How To Stay Afloat When Your World’s Being Flooded Series

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How to stay afloat when your world’s being flooded

January 29, 2006 - Tom Bartlett

Matt 24:37-39 (TLB) "The world will be at ease-- banquets and parties and weddings-- just as it was in Noah’s time before the sudden coming of the flood; people wouldn’t believe what was going to happen until the flood actually arrived and took them all away. So shall my coming be.”

HOW TO CAUSE A FLOOD

Gen 6:7 (NLT) “So the LORD said, "I will wipe this human race… from the face of the earth…."

• Live in direct disobedience to God

Genesis 6:3 (TLB) (God) "My Spirit must not forever be disgraced in man, wholly evil as he is.”

Rom 1:18 (TLB) “…God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, evil men who push away the truth...”

• Fill your mind with trash.

Genesis 6:5 (NLT) “…The Lord… saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.”

Titus 1:15-16 (NIV) “… to those who are corrupted… nothing is pure…their minds… are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him…”

• Make violence and corruption a way of life.

Genesis 6:11 (NLT) “God saw that the earth… was filled with violence… everyone was corrupt.”

HOW TO STAY AFLOAT WHEN YOUR WORLD’S BEING FLOODED

Genesis 6:8 (NLT) “Noah found favor with the Lord.”

Heb 11:7 (NIV) “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”

• Stay loyal to God.

Genesis 6:9a (NLT) “Noah was a righteous man….”

Proverbs 14:12 (NIV) “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”

• Make integrity a priority.

Genesis 6:9b (NLT) “…the only blameless person living on the earth…”

Integrity: Incorruptness, untainted sincerity.

Titus 2:7 (NLT) “Let everything you do reflect… integrity…”

• Follow God’s instructions.

Genesis 6:9c & 22 (NLT) “… he walked in close relationship with God… So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded.”

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NLT) “Trust in the Lord… do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.”

God’s Umbrella of Protection

FULL TEXT

The earth had become corrupt, so much so that even the simple tasks of farming were very difficult. Noah’s father named him Noah which means “may he bring us relief.” He was referring to the hard labor of farming.

People lived long and that probably extended to every living thing. It may be that the earth was becoming more and more unfit for humans to even survive on.

Satan and his followers were doing all they could to disrupt God’s plan and God’s creation. Satan first tried a run at being God. God saw through his schemes and tossed him like a bad habit.

Now Satan is trying to destroy God’s plan of renewing man and bringing him back to Himself.

Satan and his demons that were cast to the earth tried to infiltrate human race by intermarrying with them so as to pollute the race and make it un-savable.

Man was created in relationship with God but was moving faster and further away from Him than ever with Satan’s help.

In an effort to save the world and man, God had to start over, shorten man’s days and literally change the environment. The flood wiped out man and animals from the earth except for Noah and his children.

Satan was attempting to destroy what God had created, so God in essence changed the parameters. Instead of man living in his sinful ways for hundreds of years becoming worse and worse God brought his days down to a fraction of that amount.

Satan may have thought that if he couldn’t kill man from without, he would destroy man from within. He almost succeeded. By the time that Noah came along, he was the last one to still be serving God.

Had Noah not come along and God not start over, it may have ended there for the human race. Satan almost won right here in the infancy of man’s existence.

Some people ask, “how could a good God wipe out all those people and animals?” That’s really not the right question. The question is really, “How could a righteous God, who could not sin, allow sinful man to degrade his creation for as long as he did?”

Not only was man becoming more and more sinful and wicked, I believe the very nature of man was changing. He was starting to evolve into something that looked nothing like God’s original intention.

FOR THOSE AND MANY OTHER REASONS GOD SENT A FLOOD