disasters that strike our planet today. The Flood of Noah. The first biblical record of a judgment from God is the story of the Flood. And the first question that arises in our minds is, Why would a loving God destroy an entire global population of human beings—whom He Himself had created? The Bible gives the answer. Describing the world before the Flood, it says, “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. . . . ‘The earth is filled with violence’ ” (Genesis 6:11, 13). In our modern world, we lock up violent people as a protection to society. But what happens if the entire social order has become violent? That apparently was the case before the Flood. As God looked down on the earth, He saw that human beings had become so wicked that He was sorry He even created them! Violence was one of their most defining characteristics, and God’s solution was to destroy the world. But first He commanded His servant Noah to build a large boat, called an “ark,” in which anyone who wished could be saved. Then He gave Noah 120 years to tell the people what was coming. Unfortunately, in the end, only Noah and his family chose to enter the ark. From this story we learn two important lessons about the natural disasters that God causes. First, He warns people about the disaster ahead of time, and second, He provides a way of escape. Sodom and Gomorrah. We see these same lessons in the story about God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, two very wicked cities at the time of Abraham. According to the story in the Bible, God sent two angels to Sodom to warn the people of His plan to destroy the city, but instead of accepting the warning, the citizens tried to attack the angels. Lot protected them, and they spent the night with him and his family. The next morning, they hurried Lot and his family out of the city just before it was destroyed. Again, we see that God gave a warning and provided a way of escape, but the people refused to accept it. Because of Lot’s relationship to Abraham, the angels took him and his family out of the city almost against their will. There’s another lesson in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I will begin by giving you a simple test of your Bible knowledge. True or false: Abraham prayed for the destruction of Sodom. The answer, of course, is false. Abraham prayed that God would spare Sodom. The Bible says that Abraham approached God and said, “ ‘Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ The Lord said, ‘If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake’ ” (Genesis 18:23–26). From this we learn that it only takes a few good people in a population to spare the entire population from destruction.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 21:57:20 +0000
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