“Being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” Romans 5:9
The Bible records that God looked down from heaven, and “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.” As a result of man’s sin and rebellion, God said, “I will destroy man whom I have created.” Even though God in His holiness had decreed that man was to be destroyed, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” From all the people on the earth, only Noah obeyed God, and he was instructed by God to “make … an ark of gopher wood.” So on a flat piece of ground near his home, Noah began the 100-year ordeal of building a 450 ft (150m) boat precisely to God’s specifications. During the time of this great building effort, Noah was a “preacher of righteousness” and warned the people of God’s wrath that was soon to fall.
A conversation between Noah and a curious onlooker may have gone as follows:
Onlooker: Why are you so urgently preaching and building?
Noah: God is going to destroy the world with a flood.
Onlooker: How do you know this will happen?
Noah: God gave His word.
Onlooker: How will you and your family be saved?
Noah: We shall be saved from wrath through this great boat.
Cynics and doubters may have mocked, but nothing could have shaken the confidence of Noah or any of the other seven members of Noah’s family. When the flood waters descended, they would be saved from wrath through the ark. This confidence was not based on arrogance or piety but on the sure promises of God.
When he completed the building of the ark, Noah, his family, and hundreds of animals from around the world entered the ark, “and the LORD shut him in.” All that would be saved were safe within the ark: “the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” Water came up from the earth and descended from the sky for forty days and nights until “the mountains were covered.”
Although scripture gives no details as to how men and women reacted when the flood waters started to rise, the desire for self-preservation would have driven men to attempt to escape God’s judgment. Some would have moved to higher ground, some may have sought entrance into the ark, and still others may have attempted to build boats or rafts. But for those outside the ark, the result was universally the same: “And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, ? and every man.” One by one men and women outside the ark would have learned the terrifying truth: hope is lost and all opportunity to be saved is past.
How different was the quiet confidence of Noah’s family as they looked toward the future from the horrible realization for those outside the ark that opportunity was past and they were unsheltered from the storm.
While almost every aspect of life has changed since the days of Noah, the intervening centuries have not managed to improve the basic moral makeup of man. The same tendencies for sin and rebellion against God remain unto this day. More solemnly, however, it should be remembered that God has not changed either. The same God that decreed judgment because of sin in the days of Noah has decreed judgment for the same reason against this present world also:
2 Peter 3:10 “The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
Fortunately, God has not left us without hope. God has provided a means of escape described and sealed by His holy Word:
1 John 1:7 “The blood of Jesus Christ His (God’s) Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
As you look ahead to this divinely promised, fiery deluge of God’s wrath, can you state with full confidence, “I shall be saved from wrath through Him?”
