In our study of the foundations of the gospel, as seen through the book of Genesis, we come today to the story of the flood. As you know, I usually preach verse by verse, chapter by chapter. However, today I am going to try to cover the material found in three chapters of Genesis. If I were to use my usual approach, it would take several messages to cover this event. I don’t think I want to approach it that way, and so I hope to be able to give a summary of the three chapters in one message today.
But before we really begin to dig into the text, which by the way is one of the Genesis texts met with the most skepticism by critics, second only to the creation account, I would like you to consider what Jesus had to say about it. In response to the disciples question of “when will these things take place,” speaking of the end of the age, Jesus responds in Matthew 24:37-39 "For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.”
Every indication in Jesus’s answer is that the flood was an actual, historical event, that not only really happened, but also serves as a foreshadowing of the second coming at end of the age. Now concerning the time of Noah, in Moses’ account in Genesis 6 vs 5 he says, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
This is a description of the society of man in the days of Noah, and I believe it is also an indication of the society of man in the last days when the Lord Jesus returns. And I would suggest, that we are living in those last days at this very moment. God said in his critique of the days of Noah that He would not strive with man forever, but the length of his days would be 120 years. Many scholars consider God to be saying that He would allow 120 years for Noah to preach righteousness and repentance before their destruction came. If we are indeed living in the last days, we have no idea how many more years we may have been given before the wrath of God comes upon the world. But we can be certain that God has set a time limit.
Peter said in 2Peter 3:3-9 “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with [their] mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For [ever] since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God [the] heavens existed long ago and [the] earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one [fact] escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
So Peter said the first judgment and destruction of the earth and it’s inhabitants was by the waters of the flood. But the second judgment and destruction of the earth and it’s inhabitants will be by fire. But in both cases, God does not wish for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. However, though the patience of God waits, He will not wait forever. God has set a time limit, and one day the door will be shut, and the wrath of God will be poured out. And then it will be too late for repentance.
Now in Noah’s age there were some things in particular that precipitated God’s judgment. Chapter 6 vs 1 describes one of those things. “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore [children] to them. Those were the mighty men who [were] of old, men of renown. Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”
During these days of rapid population expansion (due not only to procreation but because of long lifespans in the pre-flood world), there was an exponential expansion of evil caused by the ungodly intermarriage between the sons of God and the daughters of men. The sons of God most probably indicates angelic creatures, which in this case were fallen angels, demons that somehow took upon themselves the form of man. We know of many times in scripture that angels appeared as men. And so they would seem to have the ability to take on human form, and in this case, they took on human form because they desired sexual union with human women, referred to as the daughters of men. There are other possible interpretations of what that could be talking about, but I believe this one is most validated in scripture.
For instance, Jude speaks in vs 6 of the angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode. Jude goes on in vs7 to tell us just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh. So here in Genesis 6, as in Sodom and Gomorrah, there was an unnatural sexual union, demons going after the strange flesh of women.
Jude 6 also makes it clear what God did with these wicked angels. They are kept in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day for not keeping their proper place. The demonic purpose in this sexual union was to bring about an unredeemable race. To corrupt the human race through whom the promised Messiah would come, and thus prevent the seed of the woman prophesied in the Garden from appearing as the means to crush Satan’s head.
In 1 Peter 3:19-20 it says during the three days Jesus was in the grave, He, in the Spirit, went to these disobedient spirits in their prison and proclaimed His victory on the cross over them. But in Genesis 6, God pronounced destruction upon the entire human race, because they had given themselves over to that corruption. He says I will not strive with man forever, but his days shall be 120 years. Some have erroneously concluded from that that man would live to be no more than 120 years old. But a better reading is that God was forecasting that man had 120 years left before the destruction of the human race.
Peter refers to that 120 years as the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, not wishing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. Peter also says in 2 Peter 2:5 that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. So during this 120 years that Noah build the ark, in some way or another he was also preaching about righteousness and the judgement to come, calling people to repentence.
Now this union between the daughters of men and the demonic spirits seems to have produced an offspring which are called the Nephalim. The KJV translates that as giants. And that is one possible translation. However, it also can just mean fallen ones. My thinking is that they may have not been giants, but fallen in the sense that they were unredeemable, as are the demonic spirits, and had they been allowed to continue to breed, the entire human race would have eventually become a demonic half breed that presumably would be unredeemable.
