All right, we'll go ahead and turn to Genesis Chapter 7.
We will finish off Chapter 7 today as we talk about the
flood. Nearly every indigenous culture
has a flood story. Some of them vary quite a bit
from the others, but some have a number of characteristics in
common with the story of Noah's flood.
There's Erdu from Summer, Etcherhasis from Acadia, Utna
Pishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Hindus, Alaskans,
Greeks, Africans, Native Americans.
They all have flood stories as part of their origins.
Now of course we don't we don't read these ancient stories and
and give them equal credibility with the biblical flood
accounts. The differences between the
accounts in some instances are far too extensive.
But the presence of flood accounts the world over causes
us to stop and consider whether they might all be Speaking of
the same events. Only they view the flood through
a different lens. As people multiplied and spread
throughout the world, their remembrances and thoughts
regarding God's motive might have shifted.
They might have lost track of who God actually is and instead
chased after other false gods, gods who acted actually in a
capricious anger. And it's against this backdrop
that that Moses sits down to write Yahweh's accounts.
And it serves as a sort of rebuttal to these other accounts
that were already circulating around the ancient Near East at
the time. Last week, as we began the flood
narrative, we looked at the command that God gave Noah to
build an ark. He and his family took decades
to build it in. The day finally came when God
told them to go into it along with all the animals so the
earth could be repopulated after the flood.
So God told Noah he would he would send rain in seven days
and it would rain for 40 days and 40 nights.
In Chapter 7, verse 5 revealed Noah did all that the Lord
commanded him. That's the introduction to the
flood narrative. And then the chapter continues
to reiterate what was already stated.
As we look at verses 6 through 10, we see preparation for the
flood. Read there in your Bibles, if
you would, beginning at verse 6. Noah was 600 years old when the
flood of waters came upon the earth, and Noah and his sons and
his wife and his son's wives with him went into the ark to
escape the waters of the flood of clean animals and of animals
that are not clean, and of birds and of everything that creeps on
the ground. Two and two, male and female,
went into the ark with Noah as God had commanded Noah.
And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the
earth. Now when we talk about the
flood, it's one of those things that critics of the Bible and
critics of Christianity love to mock.
This week I saw a video of Bill Maher mocking Christianity
because of our belief in the flood.
His assessment that was that Christians don't want real
answers that science can provide and he labeled the accounts of
Noah and the ark as childish and a made-up story.
When we read this passage, it comes across as though Moses
believed it was actually true. He used all sorts of details to
point to a historic event. He used all sorts of details to
point to a historical event that actually happened.
The flood was an actual event posited in an actual time and
place in history. The other creation and flood
stories don't communicate their events in in the same manner
that Moses does in Genesis. The text is remarkably specific.
It says Noah was 600 years old when the flood began.
Tells us he and his family, his sons, his wife and sons wives
all went into the ark. Clean animals, unclean animals,
birds, creeping animals, male and female pairs, they all went
into the ark. And then seven days after Noah
and his family went into the ark, the flood began.
Moses wrote about the flood in a very matter of fact manner.
The text is relaying historical events to us and this continues
through the rest of the flood narrative.
Even through the rest of the book, really.
Verse 11 references the 17th day of the second month in Noah's
600th year, a very specific date, and it rained for 40 days
and 40 nights. It says the extent of the
flooding is noted so that the reader understands how much
flooding there actually was, and that living things died as the
waters prevailed on the earth for 150 days.
These are all important details intended to communicate a
historical event. As we consider the factual
nature of this account, there's something that stand out that
stands out to me. For decades there was.
There was impending doom on the horizon.
Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth after he turned 500
years old. Some quite some feats, right?
But then sometime after that, God commands him to build the
ark. And the shortest estimate is
that it could have taken 75 years to build the ark, perhaps
even longer. So for at least 75 years, Noah
withstood the ridicule of the people.
For decades, the people watched. They watched Noah building the
ark for decades. And they didn't change.
They didn't repent. You see, sin is persistent.
Sin is persistent. To be honest, when I think about
this, I'm astounded. How could someone watch this guy
and his family build an ark for 75 years and not stop to
consider the purpose or or reason in the ark and ask
questions? I mean this guy in presumably
his family live differently than everyone else.
Noah was a beacon of light in in the midst of a dark generation.
