Noah and the Flood (2)
Pastor Beau DiFrenna
Through the Bible • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 3 viewsGod’s judgment is certain, His salvation is secure, and the time to respond is now.
Notes
Transcript
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis Ch. 7.
Have you ever been somewhere where there was a last call… and you missed it?
You’re running for the school bus… And it pulls away right as you get there.
You’re trying to get on a ride at a theme park… And they close the gate right before you reach it.
You’re at the airport… They say ‘Final boarding call for American Airlines flight 5603 heading to Indianapolis ’… and the door shuts.
(Picture of Airplane): TELL FAMILY VACATION STORY
There’s a moment in all those situations where everything changes—the door is open… and then it’s not.
In Genesis 7, God gives Noah a command: ‘Go into the ark…’ And just a few verses later… the door closes.
And once that door closed… no one else was getting in.
Genesis 6 gives us very few details about the process of building the ark. As a matter of fact, there is no mention of what the people in Noah’s day thought or of the construction challenges and cost associated that typically accompany such a massive project. God tells Noah to build an ark, and he does. In that regard, it is similar to the creation account of Genesis 1, God spoke the Word and it was so.
Now, in Genesis 7, it is time to gather the animals and enter the completed ark, the judgment rains are about to fall. The lives of Noah and his family depend upon their trusting in God’s Word and obediently entering the ark, while believing that God’s promise to protect them will keep them safe. So it transpires: judgment falls upon the world around them, but they are kept safe in the midst of the storm, just as God has promised. God judges the wicked while preserving the lives of those who trust in Him.
Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go [Come] into the ark, you and all your household…
I don’t care for the word “Go” in the ESV. I prefer “Come” as it appears in the NKJV and others because that is the predominate use the of the Hebrew word in Genesis… It most accurately means “enter.” But, I just like “Come” better, also because it carries with it the idea that God is inviting Noah. Rather than telling him to go, i.e. an instruction for Noah to obey. “Come” is still an instruction but with more of an invitational tone. That is, come into the ark… Come into God’s means of safety and deliverance.
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.
Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord.
Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.
I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate,
and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.
For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.”
And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.
Noah does not try to calculate the timing of God’s coming judgment, let’s say, by watching for signs. No, instead, God tells him when it is time to enter the ark and exactly how the judgment will transpire.
Noah is also instructed to take his household with him. His family members are included in this act of salvation explicitly on the basis of Noah’s by-faith righteousness, not their own.
The Hebrew is emphatic: “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you [singular] are righteous” (7:1). God’s “seeing” of Noah’s righteousness is the equivalent of His “reckoning” Abraham to be righteous in 15:6. It also contrasts with God’s “seeing” the extensive wickedness of the world in which Noah lives.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
Noah’s righteousness not only serves as the foundation for his family’s salvation but also underlines the condemnation of the rest of his generation for its wickedness. Eventually, many weeks from now, in our continued study of Genesis, we will come to a man named Lot. I mention him now because when Lot is told to flee from the judgment coming upon Sodom, he finds it hard to persuade his household to join him (Gen. 19:12-14), but here in Genesis 7 Noah has no difficulties in recruiting his family for this much more challenging mission.
Noah had earlier been told to gather one pair of every kind of animal and bird (Gen. 6:19); God now adds the stipulation that seven pairs of clean animals must be brought along, along with seven pairs of birds (Gen. 7:2-3).
The reason for this is not explicitly stated, but presumably it is to allow for the possibility of offering sacrifices after the flood without wiping out an entire species in the process. Now, at the same time, this does not necessarily require Noah to be aware of the full Levitical laws of clean and unclean animals (cf. Leviticus 11); he simply needs to be aware of which animals might legitimately be offered as sacrifices and which are not “kosher” for that purpose.
The number seven is prominent in the flood account, echoing the seven days of the original creation (Gen. 1:1-2:3). In addition to the seven pairs of clean animals and birds, there is a seven-day delay before the rain comes (7:4, 10) in order for the collection process to be completed.
Another sacred number, forty, is also prominent in the forty days and nights during which the rain falls, wiping out every living creature from the face of the earth (v. 4).
The period of forty days if often associated with periods of testing and trial in the Bible—for example, Moses’ forty days and nights at Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:18 “Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.” ), the spies’ forty days in the Promised Land (Numbers 13:25 “At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land.” ), Goliath’s taunting Israel for forty days (1 Samuel 17:16 “For forty days the Philistine came forward and took his stand, morning and evening.”), and Jesus’ testing in the wilderness for forty days (Luke 4:2 “for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.”).
Once again we are informed explicitly of Noah’s obedience to the Lord’s commands, underlining his righteousness (Gen. 7:5).
Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth.
And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood.
Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground,
two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.
And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.
And it was so: having heard God’s Word announcing to Noah what will happen, we see these same events unfolding exactly as God had said. The repetition may seem cumbersome to us as contemporary readers, but it drives home the point effectively.
This is no random or out of control process that God has unleashed (unlike the flood brought about by the gods in the Gilgamesh epic) but rather a measured and controlled process of judgment. What God has created, He has the power and the authority to destroy (v. 4; cf. Jer. 18:4).
And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.
Noah follows the Lord’s instructions with precision, and, when the appointed day of judgment arrives, so too does the flood.
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark,
they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature.
They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.
And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in.
For a third time we hear more or less the same facts being related, each time with a little more detail, stressing just how precisely the events follow the divinely ordained pattern.
The date of the flood, the seventeenth day of the second month (Gen. 7:11), is significant precisely for its insignificance: it is not the day of any major festival or celebration. There is no ultimatum given to humanity that slowly ticks down to zero; rather, at a moment no one anticipates… time finally runs out for this evil generation and the day of God’s terrible judgment begins.
The implications for the Lord’s future judgments are unmistakable: no one knows the hour of the day (or the month or the year) of the end of all things.
The source of the water is vividly described in terms of an opening of the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven (v. 11). In other words, the waters that had been separated and ordered by God on days two and three of creation in order to form the dry land are now reunited, so that the dry land once again disappears into the great deep.
The hospitable world that the Lord built for man returns to a wilderness state, “without form and void” (cf. 1:2). For three chapters humanity has been sinfully striving to erase the lines of separation God had drawn; it is therefore a fitting judgment when the Lord removes the lines of separation upon which life itself rests.
From an Israelite perspective there would be a certain irony in the Lord’s bringing destruction by opening wide the windows of heaven and pouring out rain, since in Israel the problem was usually the reverse—a drought caused by the Lord’s closing the windows of heaven in judgment upon Israel (cf. Dt. 11:17; Mal. 3:10).
The Lord is sovereign over the rain as means both of blessing and of curse, a theme underlined by the use of the phrase “to rain down”, which can be used equally of curse or of blessing (curse: Gen. 19:24; blessing: Ex. 16:4).
Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.”
Those who enter the ark are described as having the “breath of life” (Gen. 7:15). Soon they will be the only ones left on the earth who still have this breath, since all others will be blotted out.
The difference between the two groups is simple: those inside the ark will live because of their relationship with Noah, with whom God has covenanted, while all those outside the ark will die because they lack such a saving relationship.
It is not explicit in Genesis, but 1 Peter implies that, in spite of living in a society of unrestrained sexuality all around them, Noah and his family remain committed to monogamy, so that the human contingent on the ark comprises only eight people (1 Pet. 3:20).
The description of those who embarked onto the ark is very detailed in some ways but equally sparing in others. The text doesn’t mention anything about their possessions. There is no mention of other people’s seeking admission to the ark and being turned away; only those who have been called by God and have faith in God’s Word would enter this (what one commentator called, “coffin-shaped”) refuge. But there is no other sanctuary in which to seek shelter from the judgment to come.
One added detail is the fact that “the Lord shut [Noah] in” (Gen. 7:16). Noah built the ark and collected the animals, as he had been commanded to do, but the final act in the process, safely sealing him into the ark, is God’s.
This ensures that the safety of those on board rests not in the effectiveness of Noah’s marine engineering or navigational skills but in the hands of God. They can relax, confident that the God who has sealed them safely on board will watch over them every moment of their voyage until their ship comes safely to dry land.
The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.
The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.
The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.
And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind.
Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.
He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.
And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.
Forty days of torrential rain, along with the outpouring of subterranean springs, is more than sufficient to complete the task of blotting out every living creature from the face of the earth (vv. 17-21).
The rising floodwaters are marked literarily by a repetitive style, piling sentence upon sentence as the waters gradually prevail over the earth, then cover the mountains, then finally cover the mountains by a significant amount, 15 cubits (roughly 27 feet; v. 20), which would provide plenty of clearance for the ark, with its total height of 30 cubits.
The floodwaters then remain high for a total of 150 days (v. 24). Eight times in verses 19-23 the word “all” appears, stressing the comprehensiveness of the global destruction.
Only Noah is left alive, along with those with him in the ark (v. 23). Nothing outside the ark could survive such a deluge; it all dies (v. 22), fulfilling God’s judgment upon Adam and all those made in his image (cf. Gen. 5).
Response
Since the beginning the serpent has sought to deny the doctrine of divine judgment:
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.”
And the serpent has had considerable success in sowing doubt into human minds:
You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”
Even believers sometimes struggle to believe that evil will have its proper day in court and that the righteous will be vindicated (Ps. 73:2-14).
Throughout history, however, the Lord has given us clear lessons of His judgment, of which the flood is perhaps the most prominent.
Does God see the wicked? Is He able to judge them? Can He preserve the righteous in the midst of that sweeping judgment upon sin? The flood narrative answers all those questions with a resounding “Yes!” God sees; God judges; God preserves a righteous remnant alive.
The implications of these realities are clear. Those who do not know God live their lives in the face of clear and present danger. Just as no one knew ahead of time exactly when the food would come, so no one knows when Christ will return to bring the final day of judgment. Listen to Matt. 24:36-39, which explicitly draws a comparison to the days of Noah.
But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,
and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
As a result, we should strive constantly to be ready for the Lord’s return.
Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Now is the time to make your peace with God, before the judgment draws nigh.
In addition to a warning to unbelievers, however, this passage provides a comfort for believers that “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment” (2 Pet. 2:9; again explicitly referencing the flood—cf. 2:5).
Believers too wonder about God’s deferred justice in a wicked world, but the flood shows us that justice is not always delayed and will not be deferred forever. At the same time, the Lord is able to keep safe in that coming judgment those with whom He has covenanted (Gen. 6:18).
As we follow His commandments faithfully—however strange that obedience may look to a watching world—the Lord will seal us safely into the ark that preserves our lives from the deluge of His wrath.
For us as Christians the fulfillment of that theme is found in Christ Himself. Christ is the righteous covenant-keeper in whom we, like Noah’s family, find undeserved safety. Faith in Christ calls us to die to the world around us, just as the inhabitants of the ark voluntarily entered their “coffin-shaped” vehicle of salvation.
We are called to trust not in our ability to pilot the vessel of our lives—for the ark had neither sails nor rudder—but in the God who has sealed us into the vessel that He will guide safely into the harbor of heaven.
Through a final act of cataclysmic judgment God will bring about His new heavens and new earth, where righteousness reigns (2 Pet. 3:13), and we will be free from sin and wickedness that currently still afflict us all.
Q. How significant is the Flood in the overall biblical history?
The Word of God treats the Flood as a worldwide event directly brought by God as a judgment on the sin of humanity. The Flood hangs like a warning cloud over all subsequent history. Fortunately, that cloud also holds a rainbow of God’s promised grace.
The Flood illustrates several important aspects of God’s character and God’s relationship with His creation:
1. God retains ultimate control of world events (Psalm 103:19).
Psalm 103:19 “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.”
2. God can and will judge sin (Heb. 9:27).
Hebrews 9:27 “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment”
3. God can and does exercise grace even in judgment (Gen. 6:8).
Genesis 6:8 “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”
4. Even more universal and final judgment will be carried out on the world based on God’s timetable (2 Peter 3:6–7, 10).
2 Peter 3:6–7 “and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
2 Peter 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”
Conclusion: God provided a way for Noah… and He’s provided a way for you and me. Come to Him while the door is still open.