I also don’t think that they actually had to have been giants, but it might indicate they had supernatural strength. Much like the demoniac whom Jesus healed had supernatural strength, or the one demon that beat up the seven sons of Sceva had supernatural strength. We know from scripture that is one common characteristic of some demon possessed people, and it’s likely that it was also true of these creatures. Moses says they were men of renown, that indicates superior prowess, or strength.
But just as demonic activity was a characteristic of the days of Noah, in like manner, we should expect to see more demonic activity, and even an embracing of the doctrines of demons in the last days, which I think has certainly already begun in our day. But in any respect, the evil of man exploded exponentially in those early days. Wickedness begets more wickedness and evil begets more evil. Adam and Eve sinned what seemed an innocuous sin, but they beget a murderer in their son Cain, and from the line of Cain came Lamech, who boasted, “For I have killed a man for wounding me; And a boy for striking me.” Violence and evil metastasized on the earth until every thought and intent of man’s heart was only evil continually. And God was sorry that He had made man. I think that refers to God grieving over man’s condition.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD: While God commanded all the earth to be cleansed of this corruption, He found one man with whom to begin again: Noah, who found grace in the eyes of the LORD. Noah didn’t earn grace; he received grace. No one earns grace, but we can all find grace if we turn to the Lord.
Vs 9 says, Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. This description of Noah not only refers to the righteous life of Noah, but also to the fact he was uncorrupted by Satan’s attempt to sow something like a virus among the genetic pool of mankind. And his three sons will be used by God to repopulate the earth after the flood.
Vs 11 Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.” We have already said that evil had spread on the earth so that everything was corrupted. Now we read God’s pronouncement of judgment. All flesh, man and beast, will be destroyed. The same is prophesied for the end of the ages. Only at the end of the age it will be by fire, but God will preserve a remnant, who will repopulate the new heavens and the new earth which comes down out of heaven. Let us not diminish or ignore the wrath of God against sin. God must act in judgement against evil, and He has promised it, and we ignore it to our own peril.
So we all have heard the story of Noah and the ark. We need not belabor it. Many have questioned how an ark could possibly hold all the creatures of the earth. I’m not going to spend time trying to defend that this morning. I would recommend that you go to see the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky where there is a life sized reconstruction of the ark. I would also encourage you to explore a website called Answers in Genesis which has many articles and videos on the flood and other aspects of Creation which are scientifically based, which can answer many of your questions.
I did, however, read somewhere that the average size of a land animal is smaller than a sheep. The ark could carry 136,560 sheep in just half of its capacity, leaving plenty of room for people, food, water, and whatever other provisions were needed. But I think ultimately, believing is not a matter of science, but of faith. However, just because it is by faith, does not mean that it is the opposite of science. But it means that you need to seek out alternative views of science as opposed to evolution. And personally, I think you need more faith to believe In evolution than to believe in creation.
Hebrews 11:7 says, “By faith Noah, being warned [by God] about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” Genesis 6 vs 22 says, “Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.” Faith is obedience to what God has said. Faith is not just an intellectual assent. And by faith comes righteousness as the grace of God. The ark then is a metaphor for salvation by grace through faith.
Chapter 7:1 “Then the LORD said to Noah, "Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you [alone] I have seen [to be] righteous before Me in this time.” After preaching for 120 years, Noah has only 7 converts. He makes me feel a little better about my own efforts at preaching for the last 17 years, I suppose. But only slightly. But it is a sad commentary on the human condition, that man will not repent, but continue to harden his heart to his own damnation.
So God caused all the animals to come into the ark. We see even today evidence of the migratory patterns that animals and birds can travel great distances as if some unknown force were directing them. So in some similar fashion God caused the animals to come to the ark. Some have surmised that once in the ark God may have caused a deep sleep to fall upon many of the animals, similar to hibernation. That’s supposition, but it’s a possible explanation of how they might have survived being on board the ark for so long. But what follows is perhaps one of the most tragic statements in the Bible which is found in 7:16, “and the LORD closed it (that is the door of the ark) behind him.”
Vs 10-12 “It came about after the seven days, that the water of the flood came upon the earth.” You talk about a test of faith. Noah had been preaching and building the ark for 120 years, and now when God brings them all in the ark, He makes them wait for seven more days in there before the rain began. Imagine what that felt like. Imagine hearing people outside knocking on the walls of the ark and laughing at the fools inside.
