The Flood
Genesis 7 – 9
Gen. 7:1-4
"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. 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."
God told Noah, "Come into the ark..." I repeat, in the midst of judgment, God always prepares a place of refuge for his own. For Noah and his family, it was a literal ark. For us believers today, that place of safety is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Water destroyed the ancient world of Noah. Again, let me stress that our present world is scheduled for destruction by fire. Everything we see about us is scheduled for judgment. Consider the following scriptures once again.
"...you
turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His
Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us
from the wrath to come."
I Thes. 1:9b-10
"But God
demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we
shall be saved from wrath through him." Romans 5:8-9
"For
this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and
the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then
existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth
which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment
and perdition of ungodly men." "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in
the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the
elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that
are in it will be burned up." II Peter 3:5-6,10
The timing of these events can be a bit confusing. Let me just say that this future fiery destruction will take place at the end of the Millennium (Christ’s 1000 year reign on Earth). First, the Rapture of the Church will occur (any day now) after which will follow seven years of the Tribulation…then, Christ will return to Earth to rule and reign here for a thousand years (The Millennium). I will not comment further here on these time periods. A complete discussion of them can be found in my commentary on Revelation at www.biblebookofrevelation.com.
Now, the question arises, "How did Noah know which animals were clean and which were unclean? The answer is, he didn’t ... not until all the animals came to the ark for loading. Those who came in groups of seven pairs were the "clean" ones and those who came in single pairs were the "unclean". Also, notice that all the birds came into the ark in groups of seven pairs each. In the “for what it’s worth” department, the book of Exodus lists ten clean animals that God designated under the Law.
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7: 5-10
"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. And it came to pass after seven days that the waters
of the flood were on the earth."
Back in verse four, God said after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights. Here in the tenth verse, we read that is exactly what happened. The Flood didn’t begin after six days nor did it wait until the eighth day, it came exactly seven days later as God had said it would. I say this to point out that God’s word is always true and is always carried out to the letter. What God says, God means and his word is his bond. Everything God has ever said in the Bible has come to pass or will yet come to pass precisely as he has said. As Jesus said in John 17:17b, “Thy word is truth”. The precise fulfillment of countless prophecies in the Bible are more than adequate proof, by the way, that the Bible is the Word of God and that God always means and does what he says.
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7:11-12
"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."
The first thing to note here is that we are reading history. Therefore, we are given the precise day that the Flood began. From our previous discussion of the age of the Earth, you will remember that the flood began around 2520 B.C. (Gen.11:10).
Now, just a few hours of extreme
heavy rain can have disastrous consequences. I was in south
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7:13-16
"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."
Again, please be reminded that all the creatures came of their own accord to Noah and entered the ark simply because their Creator had directed them to do so. Noah didn’t have to gather them up. All he had to do was have an ark ready to receive them. There are many questions and objections to the scriptural details of this event. I will not attempt to answer them all. Usually, a careful reading of the text dispels most of these objections. Most of them are based on wrong assumptions. For example, some would object that most of the animals were dangerous to humans and to each other and therefore such a gathering of them together in one place would be highly dangerous and inevitably result in chaos and peril. However, the Bible says all the creatures of this ancient world were tame and friendly to man at that point in time. This is brought out in the Noahic covenant (9:2). Also, all the creatures of this ancient world were vegetarians (2:29-30). There were no carnivores at this time either. And last, clearly all the creatures were under divine supervision ... hence, no problems.
Finally, notice it was the Lord who shut the door of the ark. For Noah, his family and the creatures in the ark, when the door rumbled shut ... it meant safety, security and refuge. For all who were outside, however, it meant certain and irreversible doom. Can we chase a rabbit here for a moment? There always comes a point in time when it becomes too late for a lost Bible denying and unbelieving sinner to save himself or herself. The door will have clicked shut to them. There comes a time when it is too late to repent ... too late to come to Christ ... too late to do anything. For many, I fear, that may come years before their actual death. I picture it coming when man or woman hardheartedly blasphemes the Holy Spirit who has been so lovingly pleading and pleading with them for years. They say a final and imphatic, "NO!" to him, "I DO NOT BELIEVE IT!" ... thereby calling the Holy Spirit a liar. I believe that total rejection of the Holy Spirit's pleading is followed by the click of a forever-shut door. This is what Jesus was referring to in Matthew 12:31 when he said...
