The world's greatest natural disaster

Why did it happen?

All land-dwelling animals, including perhaps as many as a billion human beings, perished in the cataclysm ('flood' is a weaker and somewhat imprecise translation of the Hebrew). They were not simply killed; according to the biblical record they were 'blotted out', leaving no trace. It was the greatest natural disaster of all time.

God decided to destroy the earth because he was sickened by man's wickedness - by the evil thoughts and actions of the one kind of creature who was to reflect his own nature, having been made 'in his image'. God does not change. The rest of biblical history shows that God continues to require that man live up to this original purpose.

The story of the cataclysm is a foreshadowing of the similarly global judgement yet to come. 'As it was in the days of Noah,' Jesus warned, 'so it will be with the coming of the Son of Man.' The 'Son of Man' (or 'Son of Adam' since 'Adam' meant 'Man'), was the title by which Jesus referred to himself. The gospel tells us how, through his atonement, we may be saved from the wrath of God, whether that be the penalty of death to which every individual is subject, or the day when he will return to cleanse and restore a world that has once again been polluted.

Whereas the first purgation was by water, the second will be by 'fire'. Until recently we did not know what it meant for the 'windows of heaven' to be opened, as on the first day of the cataclysm. Now we do, for asteroids hitting the earth have become a familiar concept, and space programs have revealed that at the end of the Hadean - corresponding to the period immediately before the cataclysm - they hit the planet in huge numbers. At that time they were accompanied by torrents of extraterrestrial water. In the time to come, many of the asteroids still existing in near-Earth orbits will tear through the atmosphere as balls of fire.

Passing on what he had learned from his master, the apostle Peter warned in the same vein: 'By the same word that caused the world to be deluged with water, the heavens and earth now existing have been stored up for fire, until the day of judgement and the destruction of everything ungodly.' That day may be nearer than we think. People may mock, just as they did when they saw the ark, but no one should suppose that eating and drinking and the other daily routines of living will go on forever.