(Genesis) Genesis 6:17-22

Now, God says, And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life from under heaven, and everything that is in the earth shall die. Now God is bringing the judgment upon the earth, upon animal and bird and man. But with thee, God says, will I establish my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.

And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort, shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee. They shall be male and female, of fowls after their kind, the cattle after their kind. And again, you must understand by this time, one cow would represent the entire cow family, the Holsteins, and the Jerseys, and the Guernseys, and all the others.

And then, every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee to keep them alive. Now that is something else that we need to pay attention to. It's repeated again in the next chapter, that Noah wasn't a frank buck who went out and bring them back alive.

He wasn't a big game hunter. He didn't have to go after these animals. They came to him.

We're told that, and we'll see in the next chapter they did come to him. They'll come to you. Now why would they? Animals in danger will do that.

I remember the first time that we went into Yosemite Valley when our daughter was just a little thing and she'd never seen snow before. And we put her down in the snow and she began to whimper, but she quit when she looked over and saw a little deer. Well, actually, I believe we could have gone over and petted that little deer, but we didn't try it because I knew something about the danger of them turning on you and being able to kick and kill an individual, so we didn't approach them any closer.

But I mentioned that to the ranger. He laughed. He said, yes, there's snow up in the high Sierras right now, and when there's snow up there and there's danger, they come down here and as tame as any animal could possibly be.

But the minute that the snows melt and it becomes spring, he says they spring out of this area and you couldn't get in a country mile of any of them. Why? Well, because when an animal is in danger, it'll come. Now at the time of the flood, I don't think Noah had any problem at all.

I think they all came to him. Now in verse 21, take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shall gather it to thee, and it shall be for food for thee and for them. Now he used to do something very practical.

It took a lot of hay in the ark to feed these animals. Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded him, so did he. Now somebody's going to say, but some of those animals ate meat.

They'd eat each other. I don't think so. You say, why? Well, up to the time of the flood, apparently both man and animals were not flesh eating.

They just didn't eat flesh. No carnivorous animals, I assume. We are told of a day in the millennium when the lion and the lamb will lie down together and the lion's going to eat straw like an ox.

And that could certainly come. That probably was the original state of the animal.