Book of Genesis - Ch. 6, Vs. 18-Ch. 7, Vs. 24 (06/18/2000)

Noah’s Obedience, Labor, and Daily Preaching

Noah had to gather feed for all of these animals, and I suppose he had to build holding pens, I don't know, but we know he had to cut trees, he had to make lumber, and he would preach every day all of the time he was doing this.

This goes along with what David was telling us this morning about the father living the Christian life. This is what Noah did. He didn't slow up his work of building, but he lived a Christ-like life, pleasing unto God.

And the measurements that we had last week are assuming that the cubit was 18 inches long. Now, I think we could find places in history where it was considered 21 inches, but the original cubit was the measurement of a six-foot man from the elbow to the tip of his middle finger, 18 inches.

God’s Covenant With Noah and the Ark’s Dimensions

Starting now with verse 18. But with thee will I establish my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. So did God send Noah and his family into the ark?

He did. You better go back and read it again. You got it in front of you? Read it to me, Clarence. That's why you said go. That's not what he said. David, read it. Why is that so important, David? That's right.

What do you want to say? So I don't know. That's the new King James you have? I've never run into that before.

Are you saying, brother, that the wrong man is the new King James?

And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with you. They're going to be alive now with thee, it says. They shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee to keep them alive.

Why does it say shall come unto you? Greg, are these wild animals? They are. One that has fear of you. There was no fear between man or animal. I suppose they could be classified as wild in that they did not use them for work.

That's right. Now, he said fowls after their kind, cattle after their kind, and so forth. What is the reason that he says after his kind? What does that mean to us? Did he take a Holstein and a Jersey and a Guernsey?

What did he do, Russell? Two bothy. So after his kind, it was not an animal of every single different, what can we say, breed, but a sample of every species. And thou shalt and take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten now.

Marian, that's a big, big order. And it shall be for food for thee and for them. So he has to collect enough food for everything in the ark to exist. And next week I want you to tell me how many days he was in the ark.

Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded him, so did he. Why did Noah do all of this? He'd never seen rain before. He believed him, didn't he? Would that we were all that obedient. Yes, everything was.

This is another reason they could coexist as they did among the animals and humans. Chapter 7, verse 1. And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou in all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Clarence, in verse 1, does your seal say go? They got it right there. In Genesis 6 and 9, we read these words. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation, and Noah walked with God. God reemphasizes that, that the Lord does.

For I have seen thee righteous before me in this generation. And the generation then was exceedingly long. In this chapter now, chapter 7, we have the performance of what was foretold in an earlier chapter.

Both concerning the destruction of the old world and the salvation of Noah. How many people were saved from the flood in the ark? Eight. Is that right? Why eight? Is there any significance to that fact?

So, Russell, what's the eighth day of the week? What would it be? First day of the next week. The reason there's eight souls, I have one reason. As David said, I think it was David, that we're going to start all over.

Not like we did at the beginning, but we're going to build the animal and human life again. We don't know for sure, but we do know Noah was. And that would be enough. That would be sufficient. The others, logically, would have to be there to continue the human race.

The Flood, Providence, and the Call to Enter the Ark

Well, we left Noah busy about the ark and full of care to see that it was finished in plenty of time. The rest of his neighbors, what do you suppose they were doing, Virge? I rather imagine a word of crazy old Noah had spread all over that part of the country.

I read a, well, it wouldn't really be a parable, but it was just a story, supposition, that one of his boys had become a Philadelphia lawyer. And he was in a board meeting, and his secretary come in and handed him a slip of paper, and it said that your father said to come home because it's going to flood.

And he got up and left, and they asked him where he's going. He says, I'm going home. That old man says it's going to flood. It's going to flood. He believed him. All right, we're going to see the end of things now and the carelessness of other people.

You know, this period, this famous period in history, gives us some idea of the state of things when the world that now is shall be destroyed. The call that the Lord makes to him is a very gentle call, like a father to a child when he sees storm clouds gathering and says, you better come in now because it's fixing to storm.

It was not a harsh command. Noah did not go into the ark until God called him in. We can learn from that to not try to run ahead or presuppose what's supposed to be done. He knows that this is a place of refuge or will be.