"Therefore I
say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy
against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against
the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the
Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to
come.
The Bible says that today is the day of salvation (Hebrews 4:7). No one knows if they will have a tomorrow. When God closed the door of the ark for the safety of those within, he also closed the door for destruction on all that were without. For a hundred and twenty years, God had been calling out to men and women through his Holy Spirit and through Noah’s preaching (II Peter 2:5), but no one gave heed. Then, one darkening and cloudy day, the door of the ark clicked shut by the hand of God and the long-suffering of God came to an end. Jesus said...
"I am
the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and
will go in and out and find pasture." John 10:9
When Jesus said those words, I believe his mind went back to the day he shut the door of the ark 2550 years before. Jesus, God’s Door, is open for you today, friend. Have you entered in? He is the way. Come to him. Pray and ask him to save you. He is the Ark of Safety for all who will enter in. Get on board before it’s too late. As you have it in the book of Romans...
"For 'whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.'" Romans 10:13
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7:17-24
"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.
And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days."
Here, for the second time, we are told that the flood of waters persisted for forty days and forty nights. They were devastating. The word prevailed here means that the waters continually increased in depth higher and higher. For the ark however, this was not a problem. Designed and preserved by God, and built by Noah, it wasn’t made to go anywhere. It was simply a huge barge. All it needed to do was float and float it did, drifting about on the surface of the waters.
By the way, I believe the Earth’s
topography in Noah’s day was very different from what we have today.
Noah's world was a hilly, lush paradise. It is entirely possible that the
mountain ranges we see today were a result of the flood and did not exist at all
in the previous world. This would be one answer to the objection that there
wouldn’t be enough water to cover
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8:1-3
"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. 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."
It is significant to me that God was not only concerned about Noah, but he was also concerned about the animals inside the ark. Proverbs 12:10 says...
"A righteous
man regards the life of his animal, but the tender mercies of the wicked are
cruel."
God is a righteous God. He cares about his creatures. Psalm 84:1-3 says...
"How lovely
is your tabernacle, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the
LORD; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow
has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her
young; even your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God."
Jesus said...
"Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will." Matthew 10:29
The fact that so many animals perished
in the flood should not detract from these truths. No doubt, God had a higher
purpose for the destruction of all the land creatures of the first world than
just preserving their short lives. I suspect that purpose primarily had to do
with the dinosaurs. God wanted all those fossils created for man to see in the
ages to come so he could hold future men accountable for how he dealt with them.
Would they believe God’s word concerning all those evidences of paleontology and
geology of the world God destroyed … or, would they foolishly make up
alternate explanations? Time would tell and God's purposes would be carried out.
Now, concerning the different time periods of the Flood, we are given the figure of 150 days during which the waters completely covered the Earth. Adding to that the initial 40 days of rain and subterranean flooding, this brings the total to 190 days. Here in our text, we are given an additional 150 days during which the waters subsided bringing the total number of days of the Flood to 340.
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8:4-5
"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."
The area in which the ark came to rest
is known today as modern
Our text says that the Flood began in the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, seventeenth day (7:11). Here in chapter 8, we read that the ark ran aground on seventh month, seventeenth day (8:4), and that it sat there until the tenth month, the first day, when the waters abated enough for the tops of the mountains to be seen (89:5).
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8:6-12
"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."
Ravens are scavengers. They are members of a very select group of creatures that are eaters of dead meat. There is a good deal of evidence that Tyrannosaurus Rex was also a pre-flood scavenger in the animal kingdom. At any rate, it was natural for a Raven to come and go from the ark after feeding on the dead flesh that it found. A dove, on the other hand, wouldn’t land on a floating carcass to feed, so, when it finally returned to the ark with an olive leaf in its beak, it was a true indicator to Noah that the Earth was drying out. Then, finally when the dove didn’t return at all, Noah knew that his first impression had been verified. Keep in mind, however, that these experiments where generated by Noah to simply salve his curiosity. He would not be leaving the ark until his God told him to.
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8:13-14
"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.
In the 601st year of Noah’s life, the first month, the first day, the door of the ark was removed and the waters were seen to be completely abated (8:13). Notice, however, that no one left the ark. In fact, nearly two months went by after the covering was opened while Noah waited to receive a word from the Lord that it was time to disembark. Finally, on the second month, twenty seventh day, the earth was dried.
One of the most fascinating reports I have ever heard is the claim by the Chinese of the discovery of Noah's ark on Mount Ararat in Turkey. Here is the link to the claim. Be sure and view the video of inside the ark...
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8:15-19
"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."
I can’t help but think of Isaiah 40:31 here.
"But those
who wait on the LORD
shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with
wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not
faint."
Think about it. The door of the ark had
stood open for nearly two months. The ground was dry. Yet, Noah stayed put.
He waited for the Lord. As you have it in
Romans 8:14...
"For as many
as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God."
And again in Psalm 37: 23...
" The steps of a good man are
ordered by the LORD, and he delights in his way."
God had told Noah to get on board the
ark and, until Noah heard otherwise, that’s where he was going to stay. Noah was
an obedient servant. He knew what it was to walk with God. He walked with God
the entire year he had been on the ark. He knew what God
expected of him. One of the greatest problems we saints have in our walk with
the Lord is waiting on him, is it not? If God tells you to do
something or be somewhere, we shouldn't anticipate his will to leave that
ministry or place until we hear otherwise. Like soldiers in an army, we have our
orders. Our job is to follow. His job is to lead. When the time is right, God will
give us any new orders he has for us. Don’t anticipate God’s direction for your
life. Moses comes to mind here. He tried to jump the gun on the will of God by
thinking he knew best when to deliver the people of
Coming back to our text, can you picture the utter delight of all the occupants of that ark when they finally got the word from the Lord to get off? In total, they had spent a year and ten days in there. It must have been quite a party indeed when the ark was emptied out. We can only imagine all the animals delight to be free to roam again.
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8:20-22
"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. 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.’"
It is highly significant that the first thing Noah did after getting off the ark was to worship. He built an altar and presented sacrifices. Undoubtedly, for over a year, he had missed worshipping the Lord at an altar. Noah's heart must have been overflowing with thanksgiving ... thankfulness for the great salvation he, his family and the animals had received. Also, their thankfulness for the new, clean and wonderfully different world that lay before them.
Now, there were only seven pairs of any one clean animal that had entered the ark the year before. I suspect they had procreated and increased in number while aboard the ark. In any case, Noah didn’t hesitate to offer some of them as a sacrifice. Noah knew his God and he knew that putting the Lord first came before all else. As a result, we read that the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Of course, this is another anthropomorphism. God doesn’t have nostrils. God is a Spirit. The Lord often accommodates his words to us by using our own expressions to better communicate with us. May we step aside here for a moment? The Mormons often use these anthropomorphisms as proof texts that the God of the Bible really is just a highly evolved human being. They believe that God has always had a human body. They have a saying, "As man is now, God once was. As God is now, man soon will be." How foolish. Once, in a famous debate, a Mormon was challenged with a verse from the Psalms that says, "Under his wings we safely abide". Then he was asked, "Is your god also a giant chicken?" I relate this because it brings up another very important principle of interpretation of the scripture. It’s called the principle of accommodation. God often accommodates his terminology for us in order to enhance his communication with us.
Notice that the Lord told Noah here that he would never again curse the ground for man's sake nor destroy every living thing. As for cursing the Earth, he meant like he did with Cain (4:12). That particular judgment would never again been used by the Lord. Also, while the Earth remains he would never again destroy every living thing. For what it is worth, the next destruction from the Lord will come in stages with many people being delivered beforehand (See: Rev. 7, 20) before the final day of the dissolving of the universe by fire comes.
Finally, I believe that verse 22, is a very important verse concerning the nature of the new world in which Noah and the animals found themselves. Notice that it was at this point in Earth’s history that seasons were instituted. Apparently, during the Flood, God initiated a tilt in the Earth’s axis which caused it to begin to wobble in its orbit around the sun. Hence, the Earth began to experience seasons that it had never experienced before. Gone was the uniform climate that was taken for granted prior to the Flood. This new institution of seasons was another nail in the coffin of the dinosaurs, by the way.
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9:1-7
"So God
blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the earth. And the
fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast
of the earth, on every bird of the air, on
all that move on the earth, and on all the
fish
of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives
shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green
herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of
every beast
I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the
hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man.
Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed; For
in the image of God He made man. And as for you, be fruitful and
multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth And
multiply in it.?”
We now come to the very first covenant God made with man. It is called the Noahic Covenant. It is very important to note that this covenant is still in effect today. Nowhere in the Word of God is any part of this covenant said to have been abrogated or fulfilled. There are six parts to it, three of which are found in the first four verses.
1. “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”
During my college days, I took a course called Population Problems. It was presented by the Sociology Department at NMSU. The gist of it was that the Earth is overpopulated and we need to take drastic measures to confront the problem. However, the professor also pointed out that, as far as actual space on our planet is concerned, humans take up only a very small area. He illustrated his point by demonstrating on the blackboard that if you dug a hole one mile square and one mile deep, you could put every living human being on Earth at that time in that hole with room left over! There are many different aspects to the debate about overpopulation. I would simply point out two things.
a. First, the
Earth is designed by God to completely accommodate man and his needs far in
excess of what we might imagine. Food surpluses produced by
b. Second, wherever there is starvation in the world today, it is primarily due to politics, war and evil men who are dominating their particular corner of the world ... not the lack of resources or size of the population. The Catholics have it right on this point. They say that man was commanded to be fruitful and multiply and that’s exactly what they intend to do until God tells them otherwise. That is the first tenant of the Noahic Covenant and a point well taken.
2. "...the fear and dread of you shall be upon
every beast..."
This is the second tenant of the Noahic Covenant. It was at this point in time in Earth’s history that God put it into the heart of animals, birds, fish and creeping things to fear and dread man. Up until that time, man and the animal kingdom lived in harmony and without fear from the days when Adam first named the animals. This goes a long way in explaining how the animals were manageable and how they related to one another and to Noah and his family during the days in which they were in the ark, does it not?
3. "Every moving thing that lives shall be food
for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs."
Not long ago, one of my granddaughters
came to me and said that her friend wanted to know if there was anywhere in the
Bible that said it was all right to eat meat. I sensed that it was her question
as well since many of their liberal teachers in their public school in Oregon were
constantly pushing the animal rights agenda and its companion, vegetarianism.
This third tenant of
the Noahic
Covenant runs completely counter to these popular unbiblical views of our day.
Their premise that man is just a higher form of animal ... animals should have
the same rights as humans ... hamburger chains should be put out of business ...
we must lobby Congress ... etc ... run entirely contrary to the Word of God.
Here, in
the Noahic Covenant, it was God himself who gave all
the living creatures over to man to eat. The Apostle Paul takes the issue a
step further.
"Now the
Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith,
giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking
lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,
forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God
created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know
the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused
if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of
God and prayer." I Timothy 4:1-5
Beloved, this is right where we live today, is it not? Notice in the above scripture that the meat that we eat is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. In other words, all meats are OK to eat because the Word of God says so. That right (and obligation) was born right here in the Noahic Covenant in Genesis 9. Jesus himself ate meat (John 21:10-13).
4. “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its
blood."
The fourth tenant of the Noahic
Covenant says that the eating of blood by man is
forbidden. When the early Church at Jerusalem sent out a message to the new
Gentile converts, they instructed them to abstain from the eating of blood. They
may have been basing that prohibition on the Mosaic Covenant but, in fact, they
were correct in that it adhered to the same prohibition in the Noahic Covenant
... a Covenant which was still in effect at that time even as it is today. Blood is precious and special in the eyes of God. The
Scripture says that without the shedding of blood there is no
forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). The animal sacrifices of Noah
and later offered by
“But that we write unto them, that they
abstain from pollutions of idols, and fornication, and things strangled, and
blood.”
5. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood
shall be shed; For
in the image of God He made man.”
The fifth tenant of the Noahic
Covenant here is the institution by God of capitol punishment.
