“The Gospel is bad news before it is good news.” – Frederick Buechner
The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. And the Lord said, ‘I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.
Genesis 6: 5-7 New Living Translation (NLT)
At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord.
Genesis 4:26 (NLT)
He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.
Genesis 5:29 (NLT)
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord…he walked faithfully with God .
Genesis 6:8-9 (NLT)
Things started really, really good, but they got really, really bad, because both human beings and spiritual beings rebelled against the Creator.
The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 6:5 (NLT)
After the Creation story in the beginning, the Flood is a story of De-Creation, to make way for a New Creation.
In this story, Noah functions as a second-Adam.
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth,
Genesis 9:1 (NLT)
The name Noah, in Hebrew Noach, means comfort or rest.
After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him.
Matthew 3:16 (NLT)
He who sent me to baptize with water told me, “The One you see the Spirit descending and resting on—He is the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”
John 1:33 (NLT)
This story is our story.
“…every inclination of the human heat is evil from childhood…
Genesis 8:21 (NLT)