September 14, 2024
Last time we discussed how quickly sin took root in the pre-flood world. There seemed to be no hope for humanity. However, in the midst of this sad and sorry situation, we are given the brief genealogy of Noah.
Genesis 6:9-10 - …. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Noah was singled out by 3 characteristics:
• He was “righteous” - Noah was in a right relationship with God. He was righteous because he put his faith in God, which was demonstrated by his obedience:
o Hebrews 11:7 - It was by faith that Noah built an ark to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about something that had never happened before. By his faith he condemned the rest of the world and was made right in God's sight.
• He was “blameless in his generation” - Noah wasn’t sinless, but he lived his life in accordance with God’s law.
• He “walked with God” - Noah loved God, worshiped God, served God, and walked in the same direction as God.
Genesis 6:11-22 - Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways…
The verdict was dire. The very fact that the word, “corrupt” appears 3 times in one sentence gives us a pretty good idea of the situation. The perfect system God had created was broken. The corruption of humanity – which extended to the earth itself – was universal and would require a universal response:
… So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth...
Many focus on the flood as an out of context over reaction on the part of God. That somehow His response is out of proportion to the mindset, behavior and choices of humans. However, I would argue that God was particularly longsuffering.
Within 10 generations (9 of which Adam was still alive) there had been such a decline that scripture pointedly states, “The thoughts and intentions of man were only evil continually.” EVIL CONTINUALLY!
God grieved over His creation and determined to end the spread of sin - AND YET - he provided a way out…. A boat the size of 1 ½ football fields.
…Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks...
450 feet x 75 feet = 33,750 square feet x 3 floors = 101,250 square feet of space on the ark.
… I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark -- you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them." Noah did everything as God commanded him.
God gave humanity PLENTY of time to stop and turn and come back to Him, but finally, the day came when the LORD said to Noah, "Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I consider you alone to be righteous. Take along seven pairs of each animal that I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others. Then select seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that every kind of living creature will survive the flood. One week from today I will begin forty days and forty nights of rain. And I will wipe from the earth all the living things I have created." So Noah did exactly as the LORD had commanded him. (7:1-5)
Here God expanded or refined his command regarding the animals. There should be more clean animals (7 pairs – that were approved for sacrifice and eating) than unclean animals (1 pair) as well as 7 pairs of every kind of bird.
Why didn’t God just state that in the beginning? No idea. Lap Question!!
Noah and his family went into the ark. The animals came to Noah and went into the ark. God shut the door. For 1 week nothing happened…. THEN:
Genesis 7:11-12, 17-24 - In the 600th year of Noah's life, on the 17th day of the 2nd month -- on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights…… 17 For 40 days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased, they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. Every living thing that moved on the earth perished-- birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. The waters flooded the earth for 150 days.
As the earth flooded, the ark floated around, going wherever the wind and waves carried it.
Genesis 8:1-20 - But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible. After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry. Then God said to Noah, "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you -- the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground -- so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it." So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds -- everything that moves on the earth -- came out of the ark, one kind after another. Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.
Again God made a covenant with Noah that was universal, unilateral and unconditional - it applied to believer and non-believer alike “never again will I destroy the entire earth with a flood,” and then God ratified His covenant with a rainbow.
The rainbow is a visible and constant reminder of the covenant God made with humanity all those years ago and of the grace and mercy he extends even to those who do not acknowledge Him. And Satan has worked very hard to obliterate that covenant promise from the minds of humans……
Noah lived another 350 years finally dying at the ripe old age of 950.
There was over 100,000 square feet of space on the ark, yet only 8 people survived the flood. Noah and his family were saved simply because they got on the boat. It’s not rocket science. It’s not complicated. There was no entrance exam. God said get on the boat and they got on. No doubt it required faith to climb the gang-plank, but no more than was required to build the ark in the first place. For 120 years God provided all the information necessary for survival. A flood is coming BUT I have prepared a way of escape. I have no doubt that anyone who chose to enter the ark would have been welcomed.
Luke 17:26 says: “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.”
The world has been given warning after warning and, just as God provided a way of escape for pre-flood humanity, He has provided a way of escape for anyone who will put their faith in Him - He has provided Jesus.
Just GET ON the boat!!
