Is Genesis History?Sample

Lesson 7: Why are Creation and the Flood So Important? (Is Genesis History) 

Why are Creation and the Flood so Important?

I have a good friend who, at age 50, decided to go to seminary to become a pastor.  He’s worked on a fishing trawler in the Atlantic, starred in an improv comedy series, been a barista at a coffeehouse, and played drums professionally.  He can relate to anybody from any background.  

He called me the other day to say he’d been studying the Final Judgment in one of his classes.  The process of reading everything the Bible says about what will happen then completely overwhelmed him.  A burly guy, he cried like a baby for days.   

He said what moved him was the realization that Judgment was really going to happen to real people.  His words convicted me.  I knew what Jesus, Paul, and Peter said about these things, but I wasn’t thinking about it as a real event that will actually happen in history.

Yet that’s exactly what Peter is saying at the end of his second letter.  He compares the Final Judgment to two other events in history that actually happened: the Creation and the Flood.  They were real, so the Judgment will be real.

It appears, however, that in the first-century AD, there were people who rejected Genesis as history.  Peter explains that not only were they deliberately overlooking these events, they were mocking them.  This sounds familiar to my modern ears.

Although Peter has little patience with this, he goes on to say that God is exercising great patience with everyone.  He is patient because He is giving people time to repent, just as He did in the days of Noah.

But His patience won’t last forever.  Although a thousand years may seem long to us, it is as a day to God.  Peter warns that when the end does come, many will have interpreted the long span as a sign God is not coming, rather than as time to repent.

Jesus also draws a parallel between these two great judgments.  Just as the Flood happened in history, so, too, will the Final Judgment.

This is why it is so important to understand that Genesis is history.  Genesis is the key to unlocking everything that has happened, and everything that will happen.  

Peter urges us to remember that history before the next judgment comes.  

Reflection:

Have you repented to Christ and asked Him to save you from the coming Judgment?