"We've got to talk," a still small voice boomed inside Noah's head.

"What is it Lord?" Noah asked.

"Meet Me in the usual place," the voice continued. So Noah dropped what he was doing and hurried to the vineyard where, so often, he and the Lord enjoyed sweet fellowship.

Noah spoke first. "Have you noticed how bad things are getting, violence and bloodshed everywhere."

"I'm sorry I ever made man." God sighed. "I've decided to cleanse the earth and start all over."  Noah's gasped. God had never talked like that before.

"What can I do?" Noah shrugged. It's those half-breed sons of the Nephalim. They're nothing but trouble, going about their fathers' business, taking everything they want, and killing everyone that gets in the way. People are so terrified that everyone is killing everyone else out of self-defense. You've got to do something!"

"Were the Nephalim here when Cain murdered Abel?  Is  man not responsible for his own violence?  I do have a plan; however, and you have a part in it.  I want you to build a houseboat big enough for your family and a pair of each kind of animal;" God continued, "here, I already made a blueprint."

Noah groaned as he studied the pictures. "A boat like that would take a hundred years to build and there isn't a lake within a hundred miles. Why me anyway?  I'm nobody in the scheme of things."

"I like your attitude," the Lord smiled, "besides, you're the only one that takes the time to listen to Me anymore and you are a good builder."

"But a houseboat?"

"In the beginning I put a canopy of moisture above the air, to protect the earth, and maintain a uniform climate.  Now it's all coming down, and the water under the ground is coming up. There will be water enough to destroy every living thing. Only those in the houseboat will survive."

Noah trembled. He knew God wasn't given to careless talk and the implications of what He said were overwhelming.   Everyone Noah knew was going to die if they didn't believe and repent.   At that moment he couldn't think of a single person who might believe and repent. It was the end of the world, as he knew it.

"I'll be with you, Noah.  You did a good job with your kids, and your family will help. We will put on a show for the whole world to see. Yes, they will laugh and give us a hard time, but when My judgements come they won't be able to say they were not warned."

It was the greatest show on earth, and the talk of the town! A three-story houseboat with fifteen-foot ceilings and hundreds of stalls on each deck was unheard of in those days, especially this far inland, and who ever heard of a flood? It never even rained. 

People came from near and far over 100 years, and Noah preached repentance to everyone who came. Some people even put up tents and built inns for those who wanted to stay awhile and study the phenomenon.

Finally the boat was finished and stocked with all kinds of dried food and grain. Everyone came out to watch as  animals filed into the houseboat two by two.

"It's a floating zoo!" someone cried, and everyone laughed.

At last Noah and his family boarded and God shut the door. Then God made a little adjustment in the atmospheric pressure and the water started pouring down. Earthquakes cracked the ground and water came gushing up. People were swept away before they knew what happened.

The storm lasted for 40 days but the Noah family was cooped up in that floating zoo for nearly a year. No one complained because they were happy to be alive, but they must have been tired of it. Finally the boat came rest on a an inactive volcano in the Ararat mountains in Turkey.

What do you think was the first thing Noah did when he got off the boat? He offered a sacrifice to God and worshipped.  God was pleased and blessed the Noah family.

Later Noah planted a vineyard, made wine, and got drunk. It caused a lot of trouble for his grandson, Canaan, but that's another story.

God promised to never again destroy the world with water.  He put a rainbow in the sky as a symbol of that promise, but the earth's protective canopy was gone, and man's life span was shortened. Before the flood an average life span was nine hundred years. After the flood the average life span was shortened to seventy.

The oldest man mentioned in the Bible was Methuselah, at 969 years, and he died in the flood. Noah died at the ripe old age of 950 and left the world to his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japeth.