He knows that it's designed to hold he and his family. But at the same time, he didn't rush in. He waited until he was called. It's very comfortable to follow the calls of providence, to see God going before us in every step of our way.

You'll get to where you can see God's hand in everything. And the more you see that, you'll begin to see everything in God's hand. Verse two, of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by seven. Where did Noah learn about clean and unclean beasts, Clarence?

We have no record, but it had to be something like that, just as it was not recorded that Adam instructed his boys on how to offer sacrifice. But he had to. Three of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female to keep seed alive upon the face of the earth for yet seven days.

And I will cause it to rain upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. Have you ever been in rain that you thought that it was going to last that long? I have. Only it didn't. It'll rain upon the earth forty days, forty nights, and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

Charlie, by what authority is he going to do this? He said, I'm just going to destroy everything. Apparently he does. He is it. And who owned all of this? He did. Then can we find fault with God for destroying the world?

Do we like to sometimes? All right. You might make a note. This is the first one of the many forty day segments throughout the Bible. I like this next verse, David. Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him.

He just did it. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. Now can you imagine, Virge, here you are six hundred years old. It's getting on toward supper time. Your six hundred year old wife is out there trying to get you to come in to eat.

And you're telling her, no, just hold that lamp still. I want to set this last temper before I quit. This was Noah. Can you imagine building something that large? I don't know who he had to help him. He had to have some help of some kind.

Maybe just his three boys. But there would be timbers there that were too heavy even for three men. That's not important. Or we would have been told. But to think that he has to fit each piece of wood as tight as possible.

And then coat it with pitch so it won't leak. He didn't just stack them together and then try to make the pitch keep everything out. They had to be fitted. Tremendous undertaking. Well, he's six hundred years old.

The Flood Begins and the Earth Is Transformed

Noah went in and his sons and his wife and his son's wives with him into the ark because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts and of beasts that are not clean. Of fowls, of everything that creepeth upon the earth.

I had a note here that God must have instructed him about the clean and unclean. And that was long before the law came. There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

There went in two and two as though they were drawn of the hand of God. But they just entered two by two as they walked up the gangplank. And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, in the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all of the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened.

Greg, what happened? Hot water. Okay. It collapsed, didn't it? Remnants of it are still there, but to prove that it was. But it collapsed. What else happened? Right. Far greater than that. It came up all right, but from volcanoes, from the crust actually cracked.

It developed into what we call today plates. The plates are floating on the molten iron core, and they're still floating around today. As you look at a world map, you can easily picture how Africa and South America could have fitted together.

And they did. Remember, all the dry land was connected. But now for the first time comes the catastrophic convulsion of this earth. The earth tipped twenty-two and a half degrees on its axis. Now what did that bring about?

What? Seasons. Seasons. We now have the north and south ice polar caps that was not there before. We have the continents broken up and drifting. We have rain for the first time, thunder for the first time, dark clouds.

When Noah comes out, he's going to see the direct sun for the first time in anybody's life. We'll get into more of that as we come closer to what had actually happened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days, forty nights.

In the selfsame day entered Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with him, into the ark. Now be careful when you're figuring your days.

They and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.

Why does he repeat this two or three times, Diane? To emphasize that it was so. You know, lots of times he will have in print what's going to happen, and then we see it again as it happens, and then we see it again later as to what did happen.

And that must all coincide. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. David, why does he keep saying the breath of life? Animals that breathe. And they that went in went in, male and female, of all flesh, as God had commanded him, and the Lord shut him in.

What is significant about the fact that the Lord shut him in? He had to have, I would think, having been in the cabinet business, I think he'd have to try it several times to make sure that it was watertight.

So I'm assuming he had, and there I go again, that he had some mechanism by which he could open and close the door. But it says here that he didn't God shut him. What else? What if it had been left up to Noah to shut the door, Charlie?

Be a sign of salvation or saving God.

All right, that's a very good point. He would have probably tried to get some of his friends, if he had any, and I assume he did. And those that had been laughing at him so long, they'd have been pounding on the door.

