Cleansing the Earth

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This is Day 5 of my 40 day Lenten Blog.

Following the fall of man--when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit--God exiled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and set an angel with a flaming sword to guard its entrance. No longer able to eat freely from the trees of the garden, Adam was forced to work the land and grow food by the sweat of his brow. And through great pain Eve gave birth to children. Their first child they named Cain and their second they called Abel.

When they grew into manhood Cain farmed the ground while his younger brother Abel kept sheep. Both would give sacrifices to the Lord of their harvest and animals. But the Lord favored Abel's sacrifice more as he gave his best to God, while Cain just gave the minimum, the ordinary.

God gives us everything, EVERYTHING, and He deserves nothing less from us. We should always give Him our best. When we are slothful, just going through the motions and not really giving God our all, we are being selfish and sin begins to creep in. So it was with Cain. God even warned him of this and warned him not to become jealous of the favor He had shown Cain's younger brother Able, but to try harder and give his best to the Lord.

But instead of working harder, Cain allowed his jealously to grow greater and greater until it raged so hotly that he murdered his brother Abel. This was the world's first murder and Abel's blood called out to the Lord from the ground.

As punishment, God dried up the soil to Cain so that he could no longer grow crops and sent him to wander the Earth as a fugitive, hidden from the face of God. Cain eventually married and built a city which he named after his son Enoch. Cain's decedents were many and their city grew and they were proficient at many tools and trades.

Meanwhile, Adam and Eve had another son whom they called Seth. Seth had a descendent named Noah.

As the population of the Earth grew, the fallen angels who inhabited the world desired the beautiful daughters of men and had children with them. These children were powerful giants who ignored the goodness of God and sought to build kingdoms for their own glory where all manner of wickedness would take root.

Influenced by the devil and ruled by sons of demons, humanity grew away from the light of God and sank deeper and deeper into darkness and evil. God watched with sadness His once beautiful creation and the horror of wickedness that existed upon it. And he vowed to cleanse the Earth, to wash the wickedness away with water.

But God did not want to destroy all of humanity. They were the delight of His creation after all. But there were none that were not completely wicked and corrupted by the demons. None, that is except for Seth's descendant Noah. Thus, the Lord chose to save Noah and his family alone from the great flood with which He was going to cleanse the face of the Earth.

Noah was instructed to build a giant boat which was called an ark. God gave him very specific instructions, as the boat would not only have to hold Noah and his son's and their families, but animals as well. When the ark was completed and Noah and his family and animals of every kind aboard, God sent the rains, and He opened up the springs from beneath the ground. It rained for forty days until it finally stopped when the whole of the Earth was covered in water and everything and everyone was washed away. All but Noah and his family and the animals with them, for the ark carried them safely through the storm.

For one hundred and fifty days the waters remained on the Earth, but when they finally dried up the Lord sent Noah and his family forth from the ark. And Noah built an altar to God, thanking Him and praising Him for saving Noah and his family.

And God made a covenant with Noah that He would never again destroy all of the creatures of the Earth. As long as the Earth existed, God promised that life would go on. As a sign of His covenant the Lord set a bow in the sky. And He blessed Noah and Noah's sons and they were very fruitful and multiplied.

As the numbers of men grew they sought to glorify their own magnificence as masters of the Earth and built a grand city called Babel with a tower that stretched up high into the heavens. They built this city and tower to demonstrate the greatness of man. Like Lucifer, men sought to rule in great thrones, to become gods themselves. To humble them, God knocked down their tower and confused their language, scattering them across the face of the Earth.

People wandered the Earth for many generations. One in particular had caught the attention of God. A descendent of Noah named Abram settled in the land of Haran with his father and family. Abram was childless, but God willed that from him would spring a great nation who's number would be as many as the stars.

Next: As Numerous as the Stars

R.C. VanLandingham is a Catholic homeschool dad just trying to make it through this life and into the next! He has written a Christian children's fantasy series about a boy named Peter Puckett!