But as far as we can tell, no one stopped to ask why are you?
No, why are you really doing this?
What? What do you know that we don't
know? Who is it that you are
following? Tell us about this God.
No one asked about Yahweh. The only thing sinners think
about is self. You can't reason sinners into
saving themselves. Try as me we might.
We can't scare the sin out of people.
Sin is deep in the life of the unregenerate person and they
can't short of the Holy Spirit's working.
Sinners can't climb out of sin. Just think about the fact that
back on Page 3, conditions were perfect for humans to make the
right choices. Even then they couldn't make the
right decisions and they treated good for bad.
God's wisdom for their own redefining of right and wrong.
Sin ensnares us and getting out of its net isn't something that
we can do on our own. The power of sin's grip is
persistent and is why God sent the flood.
Looking at verses 11 through 16, there we see the beginnings of
the flood in the 6th, 100th year of Noah's life, in the second
month on the 17th day of the month.
On that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and
the windows of the heavens were opened, and the rain and rain
fell upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights.
On the very same day Noah and his Shem, and Ham, and Japheth,
and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them,
entered the ark. They and every beast according
to its kind, all the livestock according to their kinds, and
every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its
kind, and every bird according to its kind, every winged
creature, they went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all
flesh, in which there was the breath of life.
And those that entered, male and female of all flesh went in as
God had commanded him, and the Lord shut him in.
Now the heightened literary structure of the flood narrative
does a bit of bouncing back and forth between concepts and
themes. It says the flood started and
then it'll say Noah went into the ark.
And then it says the flood started again.
The scholars will tell you there's, there's a chiastic
structure here that is, that is telling us what the point a
chiasm is something where we present a theme, we'll call it
A. And, and as the story goes
along, the story will continue in that.
And at the very end, A will be mirrored with a prime and then
the next thing is B and then we'll see that mirrored with B
prime and then C&C prime. And it all points to what God is
trying to tell us. And we will see the the top of
that chiasm. We'll see that next week as we
enter chapter 8. But for now, everything is
building up towards that point. And so so we're, we're learning
more ever every little detail is coming along here in the
narrative. Now these verses drill down into
what verses 6 through 10 generalized verses 6 through 10
were we're more general, kind of like chapter 1 was a general
view of creation and then chapter 2 drilled down into it.
That's kind of a little bit of what's happening here.
So, as these verses do, it's important to take note of the
fact that this is the only spot in the flood narrative where
Noah's sons are named. Explicitly naming Shem, Ham, and
Japheth draws a connection between the genealogies of
chapter 6. If you'll remember, chapter 6
went through and this person had this person and this person, and
then it got to Noah. And it didn't just stop there.
It said Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
So naming them is a connection between, between the genealogies
and then when they will exit the ark later on in a couple
chapters now, it reminds us that this family, this particular
family that is on the ark is descended from the righteous
line of Seth, the the right genealogy, if you will, the
right line. They're descended from that
line. And in the future of the whole
world rests with this family and these three sons who are the
progenitors of the nations. Now on the same day when no one,
his family entered the ark, the animals also entered the beast
according to their kinds, male and female.
Now, Moses language here, if you were paying attention, you, you
take notice of this language and you realize this is the same
language that was used back in the creation story.
So it draws us back to creation. At the beginning of creation,
everything was created and reproduced according to their
own kinds, right? Various beasts, livestock,
creeping things and varieties of birds.
All of these, everything that had God's breath within them was
now represented on the ark by reproducing pears.
And the text explicitly calls out each of these categories.
As our minds are drawn back to the first page of creation, it
serves to remind us that all is not lost.
All is not lost. There's still hope and
opportunity. The seed of the woman is still
alive, and someday things will be made right.
This is important because as a whole, humanity had failed to
listen to God. They were disobedient and set on
evil. But these animals, they were
obedient to God. He commanded them to enter the
ark, and they did. Their obedience to Yahweh excel
the rest of humanity who was not on the ark.
Now once all flesh chosen for deliverance obeyed, then God did
his part and he shut them in. He He did what Noah couldn't do
and he he sealed the ark by closing its door and this
signaled God's divine protection.
This was God's divine protection.
The inhabitants of the ark, the the humans and the animals were
all under God's protective care. He closed up the vessel in the
fate of these passengers was entirely in his hands.
They they couldn't remember. There's no rudder.
