The Flood Begins... finally :o)
And the story continues (finally)
14 So make yourself an ark of cypress[c] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.[d] 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit[e] high all around.[f] Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
I have to admit, when I started the whole “Noah” study, I thought it would be a 4 or 5 week lesson… guess I was wrong (once again). We are now 10+ weeks into it and it just keeps expanding.
It amazes me, but then God is constantly amazing me, so I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised that God’s Word is so full of details and life lessons and that they apply just as much today as they did 5000 years ago.
We’ve looked at the reasons behind the judgment of the flood, and the vessel that Noah was instructed to build and its symbolism (Typology) of the future Messiah… today we’ll look at Noah and his family and the beginnings of the catastrophe.
From scripture we know that Noah is told that the whole world will be cleansed and all life, save that on the ark, will be completely destroyed. But how much do you think Noah really understood?
He probably had never seen rain before, and now water is going to cover the earth. He must have had a few questions, but he did what God told him, and there’s no indication that he doubted God, or that he doubted his part in this event.
Wouldn’t you have liked to have been a mouse in the corner of the Noah household… imagine the conversations around the supper table, or late at night when everything else was quiet….
Can you hear Noah and Mrs. Noah talking? I wonder what their conversations involved? Do you think they discussed how this flood would happen, when it would happen? Did they know what ‘rain’ was? Did they know about the mechanism of the fountains of the deep- or the floodgates of heaven? Did they worry about relatives who were not listening to Noah’s pleading to repent ? Did they wonder how it would all end? Were they discussing the animals, and how they would get them on board the ark? Were they making plans for a new start? Did they know how long they would be afloat?
I think there would have been many late night discussions- after all the ark was 100+ years in the building, so they had lots of time to ponder.
Sometimes we forget that Bible people were actually real people too…. They had fears, hopes, disappointments, achievements, worries, aspirations and cares just like us. Everything you would think, they probably thought… but yet, they did as God told them, they were faithful.
Genesis 7
1 The LORD then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.
In the first verse the NIV reads “Go into the ark” a better translation would be “Come into the ark” as some other translations read.
Why “come” and not “go”… this was an invitation to Noah, not so much a command. God invited Noah, as He does us, to “Come” into salvation.
Here’s where the story changes a bit for those of us who are only familiar with the ‘children’s version’ of the account of Noah and the Ark. In verses 2 and 3 Noah is directed to take with him 7 pairs of certain animals, not only the two animals in the songs and most Sunday School lessons. The clean animals (clean for sacrificial purposes) were to be present in 14s (7 pairs). The unclean animals (could not be sacrificed) were present in 2s.
Some people ask how Noah managed to gather all the animals together, and how did he know when he had them all…. Of course, Noah didn’t gather them- God sent them to Noah.
Picture that with me for a moment.
For over 100 years Noah has been building away, and all the while preaching to the people. Obviously they thought he was a nut, a cuckoo, a luney tune. Then as the ark is completed, thousands of animals begin to show up… in pairs no less. They come, day after day, a steady stream to the area around the ark, they come – the mice and the elephants, the lions and the lambs, the ostriches and the doves… and the people of Noah’s day do what? How did they respond? What were they thinking? I would love to know what crosses your mind when parades of animals begin to orderly descend on a huge water vessel built in the desert.
We sit on this side of the cross, thousands of years removed from the Noah event and shake our heads at the blindness of these people.
How could they have been so stupid as to not see what was going on, how everything that Noah told them was beginning to happen, how strange things, unheard of things, were going on right under their noses… and yet they were blind and didn’t plan, and didn’t repent, and kept right on living like tomorrow was just another day.
What foolish people they were… we would never be so blind. Or are we? Certainly we are.
The bible tells us what events will precede the last days, and still we go on unheeding the changes all around us (anyone watching the news this week???)… the Bible tells us clearly what the signs of the times will be…. Yet we shrug them off, and all who would dare to tell us that the last days are approaching (if not already at our doorstep) we call them fanatics, lunatics, fear-mongers and doomsayers.
The people of Noah’s day were the same. Noah was just a crazy old man, who didn’t know what he was talking about, and his family was crazy like him.
They must have thought that he was stark raving mad…. Until that first cloud appeared on the horizon, and as that cloud grew and darkened maybe they had their first cause to doubt themselves and their wisdom, and when the clouds gathered thick and dark right overhead maybe they began to second guess… but at that first drop of water from the heavens I would almost guarantee they didn’t think Noah was such a lunatic after all.
But, I’m ahead of myself.
Back to verse 4 (Gen 7)… God invites Noah into the ark (he could have refused – but Noah did everything as God commanded) and we are told that in seven days God would send the rain.
Now, don’t write this in permanent marker, but I want to throw out a ‘thought’ to you.
We know that the ark is a “Type” of Christ, it shows us the coming Messiah and the salvation that is available only in him (one door… you haven’t forgot THOSE lessons have you?). Noah and his family are taken into the ark 7 days before the flood… some of you already know where this is going, don’t you?!!
