GENESIS 7 & 8:

 

GENESIS 7 & 8: THE FLOOD, THE LOST, THE SAVED, & THE WORLD IS FOREVER CHANGED….

 

 

Genesis 7 opens with the FINAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PREPARATIONS OF GOD FOR NOAH, HIS FAMILY, & THE ANIMALS BEFORE THE FLOOD.

 

God INVITES Noah into the ark.

 

“Then the Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.”

 

ALMIGHTY GOD INVITED NOAH & HIS FAMILY. THEN AS NOW, JESUS CHRIST INVITES US, BUT WE MUST CHOOSE TO ENTER. ALMIGHTY GOD DID NOT FORCE NOAH, BUT FREEWILL CHOICE INSURED THAT NOAH HAD A CHOICE. JUST AS WE DO TODAY.

 

AND WE SEE that God ASSURES Noah THAT HE WILL BE WITH THEM ALL in the ark, so He called Noah to come into the ark with Him.

 

Noah spent the 150 years before the flood in active obedience. He not only believed God would send the flood; he obeyed what God told him to do in preparation for it.

 

Verses 2-9 Noah gathers all the animals and his family.

 

“You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth. For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.” And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth. So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth, two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.”

 

TAKE WITH YOU…

 

MANY ASK OR WONDER HOW THE ANIMALS CAME TO NOAH AND/OR HOW NOAH “GOT” THEM INTO THE ARK.

 

ABOVE ALMIGHTY GOD COMMANDING THE ANIMALS TO COME…Genesis 6:20 TELLS US God said the animals would come to Noah by migration. In some animals, God has created a migratory instinct (which can operate in an amazing manner). It is no difficulty for Him to miraculously place an urge to migrate to the ark in each pair of animals He planned to be preserved in the ark.

 

TWO BY TWO….YOU NOTICE ALMIGHTY GOD HAD NO PROBLEM getting the animals to do what He wants. Only man is ABLE to CHOOSE TO BE more stupid, stubborn and resistant.

 

ISAIAH SUMS IT UP WELL IN ISAIAH 1:3, which says, “The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, My people do not consider.”

 

Verses 10-12 tells us God BRINGS the waters upon the earth.

 

“And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.”

 

Noah, the animals, and his family had to wait in the ark seven days for the rain to come. They had never seen rain up to this time. This was a real test of faith - to wait a week after more than 100 years of preparation.

 

THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN WERE OPENED….This is when the great waters which were above the firmament (Genesis 1:7) broke up. These waters formed the huge “blanket” of water in the upper part of the earth’s atmosphere since creation.

 

AND THEY REMAINED THERE…CONSTANT…UNTIL ALMIGHTY GOD LOOSED THEM.

 

THIS TELLS US THAT WATERS ALSO came up from UNDER the earth also, no doubt accompanied by great geological catastrophe.

 

40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS…in the Bible the number 40 is always associated with TESTING & PURIFICATION, especially before coming into something NEW. This is PROVED IN:

 

MOSES time on Mount Sinai in Exodus 24:18; Deuteronomy 9:25.

The SPIES trip to Canaan in Numbers 13:25.

ISRAEL’S time in the wilderness in Numbers 14:33; 32:13.

ELIJAH’S miraculous journey to Sinai in 1 Kings 19:8.

JESUS’ temptation in the wilderness in Mark 1:13.

 

 

Verses 13-16 tells us ALL WILLINGLY enter the ark and the door is shut.

“On the very same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark; they and every beast after its kind, all cattle after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort. And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life. So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.”

 

THEY WENT IN AS GOD COMMANDED…This summary statement describes how everything was fulfilled EXACTLY as the Lord had spoken. All things were READY for the flood God would bring upon the earth.

 

Noah did NOT have to shut the door on anyone’s salvation; God did it. After the same pattern, it is never our job to disqualify people from salvation. WE CAN NOT SHUT THE DOOR….ONLY OUR TRIUNE GOD CAN SHUT THE DOOR.

 

DID YOU NOTICE…God kept the door OPEN until the LAST POSSIBLE MINUTE?

 

BUT there came a time when the door had to shut. When the door is open, it is open, but when it is shut, it is shut.

 

REVELATION 3:7 REMINDS AND WARNS US TODAY OF THIS, WHICH SAYS, “Jesus is He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens.”

 

The ark REPRESENTED SAFETY IN THE MIDST OF THE STORM AND SALVATION for Noah, but ITS CLOSED DOORS & THE FLOOD WATERS REPRESENTED GOD’S condemnation for the world. BEFORE JESUS CHRIST PAID IT ALL….THERE WERE NO SECOND CHANCES FOR THOSE WHO REJECTED AND WERE LEFT OUTSIDE THE ARK. FOR OVER 1OO YEARS NOAH HAD BEEN WARNING THEM, BESEECHING THEM TO REPENT, TO TURN TO ALMIGHTY GOD…THEY LAUGHED AT HIM, SNEERED AT HIM, MOCKED HIM, AND MADE FUN OF THE CRAZY OLD MAN, BUILDING A SHIP IN THE DESERT SAND…THAT HAD NEVER SEEN ENOUGH WATER TO EVEN LIFT THAT HUGE MONSTROCITY AN INCH.

 

Verses 17-23 tells us that the flood is described in PRECISE DETAIL.

 

“Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive.”

 

The waters NOT ONLY PREVAILED BUT INCREASED ENORMOUSLY on the earth…THIS description of the flood in this passage is so complete and specific that it is impossible to reconcile it as JUST A LOCAL, IN THAT AREA ONLY FLOOD, as some TRY TO STATE IT.

 

ALMIGHTY GOD DOES NOT LIE.

HE WARNED AND PROMISED A FLOOD THAT WOULD COVER THE FACE OF THE ENTIRE WORLD…AND IT WAS A GLOBAL DELUGE.

 

HOW CAN WE BE SURE? IF IT WERE NOT A GLOBAL FLOOD, THEN ALMIGHTY GOD, WHO TOLD NOAH OVER A 100 YEARS BEFORE IT CAME….COULD HAVE SIMPLY SAID GO HERE…GO THERE AND ESCAPE THE FLOOD WATERS.

 

IF IT WERE NOT A GLOBAL FLOOD, THEN ALMIGHTY GOD WOULD NOT HAVE TOLD THE ANIMALS TO MIGRATE TO THE ARK….BUT SIMPLY TO MOVE TO HIGH LAND.

 

THIS TELLS US SIMPLY AND EXACTLY…THERE WAS NO SAFE PLACE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH FOR MAN NOR THE ANIMALS DURING THIS FLOOD…BECAUSE THE WORLD AS THEY KNEW IT WAS GOING TO DISAPPEAR FOREVER…

 

AND IF THIS WERE JUST A LOCAL FLOODED DESERT AREA AND NOT THE ENTIRE WORLD, THEN GOD’S PROMISE to never again bring SUCH A FLOOD AGAIN TO THE FACE OF THE EARTH WAS A LIE.

 

WE HAVE HAD FLOODED AREAS…BUT NOT ONCE SINCE THE TIME OF NOAH, HAS GOD EVER BROUGHT A GLOBAL FLOOD OVER THE FACE OF THE EARTH AGAIN.

 

OUR TRIUNE GOD IS FAITHFUL.

OUR TRIUNE GOD KEEPS HIS WORD.

OUR TRIUNE GOD DOES NOT LIE…..EVER!

 

AND THINK ABOUT THIS AS WELL…If this were ONLY A LOCAL FLOOD AS SOME IDIOTICALLY CLAIM, then The Bible is WRONG when it traces all of humanity back to Noah’s sons and other passages that speak of a universal flood found in Psalm 104:5-9 and 2 Peter 3:5-6.

 

BUT WE KNOW OUR TRIUNE GOD CAN NOT LIE.

 

ADDITIONALLY….AND INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH, 100s of peoples & nations groups RECORD their own accounts and legends of the flood. One of the most remarkable is the Babylonian account, which is similar to the Genesis account in many ways and is clearly drawn from it.

 

JUST ANOTHER PROOF THAT THE BIBLE IS INERRANT AND ABSOLUTE TRUTH…since ALL mankind now on the face of the Earth came from Noah’s sons, ALL MANKIND remembers the flood.

