Riding The Storm Out

Riding The Storm Out

Genesis 7 (NLT)

Intro: Chippie the parakeet was a happy little bird, content every day to sit on his perch, swinging and singing to his little heart’s content. One day Chippie’s owner took the initiative to clean out his cage. She took off the attachment from the end of the vacuum hose and stuck it in the cage to remove the sediment from the bottom. Just then the phone rang. She turned to pick it up and had barely said hello when "ssopp!" Chippie got sucked in!

As you can imagine, the bird owner gasped, dropped the phone, turned off the vacuum and ripped open the bag. Inside, there lay Chippie, still alive but stunned by the trauma. The bird was covered with all the terrible grit and grime that fills vacuum bags, so the owner did the only thing she could think to do. She grabbed him up, raced to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under running water. Then realizing poor little Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any good bird owner would do, she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the little guy with hot air. Poor Chippie never knew what hit him.

A couple of days after the experience Chippie’s owner was talking t5o the same person who had called. Chippies owner told her friend what had happened and he asked how the bird was doing. She said, "Well Chippie doesn’t sing much anymore-he just sits and stares. When the phine rings, chippie starts to shiver all over.” You can’t blame Chippie though, he had just went through probably the most horrendous experience of his life.

( most of this story from Max Lucado, in the eye of the storm)

. That’s how the storms in life come, everything seems to be going fine and then BAM, it just hits you doesn’t it.

. A man drives to work at 6:30 a.m. as he has for 8 years. He punches in his time-card and is soon confronted by his supervisor. John is berated and humiliated as he has been repeatedly over the years over minor things. This time he quits---STORMS

.A strong thunderstorm sweeps through the area and destroys a farmers crops and barns. He is already deep in debt---STORMS

.A widow faces an empty house and bed for the first time in 40 years---STORMS

.Parents sit on the couch. It is 3:00 a.m. Their sixteen year old son has not come home. They fear he has been drinking. Storms

.We all face storms. Some are physical-- i.e., tornadoes, floods, earthquakes. Some are personal--- i.e., death, job problems, soured friendships. Storms are a part of life. The right question is not whether they will come, or when , because we all know they are coming.

. The question is how will we respond.

. Storms have a way of making us focus on what really matters in life.

. We are back in Genesis this morning.

. Here several weeks ago we looked at why Noah, of all the men on earth, was looked upon by God as Righteous.

. Today we will look at the actual flood.

. Noah has done all that God has told him to do and the storms are coming.

. I’m going to share the story of chapter 7 here in Genesis with you and then we will look at a few verses.

. Everything was finally ready. God told Noah that it was time.

. Noah, you are 600 years old and it is time.

. You have spent all this time preparing. The boat has been built.

. The animals are on board and ready to go.

. Take your family, Shem, Ham and Japeth, your wife and their wives and get in the boat.

.Then the storm came, it rained for forty days and forty nights.

. All the underground springs that God had been using to keep everything watered on the earth suddenly erupted.

. Verse 11 says that the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky.

. As the rain fell, the waters of the earth rose and along with it, the Ark that Noah had built.

. Can you imagine the elation that the folks on the Ark must have felt. As the waters rose, they would have felt that lift. I’m sure they said to themselves, hey it floats.

. It took seven days for the waters to cover the entire Earth.

. All life that breathed and lived on dry land was eradicated.

. All that was left were the people and the animals on the Ark.

. For 143 more days, that flood waters covered the Earth.

. What a storm.

. We all go through storms in life.

. What I want to look at for just a few minutes this morning is how do we survive these storms.