Every Sunday, DrydenWire.com publishes a submitted article in a weekly series from Pastor Brian Cole. If you would have a question for Brian or would like to learn more about him, visit his website or his official Facebook page.
Gen. 7:6- 8:22 - IT’S RAINING, IT’S POURING, ARE YOU SNORING?? – Part 1
In the next few installments we will focus on the great flood. I will be breaking these down to allow us to get a good understanding of the facts as well as the lessons for us.
In Genesis 7:6-16, Moses writes, “Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.”
Noah, alone with his family, went into the ark. With them went a massive number of animals that God had moved so that they came. They went into the ark seven days before the rain began. And there sat a great oceanliner of a boat on dry ground.
No doubt the foolish and wicked who had heard Noah’s preaching all these years mocked at it, as, no doubt, they had mocked at his building such a ship which they thought would never reach the water. For the unsaved multitudes on the earth, life went on as usual, and when Noah and his family entered the ark, the unsaved still did not repent, they still did not believe, and they still scoffed. They were still wicked, Christ-rejecting, God-hating sinners.
I am supposing that the great ark stood open for the seven days. This is a great picture of the invitation of mercy to those who rejected mercy all those years. John 10:9 says: “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he WILL be saved...” Anyone, Anytime, yet only while it remains open. It WILL be shut some day.
“...and the LORD shut him in.” Vs. 16. God Himself shut the door! What a picture of salvation! The ark pictures Christ; the “ark of safety.” The one who is in Christ is safe. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all: and no man is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand.” (John 10:27-29).
It would be impossible for Noah to save himself in the great flood. It took an ark, God’s ark. God had shut the door. God had to preserve that great vessel as it moved on the waters, as it plunged in the tidal waves that went around the world.
But it was well made, and they were perfectly safe there. So is the one who puts his trust in Christ! There may be doubts and fears, but God is faithful. He keeps His own. John 5:24 says: “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”
Then suddenly the flood came and took them all away. Just as sudden and unexpected will be the second coming of Christ as we talked about a couple weeks ago.
Can we try to put ourselves in Noah’s shoes as well as what the other people might have been thinking when this began? “And then the rains began...” There was no rain before this! I wonder what the people were thinking? They had to be freaking out about that! They were maybe so far gone that even then none wanted to enter? Scripture didn’t say anything about people knocking on the doors of the Ark! There are many people who understand all of the wrongness in the world but they still aren’t knocking either. Are you one of them?
Jer. 33:3 makes it easy! “Call unto me (says the LORD), and I WILL answer you...” Make that call today, it is the most important call you will ever make!
https://youtu.be/c1ewBAiYh8Q (404)
Last Update: Aug 18, 2019 4:54 pm CDT
