Shutting the Door - Genesis 7:11-22

7:11-15 - With Noah and his family safely in the ark, it was time for the flood to come. Here’s what’s interesting though, I’d always just assumed that the flood waters came from massive amounts of rain, but apparently that is not the whole story. Instead, we are told that “all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” So here is where I got the rain idea, but the IM quotes John Taylor as speculating that the “fountains of the great deep” might have referred to “something beyond the oceans, something outside of the seas, some reservoirs of which we have no knowledge, were made to contribute to this event, and the waters were let loose by the hand and power of God.” When I visited a part of Florida with my kids, we went swimming with manatees and something that the tour guide told us was that under the state of Florida there are thousands of aquafers that bubble up millions of gallons of water per year, or maybe it was day, I don’t remember but it was an insane amount of water. So when I hear that reservoirs of water broke open to release tons of water that floods the earth, yeah, sure that makes sense to me. It might make sense also to consider maybe there was an earthquake that released all that water and it took 40 days for the land to settle down and the water to return underground. But that is something I’ve always thought about, how all this water was used to cover the earth surface, but then it all just went away again. 7:16-22 - Noah and his family were in the boat along with all the animals, “and the Lord shut him in.” I hadn’t considered how Noah would have gone about closing the door of the ark, I’m sure it could have been done with some sort of pulley system. I imagine Jesus over there personally closing the door and sealing it, but it could very well just have been Noah closing the door and Jesus like slapping the back saying, “this baby is ready to go.” As the flood waters came up, the ark lifted off the ground, and eventually, the ark was able to just float away, and the water raised up “fifteen cubits upward… and the mountains were covered.” Now I’m not super good at math, but I think that Mt Everest is higher than 15 cubits, but I don’t know, maybe this is one of those things where it’s not an exact measurement or maybe only part of the earth flooded, or who knows, but this is the word of God as he wants us to know it. With all these flood waters, “all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died… and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.” It's kind of depressing to think about all the people and animals that died, especially because even though it said all the righteous were translated, I doubt that all the kids were taken up, so I’m sure they suffered through drowning. But again, Jesus has died every death and felt the terror that comes with that, and that has to include all the people of Noah’s time. And I think I mentioned this before but the IM says, “The flood was an act of love.” Kind of a hard sell initially, but the IM quotes John Taylor again as noting that the people of Noah’s time had become so wicked that their children were incapable of being righteous because there was only wickedness and abuse. If I think about it that way, the flood might have been depressing, but if all that was being done on earth was abuse and torture on others, then yeah, killing everyone might be merciful because then that pain wouldn’t have been perpetuated onto others. John Taylor also notes that those spirits who hadn’t been born yet, which is us, would have questioned God about his justice for allowing them “to be born of such parentage would entail upon themselves an infinite amount of trouble, misery, and sin.” We didn’t want to be subjected to that wickedness, so we would ask God what he was going to do about it, noting that “man has his free agency and cannot be coerced, and while he lives he has the power of perpetuating his species.” God can’t force people to raise their children right, and as long as people are alive, they will have children, so what’s the solution? Make them un-alive, I guess. He supposes that God would answer that he would first “send them my word, offering them deliverance from sin, and warning them of my justice, which shall certainly overtake them if they reject it, and I will destroy them from off the face of the earth, thus preventing their increase, and I will raise up another seed.” If we consider everything in the eternal perspective, we have to accept that all will be made right at some point. Think about all the people who are seemingly killed for nothing, or is just a waste of life. All soldiers who have died in war, people in natural disasters, murder victims, slaves, etc. There are so many people who have lived and died in a way that is less than ideal, and they all will be compensated for that, because we are in an eternal progression. Surely, those who died in the flood will be given an equal chance as everyone else to fully know and understand the truth of the gospel before they have to make their final decisions. Finally, there is an informative quote in the IM by John Taylor again as he answers the question if the flood was just and merciful by God. He answers, “Yes, it was just to those spirits that had not received their bodies, and it was just and merciful too to those people guilty of the iniquity. Why? Because by taking away their earthly existence he prevented them from entailing their sins upon their posterior and degenerating them, and also prevented them from committing further acts of wickedness.” I think it’s important to remember here that God stayed his hand in Sodom for the sake of a single righteous man, Lot, and I feel like he would have done the same here.