They they can't decide where they want to go.
They are entirely relying upon God.
The facts. The text tells us.
The precise day this happened grabs me.
It's doing more than just saying hey, this was a real day in
story. It is doing that, yes, but the
declaration it was on the 17th day of the second month of
Noah's 600th year reminds me of other historic moments.
We intuitively know when 911 happened.
Of course you'll say September 11th, yes, but you know that it
wasn't just September 11th. You know that it was in 2001.
If I asked you when Pearl Harbor was, many of you would
immediately respond that it was December 7th of 1941.
And if I asked when D-Day was many of you don't even have to
stop to think about the fact that it was on June 6th of 1944
that the Allied forces landed at Normandy and and set in motion
what would become the freedom of Western Europe from Nazis.
We we have these dates etched into our minds.
We don't forget about these kinds of things and surely the
flood. It's one of those dates you do
not forget no one. His family would always remember
this dates. You can't forget something like
this that so that is so completely unprecedented in
history in which unequivocally changed the world.
On this specific date, the 17th day of the second month of
Noah's 600 year, the heavens were opened and the fountains of
the great deep burst forth. Now we know that a heavy storm
for even a few hours can, can do tremendous damage and then let
alone a few days and then you throw in 40 days and 40 nights,
the damage can be absolutely catastrophic to the local
terrain, to the wildlife. And and in our societies, rain
can just vast amounts of water destroy buildings and
structures. So here it rains for 40 days and
40 nights, torrential rainfall. And also at the same time, water
is coming up from the fountains of the deep, is what it says.
Now this wasn't just geysers spewing scalding water into the
air or or springs bringing water up to the Earth's surface.
When the text speaks of the deep, it's referring
specifically to oceans. There may well have been oceanic
earthquakes and volcanoes that tore apart the Earth's crust in
a violent explosive upheaval, causing water to go everywhere.
The oceans were angry and they were churning for for about 5
months. As we think about their world
being inundated with water, it's good to remind ourselves of what
the their literal worldview, how they saw the world in the
ancient Near East. It's good to remind ourselves of
of what it was like from their perspective, the world looked
something like this picture. Here you have the earth, that is
the dry land, the the columns of the earth, the the oceans.
Remember God had God had put in place, say a firmament,
firmaments to separate so the waters above from the waters
below. And So what exactly that was we
don't know exactly, but this is kind of how they viewed the
earth in Moses day. They perceive the sky as being
this kind of Dome that stretched from one end of the sky all the
way across to the other end. We don't know what the earth was
actually like at this point in time.
It was. It was different than than what
it is now. It was different back in the 1st
chapter when God had gathered gathered all the waters together
into one place, and so presumably all the land is in
one place as well. It's possible some of this
picture was reality in the waters from both below and above
the earth all combined to create this massive flood.
So this leads us to look at the floods extents, the culmination.
This is the culmination of the flood that we're going to read
about here in verses 17 through 24.
Verse 17, the flood continued 40 days on the earth.
The waters increased and bore up the ark and it rose high above
the earth. The waters prevailed and
increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face
of the waters. And the waters prevailed so
mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the
whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the
mountains, covering them 15 cubits deep.
And all flesh died that moved on the earth.
Birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on
the earth and all mankind, everything on the dry land and
whose nostrils was the breath of life, died.
He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of
the ground. Man in animals and creeping
things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the
earth. Only Noah was left, and those
who are with him in the ark and the waters prevailed on the
earth 150 days. So here we see how bad things
got. Again, there's a good amount of
detail here which signals to us that this is a real event.
The flooding that is the the waters coming up from the deep
as well as the opening of the heavens continued for 40 days,
and the ark had no issue being lifted up off of the earth in
such a deluge. Verses 19 through 20 then tell
us how high the waters rose. All the high mountains under the
whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the
mountains, covering them 15 cubits deep.
All the mountains were were they were overwhelmed by the water,
and the water was 15 cubits or 22 1/2 feet above the mountains
of the effects of this were to be expected right, and in line
with what God had said was going to happen.
All living flesh was blotted out.
All living flesh was removed from the face of the earth.
Birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on
the earth. All mankind.
So the reboot, this, this new beginning was now contingent
entirely on those who were in the Ark.
Any conversation about the flood necessarily involves a a
discussion of its extent for this.
