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Jehovah wants His worshippers to show their faith, through their obedience: their works. That behavior on God’s part is revealed all throughout the Scriptures. And then, when God rewards the doer, this results in their faith increasing! When you work hard for something, it usually makes that ‘something’ more valuable to you.
Hey, hope you're doing well.
I apologize for not seeing this sooner, I actually forgot about this thread, and apparently overlooked the notification alerting me to your response.
He was apparently not able to control his human creations, which are also a member of the animal kingdom. And such a large wooden vessel, whether a box or a ship, would be unseaworthy. Notice that the "ark replica" was built on dry land and is actually a building which rests on a foundation.The jury seems to be out on this question among those who identify as Christians.....so was the flood a real event or was it just a dramatized myth with a message?
God commanded Noah: “Make for yourself an ark out of wood of a resinous tree.”—Genesis 6:14.
Some might be familiar with children's storybook illustrations like this...
But what is exactly is an ark?
This ark was not a ship, as some assume. It had neither bow nor stern, keel nor rudder—no bends or curves. It was basically a great chest, or box.
More like this....
God gave Noah the precise dimensions of the ark, some details regarding its design, and directions to coat it inside and out with tar. And he told Noah why: “Here I am bringing the deluge of waters upon the earth . . . Everything that is in the earth will expire.” However, Jehovah gave this direction to Noah: “You must go into the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.” Noah was also to bring representatives of all kinds of animals. Only those aboard the ark could survive the coming Deluge!—Genesis 6:17-20.
Have we ever stopped to imagine the size of this vessel?
This replica built to Biblical specifications gives us some idea....
Noah faced a gigantic task. This ark was to be enormous—some 437 feet (133 m) long, 73 feet (22 m) wide, and 44 feet (13 m) tall. It was far larger than the largest seagoing wooden ships built even in modern times. Did Noah back off from this assignment, complain about its challenges, or alter the details to make it easier on himself? The Bible answers: “Noah proceeded to do according to all that God had commanded him. He did just so.”—Genesis 6:22.
The work took decades, perhaps 40 to 50 years. There were trees to fell, logs to haul, and beams to hew, shape, and join. The ark was to have three stories, or decks, a number of compartments, and a door in the side. Evidently, there were windows along the top, as well as a roof that likely peaked in the middle with a slight pitch so that water would run off.—Genesis 6:14-16.
On completion of this assignment God told Noah....“Go, you and all your household, into the ark.” At the same time, God told Noah to take all the varieties of animals into the ark—by sevens in the case of the clean ones, fit for sacrificial use, and the rest by twos.—Genesis 7:1-3.
It is assumed by many that just two of every animas that God brought to Noah went on board the ark, but animals designated as "clean" (i.e. suitable for sacrifice and later for food) were taken in by sevens. That was three breeding pairs and one for sacrifice (which is what Noah did upon disembarking from the ark to thank his God for preserving his family alive through such a cataclysmic event.)
It must have been an unforgettable sight. From the horizon they streamed in by the hundreds—walking, flying, crawling, waddling, lumbering—all in a dizzying variety of sizes, shapes, and dispositions. We need not imagine poor Noah trying to corral, wrangle, or somehow cajole all those wild animals into entering the confined space of the ark. The account says that “they went in . . . to Noah inside the ark.”—Genesis 7:9.
And since dinosaurs were long extinct before man came on the scene, there were no dinosaurs on the ark.
Some skeptics might ask: ‘How could such a thing happen? And how could all those animals coexist peacefully in a confined space?’ Consider this: Is it really beyond the power of the Creator of the universe to control his animal creations, even render them tame and docile if needed? Remember, Jehovah is the God who parted the Red Sea and made the sun stand still. Could he not carry out every event described in Noah’s account?
Excerpts from 2013 WATCHTOWER. Pics from Google
Disobedience does not require either of those things. There is something called trust....and that is what they should have displayed towards their Creator. They, as beings without defect, "made in God's image", knew what they were doing and chose to disobey a direct command, the only one with the death penalty attached to it. The flaw was in not adhering to the rules thinking that somehow the penalty didn't apply. The devil is a master deceiver and chose the less experienced of the two. She believed him when he said they wouldn't die. But why?
It boils down to understanding the issues raised in Eden. A rebel spirit made claims and accusations about the Creator and his motives to the woman and she believed him. When she tried to rope her husband into the act, he could have declined, but chose instead to throw in his lot with her. "Divide and conquer" works for the devil and has for millennia. Adam was the real target of his actions.
The devil's claims basically made God out to be a liar and keeping something from his children that they had a right to know and experience.
Was that true? Did God lie about the penalty? Would they die "on the day" that they ate from that fruit?
Was the Creator the rightful Sovereign over all his intelligent creation both here on earth and in heaven? Does he have the right to set reasonable limits to the freedom that he granted them?
Does he have the right to keep something to himself if it means protection?
Would a knowledge of good and evil benefit mankind in any way?
There was only one way to find out....not that God didn't know what the outcome would inevitably be, but that humans would have to experience the consequences of the own actions and "reap what they had sown". God stepped out of the picture and allowed the rebellious humans and the angels to learn the hard lessons of independent thinking in opposition to their Maker. God only intervened when his purpose was threatened in some way. His intervention was only to keep his purpose on track. Man would be allowed to try and rule himself without God intervening and see if the devil's claims turned out to be true.
If God were to lessen the impact of their actions, then he would be counteracting the very reason for allowing humans to see the folly of following their own ideas under the influence of the devil behind the scenes. (1 John 5:19) This object lesson will never be forgotten and will form the basis to judge any rebel in the future, both in heaven and on earth. As long as free will exists, then it can be exercised in a wrong way. We have seen where man's governance has taken us....look at the state of the world! What have we learned?