Blog

Many people, both Christians and non-Christians, know the general story of Noah’s Ark; in fact, it was popularized a bit in the modern day movie “Evan Almighty.” A guy is told by God to build a huge boat. He does it and everyone laughs at him. He takes his family and two of every kind of animal on the ark. It rains and rains and rains and the world floods, but eventually it all dries up again, there’s a rainbow, and life goes on.

But, there’s a lot more to the story than that. For the full story, I encourage you to read all of Genesis 6-9.

To start out with, why did this story even need to happen? Did God simply want Noah to practice his construction skills? Nope. Look at Genesis 6:5-8:

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Every thought that every person on earth at that time was evil. Just think about that for a minute. We see a lot of evil in today’s world; if you don’t believe me, just read the news! Between terrorists and school shootings and public figures being caught in scandals, evil feels like it’s everywhere. But is *every* thought only evil all the time? I don’t think so. There is still a lot of good in this world too, because of God’s presence in it. The only good in the world at that time was Noah, and his family.

Noah was obedient to God despite the circumstances. Some scholars believe that it had never rained in the world until the great flood. Noah looked like a total dork building this ginormous (and I do mean *ginormous*!) boat on land, but as it says in Genesis 6:22, “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”

Think about that verse applied to your own life. Have you done everything, exactly like God has commanded you to? I know I haven’t. I often want to live life my own way, not God’s. But just as God made a promise to Noah to never do that again (Genesis 9:11), God has also promised to always give us His grace to anyone who believes in Jesus and is sorry for the times we haven’t done what God has commanded us to.

God redeemed the world through the great flood. Even though we are still sinful human beings, we too can be redeemed through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for us.