For the sake of this message, I'll distill everything down to
2 views. Some will argue for more nuanced
positions of of both views, but the argument is really between
two positions, and I suspect that in this room we may have
both positions represented. I don't know that for a fact,
but it's possible. So was the flood global, or was
it merely local in extent? First of all, the dominant view
in Christianity is a global flood.
This view comes from a plain, literal reading of the text.
Our text says all the high mountains under the whole heaven
were covered. The waters prevailed above the
mountains covering them 15 cubits deep.
A plain reading of this of these verses is that all the mountains
on the entire globe were covered under the water, and even the
highest mountains had water 22 1/2 feet above their summits.
That's the plain reading of the text.
God had ripped open these springs and geysers and and
other fissures to spout abnormal volumes of water from deep
inside the earth. This rending of the waters of
the deep caused cataclysmic changes in the Earth's
topography, which included newly formed mountains.
As the. As the tectonic plates shifted
and and mountains were thrust upwards, massive erosion was
seen on the earth and the continents we know today were
formed out of one single continent.
Those who believe in a global flood assume significant
theological, theological, geological changes after the
deluge. Now some will argue that there
was a a canopy covering the Earth and some will say there
wasn't a canopy. That's up for debate.
We know there was some sort of firmament.
What that was we don't know. But so this this canopy, some
will argue, prevented rain from falling.
So we had never rained before this moment as as the canopy
holds back the rain and this canopy bursts and and helps
supply much of the water for the flood.
Rain was now part of the Earth's water cycle.
Some other changes included sedimentary rock being quickly
laid down, as well as the creation as the mountain ranges
are created. We can point to the fact that
you can find marine fossils at the tops of some mountains, even
the top of the world, Mount Everest, as proof of a global
flood. Speaking of the fossil record,
Ken Ham, who is, I would say, the biggest advocate, the most
popular name in global flood apologetics, Ken Ham says the
fossil record is billions of dead things buried in rock
layers laid down by water all over the earth.
This, he says, is it's dramatic evidence of the historicity of
Noah's flood. So all these things point to a
catastrophic and practically instant change in the Earth and
fossil record. Obviously, the only humans to
survive the flood were Noah's family.
And every creature on Earth is descended from the animals that
were on the ark. Even dinosaurs are said to have
been on the ark. And everybody's always thinks,
oh, dinosaurs couldn't go on the ark because they always think
of, you know, the ones that are several stories tall.
Well, they don't start that way. They start well.
I don't, I don't know how big some of those were, but there
are much smaller younger versions that could have been on
the Ark. Now, the other viewpoints for
the flood is called a local flood.
Theologians who hold to this perspective believe in a flood,
and they're also trying to faithfully interpret Scripture
in a manner that is consistent with what Moses audience would
have understood. That is, that is one of their
main arguments. One writer I came across said
when looking at Scripture, it's very important not to just read
it with our modern perception. We need to consider the context
and point of view of the people of that era who wrote it, and
most importantly, try to understand God's perspective as
much as we possibly can. Scripture isn't the problem,
it's how we interpret it. That may be the cause of
misunderstandings. Now, the majority of those who
hold to the local flood perspective believe it was an
absolutely massive flood. However, it didn't impact all of
the continents of the world. It stayed localized within a
region like Mesopotamia or the Tigris and Euphrates River
Valley. The whole of the Earth's
population would seemingly be centered there in that region.
So the flood could still be said to have been universal, but not
global as in around the entire globe of the earth.
Therefore, the annihilation of sinful man only, according to
this view, only involved flooding the known world of
their time. This view reinterprets the
phrase All the high mountains under the whole heaven were
covered to mean that they were overwhelmed or they were
drenched with water. This is based on other uses of
the word Ke$ha. If you want to arrive at this
conclusion, you have to do a bit of research and understanding.
Hebrew. They also believe that that
covering them, that is covering the mountains 15 cubits deep
should actually be translated as 15 cubits upwards on the
mountain. So starting from the mountains,
15 cubits upward on the mountains due to the use of the
word maal necessitating a translation of deep instead.
Now when talking about the creation days and views
regarding creation, I said it's important to understand that
that godly Christ following theologians can be found on both
sides of the discussion, and that's applies here as well.
We don't judge someone as not Christian or or a liberal based
on their views of creation or on their view of the flood.
