The Great Flood
THE FLOOD was the means devised by God to cleanse the earth of all wicked people. Mankind then would have another opportunity to serve Him in righteousness.1
1Genesis 6:7, 8.
NOAH AND HIS FAMILY were the only people who still obeyed God. God chose to tell Noah about the coming flood. He also gave him instructions to build a great boat or ark1 of gopherwood. The life span of early Bible characters was long. Noah had the opportunity to preach to his generation for a great many years while building the ark.2 God was showing love and mercy even to these wicked people by allowing them time to repent and change their lives before the flood came.
1Genesis 6:9-18. 22 Peter 2:5.
THE APOSTLE PETER later referred to God’s patience and mercy in 1 Peter 3:20, 21, “. . . when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism. . . .” (ASV, 1901)
WHEN THE TIME CAME to board the ark, Noah followed God’s command to bring his family and pairs of various kinds of animals into the ark. He had previously stored provisions for them in the ark just as God had told him to do.1
1Genesis 6:17-22.
EVERYONE ELSE HAD REJECTED Noah’s warnings. In rejecting these warnings they were also rejecting God’s love. Therefore when God shut the door of the giant boat no man could open it.1 The flood rose to the tops of the mountains.2 The day of God’s mercy was gone! The wickedness of the wicked had sealed their own fate. Those who were not saved could blame only themselves. In this same way people are disregarding God’s warnings of today that He will destroy the earth by fire.
1Genesis 7:16; 8:15-19. 2Genesis 7: 18-20.
“THE LORD IS NOT SLACK concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:9, 10). As Noah warned his generation that the earth would be destroyed by water, so the Bible warns us today that the earth will be destroyed by fire.
NOAH’S ARK WAS LIFTED high above the land by the waters of the flood.1 The same waters that destroyed the wicked and cleansed the earth also served to save those who were in the ark.2 Just as those who were saved then were in God’s ark, today those who are saved are in GOD’S SPIRITUAL FAMILY, THE CHURCH.3 After one hundred fifty days the waters began slowly to subside. Finally the waters receded and the ark rested on Mt. Ararat.
1Genesis 7:17. 21 Peter 3:20. 3Acts 2:47.
HAVING SPENT MORE THAN A YEAR in the ark, Noah, his family and all the animals stepped out on dry ground. Noah offered an animal sacrifice in worship to God. God placed the rainbow in the sky as a sign of His promise that never again would He destroy the earth with water.1 However, at the end of time, He will destroy the earth by fire.2
1Genesis 9:9-11. 22 Peter 3:1-13.
IN RECENT YEARS excavations by archaeologists in various regions of the earth have revealed evidences of a great flood. In two separate excavations an eight-foot layer of clean, water-laid clay has been found with artifacts of an older civilization buried underneath. In other places marine fossils have been discovered on the tops of mountains. There are also references to a great flood among the historical legends of Egyptians, Chaldeans, Greeks, and among present-day Mexicans and South Sea Islanders. All this information points to the truthfulness of the Bible record of the great flood.