Genesis 6:17-22

I, even I, do bring the flood of waters on this earth, to destroy all flesh having the breath of life from under the sky. Everything that is in the earth will die. But I will establish my covenant with you. You shall come into the ship, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. Of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ship, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of the livestock after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come to you, to keep them alive. Take with you of all food that is eaten, and gather it to yourself; and it will be for food for you, and for them.” Thus Noah did. According to all that God commanded him, so he did.

God decided to destroy “all flesh having the breath of life from under the sky.” Some have tried to argue that the flood of Noah’s day was local one, but you would have to avoid the natural meaning of what is written here. It clearly says that “everything that is in the earth will die.” Even as bad as this punishment was against the evil of the world, God made a covenant with Noah. God would save Noah and his family’s lives as well as all of the living things that went into the ship with them. God even made provision for re-population of the earth by saying that male and female of each kind of animal would be on the ship. Everyone who went onto the ship would be saved.

The Bible says that Noah was a kind of symbol of the time we are in today.

1 Peter 3:20b-22 :

God waited patiently in the days of Noah, while the ship was being built. In it, few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you—not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.

Our world is sinful all the way through too and it is about to be destroyed by God. God has made a way for mankind to come to him if they are willing. Everyone who trusts in Jesus to save them, will be saved from this destruction. Everyone who doesn’t will be lost.

2 Peter 2:4-5 :

For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and didn’t spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly;