Genesis Session 13

The flood. There is no other way to describe chapter 7 of Genesis other than… the flood.

Noah and his family are well prepared for what was coming. God had declared to him that the world would be destroyed by a flood, and Noah and his family would be saved within the Ark they had built per God’s instructions.

Genesis 6:22 gave clear indication that Noah was doing as instructed.

Genesis 6:22 NIV

22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

And I would just about bet that anyone of us would be doing the same thing. Why? Because your life depended on it!

Noah wasn’t about to cut corners. Noah wasn’t about to skip steps or let important details go to the way side. His life and the lives of his family members depended on him following the instructions of the Lord.

Remember how the world got itself in the position in the first place… they corrupted the ways of the Lord, their hearts were wicked, and they were full of violence.

The world as doing anything but following God’s instruction. And the world was about to face judgement for its rebellion against God.

And in this case, the judgment would be severe. Water was about to cover the earth. NOTHING outside the Ark would survive. God made sure of this.

Sin comes with a death sentence… that we cannot escape on our own. The wages of sin is not something we can reason out of, fight our way out of, run away from, or in this case, swim away from. Sin brings death.

BECAUSE Noah had found favor in the eyes of the Lord, he and his family were saved from the flood waters. BUT… their “salvation” required that they do as the Lord led them to… long before the first drop of rain ever fell to the earth.

Theirs was a walk of faith… taking God at His word… being assured of what was unseen.

Their faith was in God and they believed a flood was coming… a flood like the world had never seen before.

I want to consider those words for a moment… If you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that something was coming… what would you do in response?

First… it would depend on what it was that was coming. Second, it would depend on if we knew when it was coming, and third, it would also depend if there was anything a person could do about the situation ahead.

For instance… the events of 9/11… I’m sure that if the people who were in those buildings knew the attack was coming, they would have stayed clear of the buildings altogether.

Or… how about getting caught in a snow storm? We missed a weather report once… and ended up stuck in traffic for five and a half hours… at a stand still, because of a 42 car pile up on the interstate. If we had know the weather report, we would have stayed off the roads!

But what about spiritual matters… often times, we do not know when things are coming or what things are even on the horizon… so how do we prepare for such season of life?

By keeping our eyes on Jesus. Jesus gave us a powerful word that we need to hold on to daily. He said in John 16:33

John 16:33 NIV

33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

He warned us of the trouble ahead, but also gave us access to the “life boat” if you will that will carry us through. Faith in Christ is the key…

Therefore, I would suggest tonight that believers ought to keep the faith as Noah kept the faith… because we know what is coming.

We know trouble is on the rise… but never forget… Jesus is coming soon! Our salvation from the pending judgment will not be in the form of a wooden Ark, but will be in the person who is our risen Savior! And like the flood, what is coming will be inescapable. Again, sin brings death. But Jesus has offered us the gift of life.

Genesis 7 gives the details regarding the flood and I want us to understand just how terrible this thing really was. Why do I want us to understand this? So we can realize the devastating affects sin can have on us.

Noah did EVERYTHING God commanded him to do… partly because he knew what was coming… but I also believe Noah followed the commands of God because Noah honored God.

The Flood

Genesis 7 NIV

1 The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.” 5 And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him. 6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. 14 They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. 15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in. 17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits., 21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. 24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

Alright, let’s break this down, quickly.

Noah was given a seven day notice that the water was coming. 7 days - then the world as he knew it would be destroyed.

Noah was 600 years old when the rains began. The animals were on board. The food had been collected. The door was shut. And the rain fell of forty days and nights.

The flood came by:

Rain from the sky.

Springs of the great deep - water from below the earth’s surface sprang up.

The depth of the flood is unreal. The mountains were covered completely - to a depth of at least 15 cubits above their peaks… that’s 22 feet above the peaks of the tallest mountain.

Mount Everest is 29,035 feet above sea level! Agra Kansas sits at 1,850 above sea level. So… with that in mind, that’s put us 27,207 feet under water… that’s almost five and a quarter miles under water!

The length of the flood is just as impressive. The waters flooded the earth for 150 days.

So this begs the question… why so deep and why so long?

Because sin comes with an inescapable consequence.

Think about it… there is NO WAY anything could survive this without having access to the Ark. The Ark was a refuge, designed so the waters covering the world could not overtake it.

The Ark would NOT exist if Noah’s faith had not remained in God. In fact, Noah’s actions are listed in Hebrews 11 as an example of what real faith is.

Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as

Hebrews 11:1 NIV

1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

And Hebrews 11:7 shows us what that definition looks like in motion

Hebrews 11:7 NIV

7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.

God did EXACTLY what He told Noah He was going to do. And Noah… BELIEVED HIM - despite never having seen anything like this before!

And… because Noah believed God, he was spared from the judgement God brought upon the earth.

When God speaks, church, WE NEED TO LISTEN! And we need to take His words to heart.

Someone might say, “Pastor, I do not hear God saying anything regarding things to come.” And I would respond by saying, “He is speaking to us EVERY DAY through the events that are taking place.”

We know another flood will never take place… but God has told us of another event that will cleanse the world of any and all sin… once and for all.

The Second Coming

We know that Jesus is coming soon! But I fear that… many days… we do not act as if we know that.

Noah’s work on the Ark was relentless.

It had to be tiresome… it had to be exhausting. I’m sure there were days that were frustrating. But he kept at it. Board after board, deck after deck, room after room… Noah built the Ark.

And the very existence of that Ark served as a visual warning to the rest of the world… but the world wouldn’t receive it.

I cannot imagine the sounds Noah’s family heard as the waters grew deeper… and as the people realized their days were numbered.

I cannot imagine the sight of all the dead animals and people scattered across the surface of the water after several days of non-stop rain.

I can’t imagine how heart broken Noah and his family were… at the destruction they witnessed.

Sin brings death… and sin breaks the heart of God. But eventually, the price must be paid. The bill for our sin comes due. This was true then… and it is still true today.

Here’s the deal… God is not working to rescue the faithful by building another Ark… instead He is working to build His kingdom through the work of His Son, Jesus.

Jesus IS our life boat, our way of salvation. Jesus came and made a way for our sins to be forgiven forever!

Jesus IS coming back and when He does… sin will be judged harshly.

All will have had the chance to repent. All will have had the chance to know Him. But not everyone will choose Jesus.

Matthew 24:14 NIV

14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

And like Noah… we need to be faithful to what we know… rather… who we know is coming.

We have work to do with the time we have left. We do not know the day or hour on which He will return but we know that until He does… we have a kingdom to build.

As faithful servants of the Lord, I pray we are found doing the work He prescribed us to do when He returns - the work of making disciples of all nations.

So my challenge to us tonight is clear - The world has NEVER seen anything like it will see when Jesus returns. Are we believing… like Noah believed… that Jesus is coming soon? If so… then we need to do all that we can in our kingdom building work to prepare for His arrival.