Genesis 7-8

We all talk about the flood of Noah’s time, but have we ever taken note of the hidden messages set within the tragic and traumatic encounter?
The horrors of the flood are unimaginable to us as was God’s destruction of everything He created, including humans, unfortunately, this is a pale comparison of what is to come as described in Revelations 19:11-16.
Today, just as in Noah’s days, people are living without a care for eternity; how many in the billions of people on the planet will be destroyed if not offered the gospel and salvation?
Noah and his family may have suffered “survivors’ guilt” which we won’t know but we will certainly feel guilty if our loved ones perish without knowing the salvation of the Lord.
Noah, after following all of God’s instructions, boarded the ark and waited out the flood. An experience he’s never had so had nothing to compare with but trusted God to not only get in the Ark but to wait.
How often does the Lord instruct us on what to do but we decline to obey because nothing meets with our approval or matches the idea we have in our heads, remember though that James 1:17 calls it a sin when we don’t do the right thing, we know we should do.
God sent the humans and animals into the ark for posterity- male and female, as in the creation story in Genesis 1:26-28.
four men + four women- man and woman, husband and wife.
Seven pairs of every clean animal; seven male and female.
seven pairs of every clean bird of the air; seven male and female.
From out of the clean birds and animals, Noah took some for the sacrifice to God in Genesis 8:20.
Water, unrestrained by the Lord, comes out from everywhere: Vs 11-12 says all the springs of the great deep (including underground water) and for the first time, water came from the floodgates of heaven – not just rain, the windows of heaven were opened.
An immense quantity of waters occupying the centre of the earth burst forth, the waters that were above the firmament that was separated in Genesis 1:7 were again united to the waters which were below the firmament.
Noah and his family with all the animals faced this great body of water called the flood inside the ark for 370 days- one year and five days, the flood was catastrophic to living and non-living things. The waters rose greatly and covered everything under heaven-that is everything outside the ark perished without exception.
But everything in the ark, Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives and all the animals and birds survived the flood, not because the ark was properly built but because God shut “Noah” and the others in the ark in Vs 16.
God shut him in; this symbolises God’s protection, the story of the flood is a testament to the length our Father will go to save one man out of a lost world, to save one sheep, to find one coin- the message of salvation.
May the Lord shut us in the bowels of His mercy, love, and grace, secure for protection unto eternity.
Shalom