This is a secondary issue and not an issue of top importance.
Was there a flood? Yes, I would say that is an
issue of top importance, that there was a flood because God
was doing something and starting humanity over.
But one can hold to either a global or local flood and be
faithful to the words of Scripture.
Your view of the flood's extent doesn't determine your salvation
or anyone else's. Both perspectives believe in
something absolutely catastrophic and which could
have only been performed by God. They both view the flood as God
working to purge humanity, to purge the earth of its evil, and
then God vowing to never do that again.
I'll also add that whichever view you land on, there are
questions to address. If the flood was global, really
where did all the water come from and where did it go so
quickly if it was really covering all the mountains?
If you believe in a local flood, you have to consider whether
humanity may have moved beyond the region, whether doing so
would circumvent God's purpose and plan to restart everything
through this one family. Local Flood person also needs to
come to grips with the fossil record and marine fossils being
found in places where we wouldn't expect them to be, as
well as determining how does an ark come to rest on a tall
mountain. There are questions to be
navigated. So what do we do with this
message? I suspect nobody in here is
going to go home and build an ark.
If you do, that's really cool. I want to see it make it make it
the right the right size. Like like the one in Kentucky.
That would be awesome. But no, actually, let's build an
ark of sorts. What was the ark?
The ark was a means to preserving this family.
It was it was rescuing them from God's judgment on the earth.
The ark rescued them. So build an ark and invite
people to believe in Jesus. That's a metaphorical ark.
You can build an ark. Go ahead.
Invite people to believe in Jesus.
Share the gospel with them. Invite them to invite them to
church. That is one of the easiest steps
to take. This is such an awesome place to
be. We have plenty of room.
Invite people to come worship with us.
Come hear the truth of God's word.
Engage in spiritual conversations with people.
Ask deep questions, ask about their faith.
I love that I was talking with, with Mike Finley just yesterday
and he's talking with someone and he's always trying to where,
where can I squeeze this in? How, how can I move the
conversation to the gospel? So they're talking, he says,
well, what about eternity? And, and, and the person just
kind of kind of says, we'll come back to that.
And the conversation never got there.
So, so now Mike has this, this need to, we need to finish that
conversation. We need to get to talking about
eternity, work conversations towards the gospel.
It doesn't always have to be a full gospel presentation, but
broaching issues of faith. Salvation comes only through
Jesus and we we can be that arc of sorts.
We can be the conduit to help bring deliverance to someone, to
help bring freedom from God's judgement.
Second, trust in God's protection.
Trust in God's protection. Noah and his family threw
themselves entirely on God's grace.
The only reason they were going to get through the storm was
because God said He would save them from it.
There will be storms in our lives that are much greater than
anything that we can handle, and the only way we'll weather them
is if we cling to the salvation God has given us in Jesus.
So we trust in Him for eternity and we trust in Him to get
through the storms of life. Right now.
The flood is definitely not a light matter.
We've looked at some heavy stuff when you consider all the
people, all all the creatures that were destroyed in the
flood. And for some people, it might
challenge your faith. Is that is it really necessary
for that to happen? Is that really have to go that
way? Did he have to destroy
everything? Yes.
But that's not the whole picture.
God was still working in the midst of the flood.
He was saving a people who would be his own possession, a people
who would be treasured above all the others in the world and the
ones through whom rescue for humanity would come.
Let's bow our heads and close our eyes.
God, as we close our time this morning, some of this can can
feel a bit academic to just talk about the flood and, and what
happened and, and how how the floodgates of heaven opened up
and and the waters of the deep came forth and how everyone and
everything that was not on the ark was destroyed.
But God, you, you were working in the midst of that moment.
You're still working, protecting your people, your people, out of
whom one day salvation would come.
So God would. Would we be diligent to to
point, perhaps as as Noah did, he, he, he tried to point people
to you, to your salvation? Would we be diligent to point
people to Jesus Christ our Savior?
We have protection. We have everything we need in
you life. Provision, a future, a future
beyond this life that is just absolutely glorious and
wonderful. Would you give us opportunities
and give us the eyes and ears to know, to be sensitive to those
opportunities and to step into them faithfully and point people
to you? Thank you for this time.
Maybe we'll be transformed by your word.
It's in Jesus name we pray, Amen.