The Flood

Genesis 5: Adam’s immediate genealogy

From verses 1 to 3: a reiteration of how God made man in the “likeness of God.” He also created 2 types of gender: male and female. All of them were called, “mankind” – in the likeness of Adam, the man.

Some of the notable descendants of Adam:

Enoch who, “walked faithfully with God.” And because he did, “God took him away.”

Enoch is remarkable in that he walked so close and so faithfully with God, God just took Him home to be with Him on the other side of eternity – without experiencing death!! Wow!

Noah was prophesied to be the one son who will bring comfort all of them who labor painfully because of the cursed land/soil.

People lived long because the environment was still pretty untouched and not as polluted as it is now. Man was still fresh from the oven so to speak, their bodies being close to its perfect state.

 This is really antithetical to the theory of evolution that believes that man is getting better, becoming more complicated, sophisticated, but in actually man throughout all the years are becoming farther and farther away from their perfect state. We are constantly decaying and deteriorating!

Methuselah lived the longest at 969 years. However, true to God’s promise, they all eventually died!

GENESIS 6: Man became so evil, they were beyond redemption!

OBSERVATIONS:

vs. 1-3 Human beings had increase in number, and fallen angels were attracted to women. They cohabitated with them and ended up with the Nephilim as their offspring – these are mighty, giants!

The Lord decreased man’s life span because He did not want to “contend” with them “forever.”

Man, in such a short time had become so corrupted so that “EVERY inclinations of the thoughts of the human heart was only EVIL, ALL THE TIME!” Wow! The Lord actually regretted that He had made human beings on the earth and His heart was deeply troubled. This is why HE decided to annihilate all mankind. He wanted a, “do over.” Mankind was so evil and has become so violent. He even included all the other creatures among those HE will wipe out! Could it be the animals had become so afraid of cruel mankind, they have become “wild and vicious” to preserve their kind? Just wondering.  Even the earth was destroyed – all vegetation, the huge flood later caused a major geological upheaval and climate shift!!  Then the big “BUT” intervened! “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

Why? How? Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time and He walked faithfully with God.”

Because Noah was righteous, God decided to spare him along with his family: wife, 3 sons and their wives. Because there will be humans to survive this big flood, the animals had to be saved.

God gave Noah detailed and specific instructions on how to survive the flood.

INTERPRETATIONS:

God still demands and expects righteousness and holiness. He simply cannot withstand evil.

God is just and fair. He does save and favor those whose hearts are fully His.

 When He saves and favors them, He includes their loved ones! Woah!

God plans, but He still expects man to live their lives according to His plan and in obedience to His instructions.  God’s instructions are to accomplish His will and for the best interest of mankind.

APPLICATIONS:

I need to walk uprightly with Him and to be faithful to Him. Then I can expect Him to take care of my needs and those of my loved ones.

I still have to live my life according to His will and must follow His instructions so we can accomplish His general will for mankind and the specific will for us!

GENESIS 7: Noah, and The Flood

Genesis 6 ended with a short statement: Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

The rest of the book of Genesis, perhaps the entire Bible and the history of the world rested upon how Noah responded to God! Noah obeyed and in so doing, he helped saved humanity.

vs. 1-5 When the Ark was ready, God was ready to mete judgment upon all those who had rejected Him. He asked Noah to go into the ark with his entire family including his wife, his 3 sons and their wives because He found Noah “righteous in this generation.” It is not improbable to think that had there been any other men or women who were God-fearing and righteous, that God would have found them too, and invited them to get into the Ark with Noah and his family. The Bible does not even say that his wife, sons and daughter-in-laws were righteous. They got a free ride by riding on Noah’s righteousness.

God also gave specific instructions on the animals that were to ride with them. I am thinking that the 7 pairs of every clean animal were to ensure that there are enough clean animals available as sacrificial offerings to man’s numerous sins.

God gave them specific timeline: after 7 days the rain will start and every living creature will drown and die.

God is so practical and mindful of man’s limitations. I think that the 7 days were to give them ample time to do last minute preparations: to stack enough food and water for them and for the animals, to maybe say goodbye to friends and loved ones, maybe to even persuade them to believe God and what was about to happen.

Again, the same verse was repeated: Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

vs. 6-10 So the parade of animals as we have seen in numerous drawings and movies happened: animals of all sorts of sizes and shapes trooping and marching into the Ark, perhaps as Noah and his family look on from the upper windows. It must have been an astonishing site. I wonder what the people on the ground looking on were thinking. Could they be laughing and mocking?

vs. 12-13 Then as soon as the doors were shut, the waters came pouring both from the sky and from the depths of the earth. In the creation account, the Bible talks about water being both above and below. During the flood, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and these torrential down and up pouring of water covered the whole earth and killed every living thing both plants and animals.  Verses 13 to 16 summarize everything that occurred.

Vs, 17 to 24 describe how the water covered the whole earth in such a way that mountains were covered! It does not require a lot of imagination to picture every living thing dying as a result. These waters covered the earth for 150 years!

INTERPRETATION:

• God is constantly looking for people whose hearts are truly His with whom He can accomplish His plan and purposes with for mankind.
• God provides specific instructions, so one knows exactly what God is asking of him and how. With every task God gives comes His provisions.
• In obedience, Noah becomes the recipient of God’s provision and protection. God indeed takes care of those who obeys and honors Him.
• God is patient – but only up to a point. He must ultimately dispense justice and punishment to those who dishonor and Him – eventually.
• God blesses those who are close to the one who obeys and are righteous in His sight.

Application:

To listen to God’s instructions and to obey Him fully. This ensures my protection and provision as well as those of my loved ones.