The Flood Begins, Genesis 7:6-8:4

 

⁶ Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth.

PERSEVERE

Noah lived to be 950, so, was 600 years old like being 55-60 today?

He’d been working on the ark for several decades, perhaps up to 120 years. But here he is, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, still standing, still swinging, still building, still preaching. 

The Truth survives the test of time and tribulation.

Galatians 6:9; if you don’t quit you win.

⁷ So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood.

PREPARE

Genesis 7:7, says that Noah and seven family members entered the ark because God had said in seven days, I will cause it to rain. Hebrews 11:7 says, by faith Noah, being Divinely warned of things not yet seen moved with Godly fear and prepared an ark for the saving of his household.

There wouldn’t have been an ark to enter if they hadn’t prepared one.

They prepared an ark. The ark didn’t appear out of thin air. It was built. Board by board. Blood and sweat, year after year. 

Noah’s family deserves some credit. They stuck with old dad when the rest of the world may have thought him crazy. After all those years of working and walking by faith—literally, that’s all they had, “things not yet seen.”

Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Without faith it’s impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6).

Without preparation, Noah would not have been found faithful, God would not have seen that he was righteous and the verse that says, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the lord, (Genesis 6:8) would never have been written.

And (barring Divine intervention) the ark would never have been built. The world would have ended. And we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

PREPARATION IS POWERFUL.

Jesus prepared. He said, I go to prepare a place for you, that where I AM you may be, also. John 14:2-3.

A flood of judgement is coming.

Are you prepared?

You’re not prepared unless you’re PREprayered.

Are your seven preprayered?

God’s given you an ark to build, for the saving of your household (your family, your list of folks God wants to reach through you).

Pause right now and preprayer—for them and you to enter the ark, to enter His Kingdom, and escape the coming flood of judgement.

⁸ Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth, ⁹ two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.

PECULIAR

Up until this point there may not have been one ounce of evidence that Noah actually heard from God.

But now, things start falling into place.  

Peculiar things.

Unexplainable things.

Unbelievable things.

God’s Word is Truth; and like a Lion it needs no defending—just turn it loose; it’ll defend itself.

Animals line up and load up; confirming God’s Word.

Follow Truth, and you’ll not need to defend yourself, the Truth will defend you; and set you free. John 8:32; 14:6.

The animals follow God’s command…but where’s the people?

Upon seeing the miraculous event of animals lining up to board the ark, why didn’t the people recognize this as a work of God and follow the animals into the ark? That, may be the most peculiar thing of all.

¹⁰ And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. ¹¹ 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. ¹² And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.

PRECISE

Forty days and forty nights of pounding rain, may have been an act of God’s mercy for Noah and family. The pounding rain may have drown out the pounding of drowning people.

God operates by heaven’s clock, outside earth’s time zone; yet, His encounters with man (past, present and future) are Divinely orchestrated, and documented, with HIStorically accurate precision and undeniable proof.

He has hard stops on His clock. This is one.

In His mercy, and love, He warns, ahead of time, so no one need be caught off guard.

We recently studied on Wednesday another hard-stop on God’s clock.

Daniel 9:25, prophesied that after 173,880 days Messiah would come. He did. On a day that the world now remembers as, Palm Sunday.

If we keep reading in Daniel, we’ll see he’s told to shut up and seal the book until the time of the end; when many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” Daniel 12:4.

Speaking of time and running to and fro and increase of knowledge, just yesterday (the day before giving this message, 8/26/23).

SpaceX launched the, Crew Dragon Endurance capsule, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:27 a.m.

The four members of Crew-7 represent the US. Europe. Russia. Japan. They represent the most internationally diverse SpaceX crew to date.

Together, the crew designed its official mission patch, which depicts a dragon nestled on top of the Earth, its tail sweeping down with a star at the end.

 

Revelation 12:4, 9, 12.

His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born…

⁹ So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him...

^12b Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.

Romans 13:11-12.

And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. ¹² The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.

Matthew 24:37.

As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man.

 

In the end, in the last chapter of the Bible, John is told to, “not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand.” Revelation 22:10.

Yet, few listen.  

Are you?

¹³ 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— ¹⁴ 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. ¹⁵ And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life.

PARTICULAR

Not only is God’s timing precise, but He is intentional, specific, particular, about who and what goes on the ark. Every detail all the way from Noah to the creeps of every sort.

Noah didn’t chase them down and herd them up, they were drawn by God.

Jesus says that no one can come to Him, unless the Father draws them. John 6:44.

The animals obeyed.

Humans—not so much.

Today, if you hear His Voice, harden not your hearts. Psalm 95:7-8, Hebrews 3:7-8.

It may be hard to imaging but He cares about the particulars of your life.

His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.

¹⁶ So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.

PROTECTION

God shut and sealed the door.

No amount of rain, or wind, or animal, or people, could bust the door down, or get in.

It may have been a ramp, too heavy for Noah and crew to lift.

Perhaps an act of compassion for Noah. What if Noah pulled the door closed? Would he be tempted to open it when people started pounding? Would he feel guilty for shutting others out?  

What God shuts, no one can open. (Revelation 3:7).

¹⁷ Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. ¹⁸ The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. ¹⁹ And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. ²⁰ The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered.

PREVAILED

The flood won.

It prevailed.

There was no escape from God’s liquid judgment.

It rose higher and higher until about 22’ above the highest mountain peak.

This removes all ambiguity. This was a worldwide flood. Not a local one.

God is love.

Love demands justice.

²¹ 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. ²² All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. ²³ 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. ²⁴ And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.

PERVASIVE

All flesh died; every man. All on the dry land, died. He destroyed all living things on the ground, man, cattle, creeping thing, bird. All.

Only Noah, and those with him, survived the water’s wrath.

There’s only One Way, to survive God’s wrath.

And the water prevailed five months. Another act of mercy. Imagine the stench of death if time had not been given for decomposition, and digestion from flesh eating fish.

8 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. ² The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. ³ And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. ⁴ Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

PEACE

The ark came to rest in peace in what would be in many ways, a new heaven and new earth; the one in which we live in today.

At that moment, the world was at peace.

However, it didn’t last long. The seed of sin inherited from Adam, was still in the heart of man.

From that day to this, the world has grown worse. Now, it’s just as Jesus predicted; as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man. Matthew 24:37.

So, the world is at the threshold of another judgment, and another renovation. This time won’t be with water, but with fire.

Make no mistake, there are stormy seas ahead, but in the end, God will remove every spot of sin and we will have a new heaven and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 2 Peter 3:3-13.

However, just like in Noah’s day, only those onboard will be saved. This time the ark isn’t a boat, but a Man, Christ Jesus.

 

Let’s pray.

Lord Jesus,

We don’t want to miss the Boat.   

Please help us to help others to get onboard, too.

We love You, forever.

Amen.

 

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