Genesis Chapter 7 - Is God On Board?

Have you ever wanted to live in a zoo? Or maybe sometimes you feel like you do. Certainly Noah can go down in history as having the first floating zoo. Whatever kind of creature God had created, Noah took at least one male and one female on board the ark. It has been estimated by biblical scholars that almost 45,000 animals could have fit in the boat with Noah and his family.

This is one of those stories in the Bible that is best accepted by faith. When you try to figure out where all the food supplies came from, or where it was stored, or where they kept the "compost" pile, it just becomes overwhelming to imagine. How could a family of eight care for that many animals? Maybe God used the waves of the flood waters to rock the boat and put every creature to sleep for the next six months or so. I don’t know, and it’s too much for me to fathom. I just know God cared about all of His creation, not just His highest order. That gives me comfort, for it tells me there is nothing too small for God to give His attention to.




When the ark was fully loaded with all the living creatures that God had commanded Noah to take aboard, God shut the door. He was about to bring about a very destructive phenomenon called flooding. The Bible says "the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened (vs. 11). For forty days it rained without ceasing. With all of that water, even the highest mountain top was under water more than twenty feet. Every living creature on the earth, except those in the ark, perished in the flood waters, which lasted a total of 150 days.


When God shut the door, He slammed down the gavel of judgment. Sin and evil had become such a stench to God that He wiped everything out except those on the ark. If Noah had not found favor in God’s eyes, would that have been the end of man, the end of all creation? God had once again shown judgment and mercy in dealing with the wickedness of earth.

Since the beginning of time, "God has always had a people." I find comfort in this thought also, for it tells me of a God who is so holy that He cannot bear to look on sin, and yet in His holiness, He is so full of love, that He delivers His own from total destruction. We may go through a "flood", but if we have God in our boat, we can be assured that He will see us safely to the other side. No storm will ever completely overtake us, for He speaks peace in the middle of our storms.

"There is peace in the midst of my storm-tossed life;
Oh, there’s an Anchor, there’s a Rock to cast my faith upon.
Jesus rides in my vessel so I’ll fear no alarm;
He gives me peace in the midst of my storm!"

(Stephen Adams Music, Copyright 1978, 1982, 1983, Franklin House Publishing, Inc.)