Now, this question has to do with one I posed a while back. I was told that God said he would never kill man off as a whole again. But in Gen. 9:8 the covenant was made. And God said to Noah "Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." And later..."Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life." So, which is it? That implies to me that He will never bring a flood again but there is no promise that He will not end all life again. And if that is the case, then what about Revelations? Isn't that the end all, be all?

-- jackiea (jackiea@hotmail.com), May 08, 2000

Answers

Jackiea,

There is something very beautiful in the passage you are speaking of, and more often than not, many people overlook its significance. When God destroyed the world, the intent was to "purify" it. To literally purge the evil from the face of creation. It's no coincidence that God chose water to accomplish this, as we know that God is referred to as the "Living Water." The significance of water in the OT is profoundly important. In the region of Jerusalem, water was and is extremely scarce. The people were dependent upon God to not only bring the early rains but the ever-crucial late rains that would ensure the harvest. See that? It was the late rains...not the early. (ooh, I better not go on about water...I could do that for days!) Anyway...God literally *baptized* the world (as a foreshadowing) with water to wash away its sins. However, God knew that it would take His Son to bring that into fulfillment (Jesus was the late rain that was necessary for the harvest--of souls).

God was not contradicting Himself but foreshadowing the need for a Saviour. God never said he would never destroy the earth. He said He would not destroy the earth by water/flood. You can count on that.

To see the parallel of the natural versus the spiritual when it comes to the efforts of man as opposed to the mercy of God, read Paul's writings in 1st Corinthians Ch.15 It's helpful.

Yours in Christ,

-- Christina (romechurch@aol.com), May 09, 2000.

jackiea: "That implies to me that He will never bring a flood again but there is no promise that He will not end all life again. And if that is the case, then what about Revelations? Isn't that the end all, be all?"
Christina: "God never said he would never destroy the earth. He said He would not destroy the earth by water/flood. You can count on that."

Dear ladies,

Please don't be offended if I clarify something. Yes, without a doubt, the world as we know it will vanish at the end of time, at the second coming of Christ. I believe that the Bible tells us that those alive at the time will not, however, be killed.

But suppose someone were to ask us, "Might God work another 'Noah' to purify the world at some point -- causing the death of all but a select few, in order to "start over" again?"
I believe that we must answer, "No." Why?
Because God really did promise not to cause/permit -- before the end of the world -- the kind of destruction done by the Flood:
Genesis 18: So Noah went forth [from the ark], and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him.
19: And every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves upon the earth, went forth by families out of the ark.
20: Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21: And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
22: While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."

[His assurance is plenty good enough for me.]
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jgecik@desc.dla.mil), May 10, 2000.