#25 "Inside" Genesis 8

Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the 150 days the waters decreased. Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. Genesis 8: 1-5 NKJV

At the end of the 40 days God keeps His promise to Noah and starts the process of returning the flood waters to the sky by evaporation, and to the earths crust and mantle. Noah and his family were in the ark much longer than 40 days. This was no luxury cruise either; they were inside this box with all these animals and their excrement for a period lasting over a year. It is hard to imagine what such a trip would be like. They were safe though, during the worst catastrophe our world has yet to know. In the ark, riding high above the most unimaginable and extreme forces, they are kept atop the very cushion that is now crushing and reshaping our planet. One year inside a box, a box that must have seemed like hell to its occupants, they exist. They were use to sunny days, fresh air and the freedom to roam. This was no life I would want to live, and here it is only still the beginning. God has destroyed sinful man, and yet has saved mankind. It is His creation and at the mercy of His will, but he has chosen in this to show His mercy by sparing the lives of 8 people. It is far from finished though, because in saving mankind he has also saved sinful man. The ark will only save 8 and it will only save them in the physical world and allow the opportunity for man to exercise his free will once again. It is a testament to God's holiness, His Love, and the rebirth of the world after the flood will testify to the need of God's redemptive plan. 

"And when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place, the tabernacle of meeting, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat. Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness." Leviticus 16: 20 - 22 NKJV