Christian Family Services Ministry

2-2-2024 – A Word to the Wise – The Flood was the first God-on-man combat encounter. The Lord challenged Satan’s perversion of His creation 1600 years after Adam and Eve left the Garden. Strategies and tactics of God and the adversary are apparent. The adversary used deceit, intermarriage, and murder to pervert God’s creation. The precursors to the flood occurred in the activity of Satan through Cain and his descendants. God uses reconnaissance, warning, and unconditional warfare to challenge the adversary.

Satan challenged Eve. The adversary used the central desire placed in woman by God—desire for wisdom—to entice her into disobedience. Satan then inspired Cain to murder his brother, Abel.

Tactically, Satan realized that his destroyer would come from man’s seed (Genesis 3:15). The seed had to be either Cain or Able. God would not use Satan’s recruit, Cain. Thus, Abel’s death would end the linage through which Satan’s destroyer could come—or so the adversary thought.

In the meantime, Satan was at work inspiring rebellion and murder in the heart of all mankind in order to establish his seed (Genesis 6:5). To give the devil his due, he is successful at winning the hearts of men.

For sixteen hundred years following creation, Satan stirred up in the hearts of men rebellion against God leading to the vilest of behaviors. Finally, when the evil population numbered in excess of seven billion and the Godly population numbered eight, God acted.

God declares war

Reconnaissance on earth revealed that, “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. God was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart” (Genesis 6:5-6).

The Lord’s war on mankind was a surprise for the demons. Perhaps they expected a rehash of the heavenly battle so many years before when a third of the angels defecting with Satan were beaten in battle and hurled down from heaven. The demons expected an earthly battlefield—but not the whole earth. (Revelation 12:7-9).

Regardless, the battle began with reconnaissance having determined the extent and nature of man’s rebellion. “Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart. Yahweh said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground; man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them” (Genesis 6:5ff).

God wanted to warn mankind, and he used Noah to preach warnings to his generation for a hundred years. However, God’s long-suffering came to an end.

The ark completed; the Lord ordered his souls to take cover along with a protected portion of His creation (Genesis 7:13ff). The door to the ark was sealed shut. The demons roared with laughter. Seven days later, the attack began. Laugher turned to screams of terror. God used nature to create havoc. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and rain continued for forty days and forty nights. The whole earth groaned under the weight of combat. Every person died except the eight souls in the ark. Do not be deceived, God conducts unconditional warfare.

The Flood reveals important patterns in divine warfare. The goal of warfare is to strike terror in the hearts of man and demons. God fulfilled His goal. Terror was so intense among the survivors that knowledge of the flood passed down to every generation. Historically, every major ancient civilization has a flood narrative transmitted to successive generations.