Fifty Shades of Grace Chapter 2

Chapter Two — Flood!

More and more people were born and pretty soon the earth was filling up with them. But there was nobody who was good and finally things got so bad that God felt sorry He had made any of them. He would have just destroyed them all, but then he would have broken his promise to Adam and Eve, and God cannot break his promises. So he chose one man—a man named Noah. Not because Noah was good. Noah did not deserve to be saved any more than the others, but God gave grace to Noah. He told Noah that he was going to destroy the world with a flood and that if he wanted to save his family he needed to build an ark. Noah had no idea what a flood was, but he took this pretty seriously. He and his sons built the ark while all their neighbors laughed and made fun of them. That didn’t bother Noah—well it did, but he kept working anyway. 

Noah preaching to people

Have you ever been in a town where a new museum or theater is built and when it finally opens up, the people all get in line to buy tickets so they can get inside? Well, when the ark was finished, there was a line waiting to get inside too. But there were no people in the line. Instead, all the animals were lining up two by two to get into the ark! Can you even imagine how silly that looked to all of Noah’s neighbors? “Honey, look—there are two lions going into Noah’s new house! Hahaha!” “Whoa—there are two hippos too!” On and on. If those neighbors lived today, they would be taking hundreds of pictures and posting them on Facebook and YouTube. Fortunately there was no carpet in the ark, so Mrs. Noah didn’t have to worry about you-know-what happening on the carpet. Eventually all the animals got safely into the ark. 

Animals come to the ark

When Noah and his family and all the animals were safely on the ark, God came and closed the door himself. He did that to keep everybody else out. When God closes a door, nobody can open it. Then it began to rain. That had never happened before and the people didn’t know what to think. It rained hard. Water started coming into everybody’s houses and people were standing on the chairs and tables. But the water rose higher and now everybody wanted to get on the ark. People were yelling and crying and trying to save themselves and their children and their babies and their pets, but there was nobody to help them. All of the adults and children and dogs and cats and horses and all the other animals died that day. All except Noah and his family, because they found God’s grace and God promised never to destroy the world with a flood again.

After the flood, the earth began to fill up with people again. I would like to tell you that this time it was different and that the people were all basically good. But that would be a lie. The people did not want to obey God. They wanted to build their own empire without God so they built the tower of Babel so it could reach up to the heavens. This time God did not destroy them, but he made them speak different languages so they couldn’t understand each other. That must have been really irritating. Imagine someone was telling you a story and then all of a sudden they blad pewped tyou hwred  rgbns wkljh bgnuid blah blah blah. See what I mean? It made the people so upset that they moved away from each other and settled in places with the people they could understand. They did not realize that God was giving them grace. 

People began to build cities and civilizations and nobody was looking for the one who would restore Eden anymore because nobody cared. They all wanted to build their own idea of Eden. They didn’t care if God was there or not. Nobody worshipped God anymore. They worshipped the sun and moon and stars and even things they made with their own hands. They did not want a God who could tell them what to do. So they did whatever they wanted. 

God could have ignored it, couldn’t he? NO! A thousand times NO! God could not ignore it because he had made a promise to Adam and Eve. He promised that someday one of their descendants would come to restore Eden and that God would live with man again. So God started all over again with one man. Maybe that's where people got the idea that the third time's a charm?  Well it wasn't a charm--it was God's plan all along. God chose Abram whom he later called Abraham to be the father of all those who would believe in his promise. Abraham would not be “the one” because he was drawn by God out of pagan lifestyle. He was an idol-worshipper before he followed God. Abraham did not do anything to earn God’s favor. It was God who gave him grace and helped him to believe. 

Evidence of God's Grace to Me: