Written by: Jaymi Firestone
Ok, ok…all jokes aside, I watched the movie “Noah” recently, and as unbiblical as 90% of the movie is, it got me thinking.
We all know the story of Noah and God flooding the earth. It’s a story, much like David and Goliath, that we grow up with. And because it is a story we know so well, I think we often tend to overlook the lesson to be learned.
I don’t know how many of you have watched that movie (spoiler alert: the flood kills everyone except Noah’s family) but there is a scene as the earth is flooding where Noah and his family are inside the rocking ark, and all you can hear is creaking and screams. The people in the flood were climbing to the peak of a mountain as an attempt to escape the engulfing waves crashing around them. Their screams were full of terror and desperation. The screaming reminded me of the documentaries I’ve watched on the Titanic.
When Titanic sank in 1911, there were 1,517 people aboard who lost their lives. I’ve seen quotes from passengers like this one,
“The sounds of people drowning are something that I can not describe to you, and neither can anyone else. Its the most dreadful sound and there is a terrible silence that follows it.”
– Eva Hart (Second Class Survivor)
I cannot imagine the sheer devastation of hearing people die around you. And people who experienced the horror of Titanic were scarred for life by what they witnessed. So, as I was thinking about Noah and the Titanic came to mind, I realized that Noah and his family witnessed the death of the entire world. Not just 1,517 people around them. The entire world was destroyed. I’m not sure I can even comprehend that.
Noah’s family sat in that creaking boat, trying to accept the fate of the evil people of the world. Knowing they could save them, but God commanded otherwise.
I can’t imagine the guilt Noah must have felt, knowing His obedience was killing so many people, while he and his family survived.
In the scriptures leading up to the flood, Genesis 6 describes the evil in the world.
“The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. And the LORD said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.”
Genesis 6:5-7 NLT
I want to focus on the part of that scripture that says, “The Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.”
In the movie, Noah describes Creation to his family as they sit inside the ark. While the recount isn’t quite accurate, something he said stuck out in my mind:
And the Creator made Man, and by his side Woman. Father and mother of us all. He gave them a choice: Follow the temptation of darkness, or hold on to the blessing of light. They ate from the forbidden fruit, their innocence is extinguished…Brother against brother. Nation against nation. Man against the creation. We murdered each other. We broke the world, we did this. Man did this. Everything was beautiful, everything that was good we shattered. Now it begins again.
We did this. Man did this.
Part of me has a difficult time comprehending such evil that God would want to destroy the world, but then I realize how far our society is from God, and the reality seems all too familiar.
The sin we are surrounded by and involved in must break His heart. I can’t imagine that the world was any more sinful and evil back then than it is now.
We do all the things God commands us not to do. Yet, we have hope that Noah and the people of his time didn’t have.
We are so beyond blessed to have Jesus’ blood covering us, and God’s grace because of it. With God’s grace and His promise to never destroy the earth again, we have hope of eternal life.
Without Noah obeying God’s command to build an ark, he would’ve been destroyed along with the rest of the world, and we wouldn’t exist. The world would’ve been destroyed, and that would’ve been the end of human life. Noah obeyed God’s command though, and it saved him and his family.
All we have to do is let Jesus’ blood cover the immense amount of sins we do every day. All it takes is God loving us THAT much.
So why aren’t we accepting the salvation given to us? God easily could destroy this world again, and probably should, but because He loves us, He gave us grace through His Son dying.
So the next time you’re caught in sin and your guilt overwhelms you, remember that God’s grace covers you because God loves you that much.
