesis 6:6
God is all-knowing and all-powerful, He is also perfectly emotional. He chose to give humanity the ability to either love Him or reject Him, knowing that when people chose to reject Him it would break His heart. When the LORD looked out over the earth and saw the horrible evil that was rampant everywhere, He was grieved! It hurt Him to see His children doing things that would hurt them, destroy their lives and kill them. What hurt Him worse was that He also saw into the hearts of the people and knew they would never repent. Our Righteous and Holy God could no longer withhold judgement, He would destroy the earth and everything on it, except Noah and his family.
"But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD...Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God." Genesis 6:8 & 9
Out of all the people in the world (possibly several billion*) only one man loved and obeyed God. Only Noah walked with the LORD, and because of his relationship with God his family was saved from the coming judgement.
Noah was over 500 years old the day that God told him to build the ark!** Boats may have been common in his day. Its possible that hollowed out logs or even crude wooden plank boats would have been used for traveling up and down the river.*** God did not ask Noah to build a little boat though, He told him to build an ark, and He gave Noah the blueprints. Made from cypress (maybe gopher) wood, the ark would be roughly the size of the Titanic, have 3 floors and many rooms. It would have 1 door, a roof, separated by 18 inches from the walls to provide fresh air, and it would be covered inside and out with pitch (tar).
God told Noah that He would bring 2 of every animal to him, and that he, his family and all the animals would be kept alive through the coming flood.
"Noah did everything just as God commanded him." Genesis 6:22
Every single person around him wallowed in sin and indulged every selfish, lustful desire, yet Noah, obeyed God! He didn't just build the ark and wait for some animals, according to 2 Peter 2:5, Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He was actually trying to save the people around him. Some scholars believe that it had never rained on the earth before the Flood.**** Can you imagine telling your neighbors that a flood was coming, that water was going to fall from the sky and kill everyone if they didn't change their ways? They probably thought he was crazy anyway, what with gigantic boat being built in the front yard, but if they had never seen rain before I bet the mocking Noah endured was cruel and relentless. Yet Noah was faithful to the LORD.
"By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith." Hebrews 11:7
Noah did his best to be light in a very dark world, and God blessed him for it. When the rains came it was only Noah and his family that were on the ark, they were the only people that had faith, and the only ones to survive. God's grace was available to everyone, but 8 out of possibly billions received it.
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matthew 7:13 & 14
Yet for those who do enter the narrow gate,
"I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." Ephesians 3:17b & 18

* Genesis 5:32
** Courson, Jon. Application Commentary: Old Testament, Volume 1: Genesis- Job. Nashville, TN. Thomas Nelson, Inc. 2005. pg. 29
*** Walter, John H. Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary: Volume 1. Grand Rapids, MI. Zondervan . 2009. pg. 47
**** Stewart, Don. Frequently Asked Questions. http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/stewart.cfm?id=738 (accessed 5-4-10)

The Flood Day 1

You will need your Bible today

I think pretty much everyone has at least heard of Noah and the Ark. They may not have actually read it, they might not even know that it's in the Bible, but they've heard about it. Fisher Price makes the most adorable little play set for toddlers featuring a plastic ark that opens up so you can put Noah and all the sweet little creatures in it. Melissa and Doug (the children's toy company) have a wooden shape sorting toy in the shape of the ark. "Camels and kangaroos, monkeys and alligators are among the charming chunky animal pieces to sort into this wooden ark. The two-story ark features flip-open doors, twenty-six animal blocks, plus Noah and his wife!"* In 2007 Universal Studios released Evan Almighty, staring Steve Carell as a modern day Noah, learning to trust God in the face of persecution.** The story of Noah and the Flood is a great children's story.
Unfortunately it seem even many Christians think it is nothing more than a children's story. Once you are out of Sunday School you don't often hear the story anymore. Preachers and teachers might mention Noah or the Flood within a study, but rarely are they the focus.
As a student of the Bible one of my most favorite things is to go back over all the wonderful Sunday School stories with a fresh and grown up eye. The Bible is both utterly simple and incredibly complex at the same time, which make a story like Noah's perfect for Sunday School children and yet multifaceted and deep enough for mature Christians to not grow bored.
I am going to break my preferred pattern of completing a study in 3 lessons, I could never do justice to God's Word about Noah and the Flood that way. So this week we will read the complete story and focus on the plain text, then next week we will take an additional 2 days to look at many of the ways this story points to Jesus.
Please take the time to read the Genesis Chapters 6, 7 & 8 in one setting. Try to read it with fresh eyes and an open heart. No matter how familiar you maybe with parts of God's Word, there is always something new that God wants to reveal to you.
" I meditate on your precepts and consider you ways. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word." Psalm 119:15, 16



* description from: http://www.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=426558&cm_mmc=Google_Feed-_-9-_-53-_-%7Bkeyword%7D&kw=%7Bkeyword%7D (accessed 5-2-10)
** IMDB.com (accessed 5-2-10) for a Christian movie review of the the film check out http://www.pluggedin.com/videos/2007/Q2/EvanAlmighty.aspx