Judgment (Genesis 7:21-24)

Have you ever seen a children’s Sunday school picture regarding Noah’s Ark? It’s usually bright and colorful with oversized animals hanging their head out of the ark and smiling. There is sometimes light rain and a cloud or two with a large rainbow in the background.

Now read Genesis 7:21-24.

Quite the contrast isn’t it?

God created a perfect world for mankind, but Adam and Eve thought they could do better. God showed them mercy and blessed them with children, but Cain murdered Abel. God continued to show grace upon grace as the generations were born, but man became so sinful that “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (6:5).

Romans 6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death.” This isn’t some idle threat. It’s real. And when mankind became so sinful that God could describe their every inclination as being evil all the time, it was time to pay them their wages.

God is holy, righteous and just. He will punish sin. He did so in Genesis 7 when He sent a flood that killed everyone and everything. God “blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground” (7:23).

A true picture of Noah’s ark would be dark and grey, cloudy and rainy. There would be massive waves that crashed through the land. There would be huge peals of lightning and massive roars of thunder as a cataclysmic storm was raging worldwide. There would be screams as people ran for their lives from the flood waters, and cries of anguish as people struggled to stay afloat on pieces of drift wood, or even on other human corpses. Even the animals would be stampeding through the streets until destroyed by the flood in massive, watery graves.

The judgment of God is not a pretty picture. It is bleak. There is no escaping God’s judgment. All sinners deserve to be punished in a manner similar to the flood. Only worse, for hell is a place filled not with water, but with raging fire and torment.

Just like those children’s pictures that ignore the thousands of dead people who are drowning underneath that boat filled with oversized smiling animals, are many modern-day presentations of the gospel. We ignore the reality of sin, hell and judgment, and focus on the pretty picture of Jesus in shining white robes, knocking on the door of your heart, just hoping to come in and enjoy a meal with you.

We need to take the holiness of God more seriously.

The good news of the gospel shines brightest against the backdrop of the reality of hell. Our rebellion against God is so severe that we deserve to be punished. The flood reminds us that God takes sin seriously. People need to understand this reality. Only then can they possibly understand why Jesus dying on a cross in our place is “good news.”