 

ANOTHER HISTORICAL BIBLE SCHOLAR…Boice in his studies of THE TIME OF THE FLOOD AND AFTER…specifically cites the legends of the Samo-Kubo tribe of New Guinea, the Athapascan Indians of America, the Papago Indians of Arizona, Brazilian tribes, Peruvian Indians, African Hottentots, natives of Greenland, native Hawaiian islanders, Hindus, Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Australian natives, the Welsh, Celts, Druids, Siberians, and Lithuanians.

 

THERE ARE OVER 200 cultures that have their own account of the flood the following aspects of the story are common:

 

88% describe a favored family

70% attribute survival to a boat

95% say the sole cause of the catastrophe is a flood

66% say that the disaster is due to man’s wickedness

67% record that animals are also saved

57% describe that the survivors end up on a mountain

 

AND MANY OF THE GLOBAL accounts also SPECIFICALLY mention birds being sent out, a rainbow, and eight persons being saved.

 

FOLKS…THE HOLY BIBLE IS PURE TRUTH AND PINPOINT ACCURATE HISTORY OF MANKIND.

 

EVEN ALL THE MOUNTAINS WERE COVERED….THINK ABOUT THAT….this took a lot of water, but there is plenty of water on the earth today to do this - but because of the topography of the earth, the water is COLLECTED AND RESTRAINED AND CONTAINED into oceans.

 

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS TELL US IF the earth were a perfect sphere & FREED/LOOSED THEIR CONFINES…the oceans would cover the land to a depth of two-and-a-half to three miles. Before the cataclysmic flood, the earth may have been much nearer to a perfect sphere.

 

“All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died:”….

 

AS EVER SATAN SEEKS TO CONFUSE AND CAST DOUBT ON THE INERRANT WORD OF THE BIBLE….JUST AS HE DID WITH EVE.

 

EVER HEARD OF OR STUDIED SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL IN SCHOOL?

 

YEARS AGO, in the Scopes Monkey Trial, Clarence Darrow humiliated William Jennings Bryan by asking him if he believed every word in the Bible. When Bryan said he did, Darrow asked him how the fish drowned in the flood.

 

Bryan DID NOT know the answer, BUT he got creative and guessed and gave a great, confused speech, and died the next day. If only BRYAN WOULD HAVE LOOKED AND SOUGHT OUT THE ANSWERS IN THE BIBLE, he would have known it says this about the breath of the spirit of life. The fish did NOT die in the flood; only animals with the breath of life in them died, the animals on dry land.

 

BECAUSE OF HIS IGNORANCE...THE "OBSCENE THEORY" OF EVOLUTION WAS GIVEN MERIT & ENTERED OUR EDUCATION HALLS.

 

AGAIN ALMIGHTY GOD DID JUST AS HE SAID HE WOULD.

 

Virtually ALL of Noah’s contemporaries did NOT believe God would do just as He said. Though it took 120 years, God demonstrated that He KEEPS His promises and is totally faithful.

 

Verse 24 tells us the flood lasted 150 days without receding.

 

“And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.”

 

Some THINK God put some or many of these animals into a period of hibernation for this period, meaning that less food, space, and “damage control” was needed.

 

God provides many animals today with an amazing instinct for hibernation. It would be no difficulty for Him to miraculously impart a unique instinct for these particular animals.

 

 

 

 

 

GENESIS 8: God remembers Noah.

 

 

Verse 1 tells us God focuses His attention on Noah again.

 

“Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.”

 

WHAT THIS VERSE MEANS IS God never forgot Noah, but at this point God again turned His active attention towards Noah.

 

God made a wind to pass over the earth….GOD KNEW HOW TO MAKE THE WATERS SUBSIDE. Even a big problem like this was NOT A PROBLEM OR CONCERN FOR OUR TRIUNE GOD.

 

 

Verses 2-5 tells us the flood-waters recede, the ark rests on Mount Ararat.

 

“The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.”

 

 

In a HUMAN LOGISTICAL sense, Mount Ararat was not a very “smart” place to leave the ark. Leaving the ark at a high altitude and mountainous terrain meant a difficult departure for everyone and everything in the ark.