We see where they run to the highest points they could find. And more than likely, he would have tried to get some others inside before he finally shut the door. But God didn't allow that. He doesn't allow man to monkey with salvation, to do anything with salvation.

God shut the door. But something else is not said. I want you to be sure and see. Russell, can you find a piece of paper someplace close, a bulletin or anything? Okay, bring up here just one side of it.

All right. I say that to say this. When he shut the door, what did he do to everybody else? He shut them out. Now that goes without saying. Those that are elect, he elected, and everybody else is shut out.

Man doesn't like to think about it, but that's true. So here we have an example of that. Those that are going to hell are shut out of heaven by God. And he knows when we don't. And he shut the door, 85-ton door.

And God just closed it with a finger. It also goes back to the many, the many out of all, which is a few. And the Lord is shutting them in. Very important. If Noah would have had the responsibility of closing the door, I'm sure he tried to get some friends in.

But this is symbolic of salvation. When the Lord shuts us in, he also shuts others out. If Noah had the responsibility to shut the door, then you and I would be sending people to heaven or, a lot worse, to hell.

Those that we like and those we don't like. Now, there's a lesson we can see as the waters rose. The deeper the water got, what happened to the ark? It began to float, and the deeper it got, what happened?

Where it went. Can you see any lesson in that? Well, let me give you another hint. The deeper our trouble is, the closer to heaven we can get. The deeper the water, the higher the ark rose toward heaven.

Now, I grant you it's a very small distance that it rose in relation to heaven. But it is symbolic that upon our very troubles that come, they're designed to draw us closer to him. You can call it sanctified afflictions, if you want to, and spiritual promotions.

That makes you feel better. Verse 17. And the flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased. And bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. And the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark went upon the face of the waters.

Now, the ark did not have a rudder, did not have a sail, did not have any type of oars. Nothing. It was totally the providence of God as to where it went. But it was built as a cargo box to hold items.

In this case, animals and people. And God would guide it as to its destination. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all of the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered.

Fifteen cubits would be how much, Clarence? Now, I want you to understand the hills and mountains were not there before the flood. Well, this is above the highest peak. So, whatever the highest mountain is, is twenty-two or three feet above that.

Worldwide. Like you said, there were no mountains or anything. It was all flat.

It was, I can picture it maybe rolling a little bit. But there were no mountains before. But they come about now with the splitting, the volcanic action, the upheaval of all of the water coming up. And it made the world as to what we see today, except they've been rising and falling ever since.

You drive out into West Texas, and I suppose some of you have been there, and those high plateaus, they're real flat. How'd they get so flat? There's one in every crowd. The rest of the earth sunk. That that around it just collapsed and left them.

Of course, they look high now, but it's because the rest of the earth had collapsed and sunk. The hills and mountains, the great upheaval of the earth's crust, the volcanic action, the canopy of water breaking and pouring down on the earth.

And now this was all over, because the canopy went all around, you remember. The mountains begin to appear. They're still moving as a result of this catastrophe. The earth tipped, as I said, 22 and a half degrees.

The land begins breaking up. The continents are forming. This drifting is still in progress. And along with your assignment for next week, I want to mention some things that Noah's going to see and experience for the very first time of any human.

And when I say Noah, I mean his family. 21, and all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, of cattle, of beasts, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man, all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land died.

What about the fish? Sea life did not die. I think this is why there are millions and millions of species in the ocean that man has never seen. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle and the creeping things and the fowl of the heaven.

And they were destroyed from the earth, and Noah alone remained alive, meaning he and his family. And they, they were with him in the ark. And the water prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.

Peter’s Account of Noah and the Meaning of Being Saved Through Water

In 1 Peter, 3rd chapter, 20th verse, he says this,. Which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

And we've discussed the meaning of the word eight. So that brings us to the end of chapter seven. And you have your homework for next week, as well as to study chapter eight. Any questions? Eight souls were saved by water.

The Greek says, I think it says, you may have to correct this, in water. Through water. It wasn't the water that saved them, in other words. But it was not the water that saved them. I'm glad you brought it up.

Nothing else?