Many years ago before it began to rain on the earth there was a man called Noah who loved and obeyed the LORD God. In those times gardens were watered not by rain falling from the sky but by a heavy mist that arose on the surface of the earth during the night. This allowed the trees, bushes, grass and gardens to be kept green and lush.

There were many people living on the earth at that time. Most of the people did not think much about God and there was much evil throughout the earth. Most of Earth's people thought only of themselves and did not care about their neighbor's needs. They worshipped and served strange gods and obeyed the impulses they received from Satan. There were many murders such as we have today in drive by killings and in horrible wars. There were also many riots with burning of buildings, looting and killing.

God was greatly disturbed by all of chaos and murders throughout the world. He despaired over the condition of the hearts of most of mankind. He knew that most of them never would turn their minds to thoughts of God and of His love for all people. God decided that they only way to remedy the situation was to destroy the systems of the Earth and to start a new system that was based on His ways.

God looked throughout the earth to find a man who would obey His commands and cause his family also to love and obey God. He found a man named Noah who did not participate in the evil ways of the people surrounding him. Noah knew how to say "No".

Noah focused his life on the worship of God and of service to the God of the Universe, The LORD God Most High. Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham and Japeth along with their wives also worshipped and obeyed the LORD God. They prayed to God daily and talked with God through prayer and meditation and lived their lives according to the wishes of God, giving to the poor and taking care of the sick people around them.

God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me. The earth is filled with violence through them. I will destroy them with the earth.

"Make an ark, a great boat of gopherwood. Make rooms inside the ark and cover it inside and outside with black tarry pitch so that water cannot enter inside to fill the ark and sink it. Build the ark four hundred fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide and forty-five feet high. Place a window one and one-half feet long in the top of the ark and place a door along the side of the ark. Divide the ark into three decks, each fifteen feet high.

" I am going to bring a great flood upon the earth that will destroy every living being upon the earth. The only people who will survive will be the people in the ark. Make sure that your three sons and their wives enter into the ark with you when I tell you to go. You need to preach to all the people around you while you are building the ark to invite them to enter into the ark with you so that they, too may be saved from the great flood which is coming on the earth."

"I will cause animals and birds to come to the ark to be saved along with you. Stock the ark with food and water for your family and for the animals who will be brought into the ark."

These instructions sounded strange to Noah. After all, it never before had rained upon the earth. To make it even more difficult to understand the place where Noah lived did not have any bodies of water large enough to float such a great ship that he had been ordered to build. Nevertheless Noah decided to obey the command of God. He and his sons began to build the ship just as God had instructed, even though no one before ever had seen such a structure.

For one hundred twenty years Noah and his sons labored diligently to construct the ark. They also began to preach to the people around them. They told them of the coming disaster. They told the people that one day it would begin to rain from the heavens and floods of water would cover the earth. Every breathing being would be destroyed in that great flood that was to come.

No one believed Noah and his sons. They laughed at them and called them crazy. They came to watch the construction of the ark and to hurl mocking jests at their expense. This great monstrosity of a boat and its builders were the laughing stock of the world.

"They think that it is going to rain", they laughed. "It never has rained before! Who ever heard of water's falling from the heavens! Noah and his family are all crazy as loons!"

After one hundred twenty years of labor in the midst of mockery and of being ostracized and viewed as being stark-raving mad, Noah and his sons completed their work.

Then the LORD God said to Noah, "Come into the ark, you and all of your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation of evil people. Take with you seven each of every animal that I have allowed you to eat and a male and female of the animals you are not supposed to eat. Take with you seven each of the birds of the air so that these animals may be preserved during the great flood that I am sending upon the earth. After seven days I will start the rain and everything on the face of the earth will be destroyed in the flood."

Noah obeyed the LORD God and with his family and the animals and birds that God has specified went into the ark. The door of the ark was left open for seven days so that anyone else who wished to join them in the ark could enter.

No one else would enter the ark. The people outside began to laugh loudly at the people inside the ark. "You really are out of your minds", they shouted. "How could you possibly make such fools of yourselves, going into a great boat in the middle of a pasture field, far away from the ocean. Your ark is the most insane thing we ever have seen!"

Suddenly, after seven days the door to the ark was banged shut. No one else could enter the ark. Then it began to rain. This never had happened on earth before. In addition water from inside the earth began to spurt up onto the land so that the earth was covered with deep waters. The rain continued for forty days and night in such an inundation that no life on earth's surface could survive. All of the people and animals that had walked upon the earth died. Only Noah, his wife and his sons and their wives survived, along with the animals and birds inside the ark which floated upon the water. They ate the food and drank the water that were stored in the ark.

After the waters had reached their highest level God sent a strong wind to blow upon the earth to cause the water to evaporate into clouds and to settle into the depths of the earth called oceans.

One hundred fifty days after the flood began the bottom of the ark came to rest on the top of a mountain now called Ararat which is near the border of what is now Russia and Turkey.

Forty days after landing Noah opened the window and sent out a raven and a dove to search for a place to rest. The dove could not find dry land to rest and so returned to the ark where Noah brought her back into the ark.

Seven days later Noah again let the dove out of the window. This time the dove flew back to the ark with a twig with olive leaves in her beak.

Noah and his sons then removed the covering of the ark and saw that the earth indeed had dried. He and his wife, their sons with their wives stepped out of the ark, back onto dry ground. They, of all of the people of the earth had been saved. A new generation of people would be started from them and their children. All of the future people on the earth would be their descendants, as we are today.

The first thing that Noah and his family did was to build an altar and made sacrifices in thanksgiving to the LORD God.

God was pleased with the sacrifices made to him, and God made a promise, "I will never again curse the ground for man's sake and I will never again destroy every living thing by flood as I have done this time.While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer and day and night shall not cease."

Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The sign that I have made a covenant between you and me for all future generations is My rainbow in the cloud. When I see a rainbow in the cloud I shall be reminded of my covenant with you forever."

During His ministry on Earth Jesus talked about Noah. He warned that the time would come when the hearts of people again would become evil even as the people in Noah's time were extremely evil. Jesus warned that when the hearts of mankind became as evil as they were in the days of Noah God would allow punishment to come upon the earth and that Jesus would return to Earth to save the righteous people from the punishment to come.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:37-39, "...as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."

It is important that our thoughts and actions be acceptable to the LORD God so that we shall be saved when the LORD Jesus Christ returns to establish His Kingdom on the Earth. We need to have our sins forgiven, because all of us have committed sins. We can receive forgiveness of our sins if we accept the sacrifice for sins that God has provided.

To be forgiven we need only to confess to God that we have sinned, or have failed to obey the commandments of God, and then believe that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross was done for us, for me. This makes Jesus our Savior and LORD. This removes all sins from our lives and makes us perfect before God. We never again will have to answer to God for those past sins.

It is important after that to obey God's way of life and to continue to ask forgiveness if for some reason we fail to obey, trusting that God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ will forgive as we confess. Nevertheless it is important to invite Jesus into our hearts to help us to live our lives just like Him because He loves us and we love Jesus.