Spurling Silver: The Flood Ends, Genesis 8.5-22

⁴ Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵ 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.

Noah, his seven family members, and a whole lot of pets, had been on the boat for exactly five months when it came aground on Ararat. There it remains to this day.

The water continued to recede and after about two and a half months the tops of the mountains were seen.

⁶ So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.⁷ Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth.

⁸ He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. ⁹ 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.

Discernment

The raven and the dove

After forty days, Noah opened the window and released a raven, and a dove.

Ravens and doves are intelligent, but quite different.

Ravens will gorge like goats in garbage, or belly up with buzzards for roadkill, or even dine with doves, on seeds and berries. They’ll eat whatever the world gives. Their dietary standards are low, so are their ethics; they’ve been known to steal from other nests to build their own.

Doves are different. They won’t light upon the dirty, they won’t eat just anything. They’re clean.

The day before giving this message a dove gave us an object lesson. The dove flew from side to side over the street as if looking for a safe, dry, place to land, but couldn’t find one, because some meanie in a golf cart (me) was driving right behind; and the grass was wet from the rain the day before. Finally, the bird swerved to the side and lighted on a small piece of clean, dry, Florida sand.

The raven was released from the ark and never looked back; he had no problem mingling with the wet, muck and mire of the world.

The dove was different. She went out, but would not conform to the ways of the world, the dove learned, and returned. And thus was a blessing to the sender. By returning Noah gathered information, “for the waters were on the face of the earth.”

Not every seed we sow will grow. Not every messenger we send, will return.

Jesus sent ten lepers to the priest, on their way they learned they were healed. Only one returned to give thanks. One dove, nine ravens. Luke 17:11-19.

When riding out the storm, whatever it may be, we’ll encounter ravens and doves.

Lord, please give us discernment to know the difference.

¹⁰ And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark.

Noah may have left the window open for the raven, but he focused on the dove. He continued to work with the dove, and gather information from the dove.

Not the raven.

By not returning the raven was saying, it’s great out here, come on, jump in, the world is wonderful.

The dove was saying, wait, not yet, it stinks of rotting flesh, it’s filthy, not even a place to rest.

Take heed what you hear. Mark 4:24. Be very selective about who you listen to.

Note: It is not vitally important, but for your information; some commentaries claim Noah released the raven, waited seven days, and then released the dove. They reason that since verse ten states “he waited yet another seven days…” thus, by implication he had waited seven days in between the release of the raven and the dove.

They may be right.

However, in the original text verse ten simply states that he, waited seven more days and sent the dove from the ark.

Furthermore, verse eight states that he “also” sent out a dove. Period. No waiting period written or implied.

¹¹ 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. ¹² So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.

¹³ 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. ¹⁴ And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.

Patience

Noah’s discernment, and patience, paid off.

But it didn’t happen overnight.

Notice the date.

The twenty-seventh day of the second month. One year and ten days, they’d been on that boat.

Five months they floated, (from start of rain to coming aground on Ararat). Genesis 7:11, 8:4.

Two and a half months they sat until the mountain tops appeared. Genesis 8:5.

Forty days they waited, before opening the window, and releasing the two birds. Genesis 8:6-8.

Only the dove returned.

Perhaps they sat on pins and needles, but they sat a full week, before sending out the dove again.

This time the darling dove returned with evidence, an olive leaf. Genesis 8:10-11.

But even then, they exercised patience; an olive tree can bloom even while standing in water. So, after yet another seven days, they sent the dove again. This time, for the last time. The dove, did not return. Genesis 8:12.

Finally, after almost a year from the first drop of rain, they turned the ark into a convertible, and were able to look out and see dry land. Genesis 8:13.

Yet, believe it or not, they still waited, and waited, for nearly two months they waited onboard, until the day, God said, “Go…”

Through faith and patience, Noah received the promise. Hebrews 6:12.

So too, must we.

15 Then God spoke to Noah, saying, "Go..."

God Tracker

This is the moment Noah lived for. “Then God spoke…” After that, it didn’t matter. As long as they were speaking, as long as the communication lines were open. Noah knew it before Jesus said it about 2,400 years later: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:4, Deuteronomy 8:3.

Since the time God told Noah to get on the boat at the start of chapter seven, we haven’t read of another Word from Him. Until now.

But He was speaking all along, and you can bet, Noah was tracking every syllable.

A good tracker can determine the weight and size, the direction and speed, of something, just by examining the tracks it leaves.

Thankfully we don’t have to be a good tracker, to be a God tracker. Because God speaks loud and clear by leaving undeniable evidence in His tracks.

The rain fell forty days and forty nights, just as God had said. The silence on that forty-first day, was God speaking; don’t worry, I’ve got this.

The grinding sound of the ark coming aground on Ararat, was God saying, the water is receding, you won’t be in this boat forever.

On the wings of a dove carrying an olive leaf; God could be heard whispering, that the consequence of judgement was decreasing, and new life was budding.

16“Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷ 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.” ¹⁸ So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. ¹⁹ Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.

God warned Noah of impending judgement.

Noah listened, and obeyed, and escaped the wrath of God.

He was able to come out the other side, to a cleansed and purged earth; in many ways, a new heaven and a new earth. Not the new heaven and the new earth, but a foreshadow of that which is to come. Isaiah 65:17, 2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1.

Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man.” Matthew 24:37.

Today, once again, God is speaking, warning, of imminent judgement.

He’s been providing our little flock with personal, undeniable proofs, amazing object lessons, that can’t (or shouldn’t) be ignored.

And not only us. As we’ve been riding the waves of Noah’s flood in our study, the world, all over the globe, has simultaneously been experiencing, unprecedented, record breaking, history making, floods.

Right here, hurricane Idalia floated through in the middle of our flood studies.

As if to add an exclamation point, a few days later, a random rainstorm blew through flooding our neighborhood.

Then, a simple reminder the morning of this message, a rainbow cloud hovered above; a warning and a promise. There was no rain, before or after, it hung there, just long enough to snap this picture.

You’ve already heard about the gully washer that poured from a mostly clear sky right at the moment the words from Genesis 7:11-12 were read.

“…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.”

We won’t take time to tell of how the Lord, linked the Triumphal Entry, the Final Flood Warning and Daniel’s prophecy with the quickly approaching seven-year tribulation.

Now and again a person may concede to calling an event coincidence, but after a while, it becomes too much of a coincidence to be coincidence, and even an atheist knows the presence of Providence.

In the days of Noah, the people willingly ignored His warnings.

As it was in the days of Noah, so is it in the days in which we live.

Let’s pray.

Lord Jesus,

Thank You for making a way of escape for Noah and crew. Help us to be like Noah, and heed Your warning to escape the impending wrath to come.

Lord, we pray for discernment to recognize the difference between doves and ravens. We pray for patience, to ride out the storm and receive Your promise. We pray for eyes to track what You’re doing, even when You’re silent. And Lord, most of all we ask that all these things be used by You to invite others into the Ark, so none You’ve called us to reach, are left behind.

We love You, forever.

Amen.

Related:

Final Flood Warning, Genesis 7:1-5

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

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY, JOHN 12:12-15

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