We have certainly received our share of rain.  Some have reported as much as eight inches in certain areas.  It seems funny to be complaining about rain after going thru June and July so dry.  At least we are not experiencing the large floods that other counties and states around us are enduring.  I overheard one man asking, is it ever going to stop raining?  That made me think about how people must have felt during the great flood in Noah’s day.  Here is my fresh perspective.

Unlike the ability of our trusty meteorologists to accurately predict rain or the amount there of, God told Noah the flood would occur (Genesis 6:13).  In fact, Noah prepared over 100 years for the flood.  This is a seemingly short period of time for a man who was already over 600 years-old when the rain started (Genesis 7:6).  He labored both with his hands, building the ark, and preaching to the people that there was a flood coming to destroy mankind (Genesis 6:7).

There are many things that could be taken from this passage, but I will ask you to consider only two.  The first is that the world or mankind was so wicked that the Bible tells us, “…it repented the Lord that he had made man.” (Genesis 6:5-6)  Our only reference to how bad things were in that day was that not only were man’s actions evil but that their imaginations and thoughts were evil as well.

The second thought is that while Noah preached, what some say was 120 years, a message that God would destroy man with a flood; these people had never seen rain in their lives.  They had no concept of water falling from the sky or why there was a need for an ark.  They could not conceive the idea of what Noah was warning them of and I am certain that Noah was ridiculed for his faith in God’s Word.

Rest assured that no matter how much rain we receive, God has given us a promise that He would never again destroy mankind with a flood (Genesis 9:15-16).  Our reminder of this covenant is the rainbow He places in the sky after a rain.  This account of Noah’s life is an Old Testament picture of a New Testament truth, that truth being Christ’s return and the vessel of salvation.  We are in a day the Bible refers to as “the last days” and we are told they will get worse.  As man’s evil actions and imaginations grow worse we look for Christ’s return.  It will be this day, the day of His return, that we will be separated, the righteous from the unrighteous, the saved from the unsaved.  Those that are in the boat and those who are not.  Just as God closed the door to the ark (Genesis 7:16), the day of Christ’s return closes the opportunities you had to receive His Son as Savior.  If the idea of Christ’s return and a need for salvation sounds odd to you I would ask, if it had never rained before and I told you that God said it would, is this any more odd? (I Thessalonians 4:16-18)