Yesterday we watched the rain pour down, the puddles turn to ponds and lakes, the streets flood, and the schools cancel class. People prayed the rain would stop as the water crept closer and closer to their doors.

What if it didn’t stop? Can you imagine the kind of flooding we had in Chicago except what if it was a desert? What if we had never seen anything like this before? You watch the floodwaters rise and then you remember… Noah.

Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe Noah will let us in his boat. Although I guess we haven’t been real nice to him. I thought he was crazy for building an ark in the desert just because God told him to. Rain for forty days?! We rarely get rain here at all. It’s the desert!

I guess Noah was right… That means this is the end. My house will flood. My family and I will swim and float the best we can but how long can we really survive. No food to eat. No place to stand. I should’ve listened to Noah. I should’ve listened to God.

The story of Noah’s ark is often told to children and painted on the walls of church nurseries. But what you don’t see are the dead bodies. It’s a story of destruction.

“Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God… God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark…'” Genesis 6:9-14

The destruction was so great that only Noah’s family and two of every animal survived – only those on the ark, which Noah had prepared because God told him to.

“Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.” Genesis 7:23-24

Would God flood the earth again? No. After the first flood God sent a rainbow as His promise that He would never flood the earth again.

“I have set My rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth… Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” Genesis 9:13-16

Lessons from Noah’s Ark:
God sees the righteous, blameless people who seek Him and He saves them
Obeying God is vitally important and often means standing against the culture
God keeps His promises. Despite the rains and floods, God will not wipe out the earth again