There is a great deal of confusion, both amongst Christians and non-Christians
alike about this subject and it is only clarified if we accept God’s Word on the
subject. God is the one who delegated to man (through government) the
obligation and commandment to execute murderers. The argument is often
brought up that capitol punishment is simply "murdering a murderer"! The
reasoning goes, "When we kill a murderer, we are no better than they! How can
two wrongs make a right?" Not so. When murderers are executed, they are executed
by the direct will and commandment of God, an obligation which he has delegated to human
governmental authorities. Notice the reason God gave here for executing murders. It
is because they have wantonly destroyed another being who was made in the image of God
himself. Human beings are very special in God’s eyes. Each one is made in the
image of the Deity himself. Governments have the God given responsibility to
avenge all such who have been wantonly murdered. It is very important that they carry it out.
As you have it in
Romans 13:1-4...
"Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
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9:8-17
"Then God
spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: ‘...and as for me, behold,
I establish my covenant
with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature
that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you,
of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth. Thus I establish my
covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the
flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.’
And God said: ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you,
and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set my
rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant
between me and the earth. It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that
the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember my covenant which is
between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall
never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the
cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God
and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.’ And God said to
Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between
me and all flesh that is on the earth.’"
6.
“ ... never again shall all flesh be cut off by the
waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
This is the final, yet core, tenant of the Noahic Covenant. Namely, that God would never again destroy the Earth with water. Let’s step aside here for a moment to consider the proofs found here that the Flood was not just a local one as many liberal critics have proposed.
First of all, if this was just a local flood, to which the Lord was referring, there should not have ever been another following it according to God’s Word in the Noahic Covenant. Obviously, however, that has not been the case. There are floods all the time. So God, in the Noaic Covenant, couldn't have been referring to a local flood.
Second, God’s sign of his Noahic Covenant, from that day forward, was the rainbow. This seems ridiculous to men today. I recall in college that it was roundly debunked in favor of the scientific explanation, namely that a rainbow is merely the refraction of light through the prism of water droplets resulting in the colors of light becoming visible following the curvature of the sun. For the believer of the Bible, however, a rainbow is far more than the scientific explanation of it. I believe a rainbow had never before been witnessed by man prior to flood. You will remember that, before the flood, the Earth was not watered by rain. Hence, there were no clouds as we know them. The Earth was watered subterraneously (2:5-6). The first rainbow was a new and wondrous phenomenon to Noah and his family.
Now, notice that this sign of the Covenant (the rainbow) was not primarily given for man to see. It was for God to see (9:16). Does God need reminding? No. But, he wants you and I to know that he is faithful. So, for our sakes, he assures us that at all times he will keep a visible representation before him of his Noahic Covenant with us and with every other living thing on the Earth. You may have noticed that, from an airplane, rainbows are completely round. Let me ask you a question. How many rainbows do you suppose exist right now, this very second, around the world? I should think hundreds if not thousands. And, our omnipresent God looks upon every one of them. He even has one perpetually above his throne in heaven (Rev. 4:2-3). God will keep his word. Never, never again will all the creatures and all of mankind be destroyed by water. His rainbow is his ever present sign of his Noahic Covenant with us.
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9:18-29
"Now the
sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
And Ham was the father of
Three things I’d like to comment on here:
1. First, I’d like to point out the nobility of Shem and Japheth.
They honored their father’s predicament by not entering into whatever Ham did. Ham’s sin was crass and perverted disrespect. Possibly, he just made fun of his father and took others to see. However, the text indicates that he may have done more than that. Shem and Japheth, however, would have no part of it. By their actions, they fulfilled one of the Ten Commandments, not yet written, namely, honor thy father and thy mother. They acted righteously and went to their helpless father’s aid by covering his nakedness without so much as actually looking at him.
2. Second,
Noah’s curse on Ham’s
lineage was prophetic and appropriate.
The age in which Noah lived was the age
of the Patriarchs. Noah was a Patriarch. Patriarchs were men who were both priest and head over their
families. Their word was law and was so honored by God. Having said that,
however, let me say that it is sad that many have taken this curse from Noah out of
context. Some have said that all of Ham’s descendants are cursed forever. They
are referring to the Negroid race and seeking biblical support for their racist
dogmas. Balderdash! This curse was long ago fulfilled and it only
extended to the Canaanites. It began to be fulfilled when the Canaanites were
subjected under Abraham and the curse was finally and historically fulfilled
under Joshua when the people of
3. Third, Noah may well have not been at fault by
getting drunk.
The
Finally, here, we come to the death of one of God’s great saints. We are told that Noah died at the ripe old age of 950.