It had been raining hard during the night. When I got up in the morning and looked out my bedroom window, all I could see was water around the house. Everything, the flower garden and the fish pond included, was under two feet of water. When I went downstairs and looked down into the basement, I could see the Ping-Pong table floating in water so deep it was within two feet of the first floor rafters! That seven inches of rain that fell in four hours caused heavy flooding outside and inside. When the water finally went down, it was a huge job cleaning up the mud and rubbish left behind.
Later when I got married, my wife told me of her experience with flooding when she was going to high school. She worked for her room and board in the small town where the high school was located along the mighty Mississippi River. One spring the river overflowed its banks and flooded the town. She had to be taken out in a boat so that she could go home. She missed the last six weeks of her senior year of high school because of the flood.
Several years later, the Mississippi again flooded that town - the highest flood ever recorded there. Following that flood, the government authorities laid out streets for a new town on the bluff above the river and included utilities and schools. After buying most of the houses in the flooded area, the government helped build new houses for those who were willing to move to the new location. Their old houses along the river were then torn down.
A few years ago, we went to see the new town on the high ground. It looked very nice, with well-laid-out streets, a grade school and high school, bank, post office and even a fire station. However, when we went down the hill into the valley along the river, we found that a few people were still living in the area that the flood had ravaged and where it would probably flood again. They stayed in their homes, refusing to move.
They aren’t the only people who have ignored the opportunity to move to a safe place after they’ve been warned of their danger. Let me tell you about a very large group of people who made the unwise decision to ignore a warning from God.
A little over two thousand years after God created the heavens and the earth, “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. . . . The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. . . . And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me. . . . I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark” (Genesis 6:5,11,13145And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)
11The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. (Genesis 6:11)). This ark was designed by God to hold two of every animal, seven of every bird, and seven of every animal that God called clean. It took Noah many years to build that ark, and all the while, he was warning people of the judgment God had told him He was going to send and to take shelter in the ark. But it must have seemed strange to these people that Noah would build such a large boat on dry land, and they wouldn’t believe his warning. They were like the people along the Mississippi River who refused to move to high ground.
When Noah and his family and all the creatures were safely in the ark, God shut the door of the ark. All the unbelievers were shut out. Then for forty days and nights it rained continuously, until all mankind and every living thing were destroyed by a flood that covered the entire earth. But the ark rode on top of the water through the storm, saving all who were inside.
The Lord Jesus warns us in Luke 17:26-2726And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 27They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. (Luke 17:26‑27), “As it was in the days of Noe [Noah], so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe [Noah] entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.”
We are living in days of corruption and violence once again, just like it was before the flood. Soon the Lord Jesus will call all who believe God’s warning out of the world to the shelter of His Father’s house, and the door to heaven will be shut forever! Those who ignore God’s warning will be left behind to face the worst judgment this world has ever seen. Will you believe God’s warning and accept the shelter of salvation He is offering you through His Son, the Lord Jesus? “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:1212Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)). “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:33How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; (Hebrews 2:3)).
ML-02/23/2003