Then in Vs. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.” So not only did the firmament above break open and pour down rain but the waters under the earth burst open. And it continued to rain for 40 days and 40 nights. The text goes on to say that the tops of the mountains were covered by 15 cubits, which works out to be 22.5 feet. Mt. Everest is 29000 feet tall. Incredible to think of that much water and the pressure that caused upon the earth.
Vs21-24 “All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. Thus He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark. The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days.
You know one thing that I will suggest is that the fossil record, upon which so much scientific theory rests, can be explained best by the flood. I’m not a geologist, but I can tell you that if you bury a bone in the ground in your backyard, and dig it up 500 years from now, you will not find a fossil. You probably won’t find a bone either. It will simply deteriorate. Dust to dust. But in a cataclysmic event such as the flood, when vast amounts of earth is turned to sludge and mud and rapidly covers what used to be life, and then compressed by millions of tons of water, then you will find some fossil remains in that hardened sediment. And the fact that you find such all over the world, and fossils of fish and shells in the middle of the desert, or on the sides of mountains, are to me at least, evidence of a world wide flood as described in the Bible. I think it also accounts for a dramatic climate change upon the earth as evidenced by drilling in the Arctic tundra, which shows signs of a once tropical landscape far beneath the ice.
But as I said, other Creation websites and books can better give scientific evidence for these things than I can. I am going to try to finish the account and expound whatever spiritual principles that we can glean from the text and leave the science for others that are better qualified to explain it.
But I will repeat a quote by Charles Haddon Spurgeon who said, “Noah underwent burial to all the old things that he might come out into a new world, and even so we die in Christ that we may live with him.”
So in chapter 8, God remembered Noah and He caused the caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained; and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased. In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. Mt. Ararat is in Turkey, about 16,800 feet above sea level, by the way.
And there is much historical evidence for the ark coming to rest there. in 275 b.c., Berosus, a Babylonian historian, wrote: “But of this ship that grounded in Armenia some part still remains in the mountains… and some get pitch from the ship by scraping it off.” Around a.d. 75, Josephus said the locals collected relics from the ark and showed them off to this very day. He also said all the ancient historians he knew of wrote about the ark. And in a.d. 180, Theophilus of Antioch wrote: “the remains [of the ark] are to this day to be seen… in the mountains.”
When the ark rested on the mountain, Noah eventually goes to the one window which is high up on the ark and releases a raven. The raven is a scavenger, and doesn’t come back to the ark. Then Noah sends out a dove, and the dove comes back because it can’t find a dry place to land. Then after another week, he sent out he dove again, and she came back with an olive leaf in her beak. Much significance has been given to the dove being a sign of peace, and an olive leaf being a sign of healing. And that may be true. But Noah knew that the earth was drying up, and that life on earth was being renewed.
Noah had entered the ark on the seventeenth day of the second month of the six hundredth year of his life. So this is almost a full year later, and in the second month of his six hundred and first year Noah left the ark. It seems he was in the ark a full calendar year. But what I like about the text is that Noah opened the door and saw the earth was dry, and yet he waited almost two months until God told him to go before he left the ark. Noah really and truly walked with God. He didn’t lead and God followed. He didn’t lean on his own understanding. He waited upon the Lord for every decision. That’s a pretty good example for our walk of faith. Don’t rely upon your reason, upon your common sense. Seek the Lord and wait on the Lord in every circumstance.
Vs20 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. The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.”
Noah’s first act after leaving the ark was to worship God through sacrifice. His gratitude and reverence of God’s greatness led him to worship God. It’s ironic though that after all the death and destruction were seemingly over, the first thing Noah does is to kill some of the animals that had been preserved with them on the ark. But as is the nature of true sacrifice, this was a costly offering unto God. It’s also a picture of the innocent dying in place of the guilty. Only by the sacrifice of the innocent Jesus Christ on behalf of we that are guilty are we made at peace with God.
Spurgeon said, “The sacrifice is the turning-point. Without a sacrifice sin clamors for vengeance, and God sends a destroying flood; but the sacrifice presented by Noah was a type of the coming sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son, and of the effectual atonement therein provided for human sin.”
Paul says in Romans that having been saved from the judgment to come we are to present a sacrifice as well, dying to sin, and living by faith. Rom 12:1-2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
I hope that you have trusted in Christ by faith, dying to sin, that through Christ you might be saved from the condemnation of death, and being transformed into a new creation, so that you may be described as Noah, as a righteous man, blameless in his time; who walked with God.
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