The Waters of the Flood (Genesis 7:10)

 

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Psalm 50

Genesis 7

John 8:1-11

Observance: Agnes, martyr at Rome, virgin (d. 304)

The Waters of the Flood (Genesis 7:10)

The account of the global flood is an interesting choice for a Sunday School story. Children’s ministry resources portray a cheery old man on a big boat, surrounded by happy safari animals with big smiles. Yet we read through the actual text and cannot help but escape this sense of ancient dread. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. God blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.

This memory of a global flood is universal; every human culture on earth has some version of this ancient event passed down through the generations. It wasn’t just restricted to the Ancient Near East, either: even the Americas have people who have passed down the story of the global flood from generation to generation. Perhaps it is totally appropriate, then, that we tell our children about Noah and the ark – but we could probably do without the cartoon crocodiles.

Something to note for us today is the wait Noah had in the ark, between the initial boarding and when the waters began. He brought the animals in, and then waited an entire week. We can read this in parallel with 2 Peter 3, where the apostle makes application. Far from everything in the universe just plodding along as it always has, we have to remember that “the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.” (2 Peter 3:6) In the same way, “the Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” (v. 10)

It is a two-fold application: first, we can picture ourselves in the ark, that is, the church of believers in the Lord Jesus. We are waiting for the door to be shut up and the final judgement to come. Noah waited a week; did he know how long he had to wait, or was he looking out the window every morning, wondering when the clouds would appear?

The second is that, if we are born again believers, then the Day of the Lord will not be one of terror. “According to God’s promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (v. 13) Perhaps that is why Noah has such a big smile in the children’s Bible: because he can see Jesus returning in glory and bringing us, the adopted sons and daughters of God, back home.

Are you waiting patiently for Jesus to return? How are you living in the meantime?

God of my salvation, who does not delay: help me to be patient and holy in my life on this earth, and to look forward to Jesus’ return with joyful anticipation.