Section 3 Chapter 2 – A merciful end
The flood event was necessary for several reasons but what inspired such an epic end to the very good world God had created, was mercy. When we read Genesis 6: 5-7 and find that the very God of Heaven was grieved in His heart that He had made man, the words cannot describe or ever explain Godly sorrow and pain. God was grieved due to the evil and violence that had taken control of the human family.
God was certainly the creator of human emotion, but to attempt to apply that to God Himself, falls far short of understanding the severity of His pain. The blessing humanity had been intended to be for the creator, because of sin, became the total opposite. The only similarity would be the sorrow that comes from a child disrespecting and hurting their parents. To give birth and sacrifice to raise a child with love and care, just to have that child spit in your face and curse your name is beyond reason. To experience such pain and dismissiveness for a life of sacrifice is cruel and unacceptable, and yet how many have had to succumb to such a life sentence.
However, God was not only experiencing that pain Himself, but had to witness the incredible suffering of those that he created and loved as well. The human super-race that God started with was so capable of heaping such evil and violence upon one another, that like a heavenly parent watching his children interact in such a heinous manner, the remedy was to step in directly and in mercy bring it to an end, it was the only solution for the sin-laden condition.
Sin had taken the human family down a road from which there was no return. In using a flood, God would wash away most all the evil that had so marred His very good creation. To ensure the situation would not get out of control again, God arranged things so the post flood civilization would not be allowed to live centuries to possibly develop the magnitude of character defects similar to those that walked the planet before the destructive flood. Also, we would not be allowed to behold the perfection of what God had created at the start. The antediluvian world was buried for many reasons. What was intended to bless the human family, because of sin, turned very decidedly into a curse. God had to witness the harshness of where sin unchecked would progress too.
Even though He promised never to destroy the world with water again, His word has revealed the world would eventually once again, due to sin and selfishness, become as it was in the days of Noah, a condition again unacceptable for God and humanity to tolerate. Our heavenly Father would never again allow such brutality to be displayed throughout His universe. This is one reason why the next warning of destruction is more severe. This next cleansing is by fire, an autoclaving event, that will not only eliminate sin from the planet but from His perfect creation. The earth made new after the millennial dispensation will have been purified for the eternal existence to come.
The last book of the bible provides a glimpse of future events, including the final scenes eliminating sin (and sinners), from God’s creation. The fires of hell, as they are called, not only cleanses the planet from sins affects, as it melts down the surface, but facilitates God’s strange act in eliminating those who believed not in His ability to save them. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up (2 Pe. 3:10). The bible records that the vast majority of humanity will push God away, traveling down that broad road to destruction (Matt. 7:13-14). How unwise to make choices that prevent entrance onto that straight and narrow road that leads to live and life eternal. This is the choice everyone must make, life or death.
The human crisis in Eden started with deception (Gen. chapter 3) and the main problem at the end will once again be deception (Matt. 24). Even though God has provided a clear conception of the truth, and the opportunity for any to receive salvation and experience the free gift He offers, many will be deceived and not embrace the truth. Many will walk a different path contrary to His revealed will. Even with this unfortunate decision that many will make; God is still merciful just as with the flood event. He is not vindictive as some advocate, but in mercy He destroys the wicked to be forever separated from the source of life. There is nothing in them that lives eternally in pain and suffering, as God is gracious to even His disobedience children. He will always have a memory of then hid in His heart and a bit of the pain of them not being in His presence, that joy that He experiences with the redeemed that gather from one Sabbath to the next (Isa. 66:23).