9 This is the account of Noah and his family.Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.ReflectionsWritten by Sam DarmoThe passage begins by describing Noah as righteous man who walked with God in faithfulness, because he believed in God’s promises or covenant. And the passage ends with a demonstration of Noah’s faithfulness by saying that he did everything just as God commanded him (v. 22).In the first part of Genesis chapter 6, we saw how great the wickedness of humans had become on the earth. Human wickedness kept on growing to the point that God said, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth” (v. 13).Jesus Christ our Lord gave the same warning 2000 years ago when He said, in Matthew 24:37-38, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark.” People were living lives that ignored God and focused on their own pleasures in life. That means that there is another day of total destruction and renewal that is to come, and that day is Jesus Christ’s day when He will come back.Like Noah, we also need to do something that this world thinks is silly. Noah had to build an ark on dry land because he trusted God and he saw how wicked humanity was. As we hear the gospel and see how wicked this world is, we need to go into the “ark” by trusting in Jesus and his blood shed for us as the new covenant with God. Jesus is our rescue from the judgment to come. Like the ark in Genesis 6, the door to that rescue is now open, and anyone entering it will be saved. Who are we inviting to enter through the door?QuestionJesus tells us that this world is going to end one day. Which people do you think will be saved on that day? And if your friends think it’s silly to follow Jesus, should you stop following him?About the AuthorSam Darmo is an Assistant Minister with our Assyrian and Arabic churches, as well as our Fairfield English Morning Church.