Genesis 8-9 is about the rainbow. Yes, we’re talking about the flood, but these chapters are different. Chapters 6-7 of Genesis talk about the ark, and the destruction of the flood, but chapters 8-9 talk about how the flood ends.
Noah was on the ark for more than a year. I know that this past year has been difficult for so many of us during COVID. I know that many people stayed in for months only sneaking out to the grocery store. Let me just put something into perspective for you. After one month the hermit crab that my kids purchased on a trip to the beach started to smell. It was horrible. I know there are worse smells in the world, but for someone with no experience with pets at all, I wasn’t prepared. Tell me how that ark smelled after more than a year. It’s true God commanded that Noah leave a gap at the top for ventilation, but those lower decks must have been rank.
Every animal great and small was captive on that ark that saved creation from the waters of the flood. If you think that Noah and his sons were playing cards above deck for a year as they waited for the waters to recede, you have the wrong idea. This was more than cabin fever. This was needing to get off the boat, but know there was nothing to find on the outside. In fact, would you want to get off the boat. What would you find? Could you go back to your local high school and find your locker? From all accounts we believe the destruction of the Great Flood was utterly complete. There was nothing left.
It is for that reason God placed his rainbow in the sky! What would you think the next time you heard a raindrop on your windshield? It’s possible that Noah had never seen it rain! God’s promise of the rainbow is that he will never destroy the earth again in a great flood. There are still devastating regional floods around the world, but nothing like God unleashed on the world in the Great Flood.
Want to hear more? Watch this week’s lesson from Genesis 8-9, the Rainbow.
Please click HERE for the Bible class slides.
Please click HERE for the other lessons from our series VIC – Very Important Chapters of the Bible.