 

Mountains of Ararat….in plural form, however, if God’s purpose was to put the ark in a place where it might be preserved for thousands of years, He chose an excellent place for it. Did he not?

 

 

Verses 6-12 tells us birds are used to test the condition of the earth.

 

“So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself. And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark. Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.”

 

Verses 13-19 tells us Noah, his family, and all the animals leave the ark.

 

“And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried. Then God spoke to Noah, saying, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.”

 

Verse 20 tells us God’s covenant with Noah & Noah builds an altar & offers a sacrifice.

 

“Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.”

 

Noah’s FIRST ACT after leaving the ark was to WORSHIP & THANK God through sacrifice. His gratitude and admiration of God’s greatness lead him to worship God.

 

Took of every clean animal and every clean bird…. As is the nature with true sacrifice, this was a COSTLY OFFERING TO ALMIGHTY GOD. With only seven of each animal on the ark, Noah risked extinction by sacrificing some of these animals. But costly sacrifice WAS/IS pleasing to God.

 

NOTHING COULD EVER BE MORE COSTLY TO OUR ALMIGHTY GOD THAN THE COSTLY SACRIFICE OF HIS PRECIOUS, TREASURE OF HEAVEN SACRIFICE OF HIS SON JESUS CHRIST, AMEN?

 

The sacrifices we are called to offer to God should also cost us something.

 

ROMANS 12:1 confirms this, “We should present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God.”

 

PHILIPPIANS 4:18 says, “The giving of our resources is a sacrifice.”

 

HEBREWS 13:15 says, “We should give the sacrifice of praise to God.”

 

Costly sacrifice pleases God, not because God is greedy and wants to get as much from us as He can but because God Himself sacrificed at great cost HIS PRECIOUS SON recorded in Ephesians 5:2; Hebrews 9:26; 10:12.

 

God WANTS costly sacrifice from us because it shows we are being conformed into the image of Jesus, who was the greatest display of costly sacrifice.

 

As Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:2, we should be like Jesus in this regard: “And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”

 

And remember to THINK like David, who said in 2 Samuel 24:24, “He would never offer to God that which costs me nothing.”

 

Verse 21-22 tells us God’s promise to Noah and to all mankind.

 

“And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, Seed-time and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.”

 

The Lord smelled a soothing aroma tells us Noah’s costly sacrifice PLEASED God. I DO NOT KNOW ABOUT YOU, but my mouth starts watering when I smell meat roasting on an outdoor grill. It can be smelled all over the neighborhood here.

 

So….now we know that God loves a barbecue too, and He then made this wonderful promise to Noah and to man.

 

Of course, we KNOW it was more THE HEART OF NOAH AND HIS SACRIFICE THAT PLEASED GOD.

 

Cold and heat, winter and summer: This speaks of the profound climatic and ecological changes in the earth since the “blanket” of water vapors covering the earth was “emptied.” Now there are seasonal and temperature variations.

 

The result of this change is found in the rapidly decreasing life spans. There will never be 900-year-old men after the flood.

 

GENESIS 7 & 8 SHOW US THAT OUR GOD ALWAYS HAS A PLAN….AND REGARDLESS WHAT STORMS, CATASTROPHIES MAY LOOM ON THE HORIZON….OR WHAT MAY BE FORECASTED BY MAN….WE CAN REST ASSURED THAT OUR TRIUNE GOD WILL AND HAS ALREADY MADE “SAFE” PROVISION AND PROTECTION FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM AND ARE SAVED AND REDEEMED THROUGH THE SACRIFICIAL BLOOD OF HIS PRECIOUS SON JESUS CHRIST…

 

OUR JESUS CALLS US FRIEND…

OUR JESUS CALLS US BELOVED…

OUR JESUS PROMISED THAT NOTHING AND NO ONE CAN OR EVER WILL BE ABLE TO SNATCH US FROM HIS MIGHTY HAND…

 

SO WE WHO LOVE JESUS CHRIST….SHOULD NOT FEAR.

WE CAN TRUST OUR JESUS CHRIST…

HE WILL NEVER FAIL US…