Seven days before …. As a pretribulationalist, I believe that Christians will be raptured before the 7 year tribulation…. Is it possible that Noah’s entry into the ark 7 days before the beginning of the flood is foreshadowing our snatching away at the rapture? I’ve got to do some more digging on that topic, but wanted to whet your appetite… after all you can dig as well as I can… and we can dig together!
Next we look to verse 16, for another typological clue…
16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.
The LORD shut them in. Noah had no control over that door to the ark. He couldn’t close it, it was closed by the hand of God. Why is that so important to us?.
Think for a moment what was transpiring outside as the flood began … screams and pleas for mercy, shouts of repentance and wails as people tried to get into the closed ark. Old great grandparents, young babies, friends and family, all were clamoring to get to the safety of the ark. The cries must have been heart wrenching at best, sickening at least. If God had allowed Noah to control that door, to open and close it, Noah could have (and most probably would have) opened that door to let in those dying souls. After all he was human- these were his family, his friends, his neighbours.
They all had time to repent, they all heard Noah’s entreaty to change, to come, to be ready. They chalked him up as crazy, a fool, a nut job, a dingbat (to quote Archie Bunker)
.
Life was good and they were going to continue enjoying it. BUT, the time finally came (100+ years after the first warning) when God said “Enough” and God determined it was time to shut the door. All chances were gone. The opportunity was gone. Hope was lost.
When it was Noah preaching, Faith was required on their part. The people had to have faith that Noah was right that God was going to send judgment on them all, that God would save them and that they needed saving. They could have had faith. They should have put their faith in God. They didn’t. They trusted themselves, their own knowledge and their own ability to save themselves (any of this sound familiar to anyone?).
Now the opportunity wasn’t available anymore… the door was shut and the rains had begun. Once the rain began, faith was not required… it was now evident- it was now a fact… they knew Noah was right, they knew without a doubt that they needed saving now and they also must have known that the invisible hand that closed that door to the ark was sealing their fate.
I believe that there will come a day (how much longer?) when God will again shut the door. As the ark was the means of salvation for Noah and all the people of that time, Jesus is now the means of salvation for us and everyone of this age.
We have been living in the “Age of Grace” for about 2000 years now, but we are told that at some future point, the Holy Spirit will be removed and the god of the powers of the air (Satan) will be loosed. He is restrained right now (check out 2 Thess)… but in the end times he will be loosed upon all mankind (those who are left after the rapture).
When God shuts the door in that future time, it will too late for most of those left on earth (I really didn’t intend to get into eschatology in this lesson, but here it is. Maybe an End Times study will follow someday… email me if you need clarification on anything I say) Right now we have the Holy Spirit leading us into truth and convicting us of sin, in that day(once the Christians are raptured) He will be removed, and salvation will be only for the Jews. (there’s so much more to that story, but it’s not the meat of my lesson today)
My point is this, the people of Noah’s day ‘missed the boat’ (that’s a really bad pun, but I couldn’t resist) and after the door was shut it was too late… same thing is coming up… God will one day shut the door again to salvation and it will too late. Don’t miss the boat! Enter in through the one and only door (Jesus Christ) before it’s closed by the hand of God.
I skipped a few verses that I want to go back to, this chapter is written in such a way as to repeat certain facts and to take them out of order time wise, so back to verses 10-12
10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Usually when we think of the Flood, we think of rain. In fact when I was teaching this in class we were experiencing all that rain- when we had the flooding in Yarmouth and Clyde and areas… I remember teaching this and looking out of the church window and laughing about God’s sense of humor.
But it was not the rain that caused the whole earth to flood. That would have been an impossibility according to those scientist types who study these kinds of things. But the Bible actually tells us that there were two other major contributors to the earth flooding. A onetime event for the flood.
We are told in vs. 11 that the springs of the great deep (Fountains in some translations) and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. What are these?
Apparently prior to the flood there were vast (more vast then currently exist at this time) reservoirs of water under the earth’s crust and above the earth, in what some call a water canopy were copious amounts of water. With the beginning of the flood, at God’s beckon call, the earth broken open and water spewed up and out. The heavens emptied all the water it had held and the clouds shed their rain.
Three separate contributing factors. If you look back at Gen 1: 6-10 you can see the Bible clearly tells us that in the original creation there was water beneath the sky (oceans and rivers and underground reservoirs no doubt) and above the sky… here’s how the “Message “ reads:
6-8 God spoke: "Sky! In the middle of the waters;
separate water from water!"
God made sky.
He separated the water under sky
from the water above sky. And there it was:
he named sky the Heavens;
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Two.
9-10 God spoke: "Separate!
Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place;
Land, appear!"
And there it was.
God named the land Earth.
He named the pooled water Ocean.
God saw that it was good.
Now, if the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were responsible for the copious amounts of water of the flood, think for a moment what was happening in addition to the rain falling.
We all get trapped at times into thinking that the way things are for us, now, are the way things have always been. We couldn’t be more wrong. Because we look around today and see mountains and valleys and Grand Canyons, and the Dead Sea, we assume (or scientists tell us) that these have always been that way, or at least they have been that way for millions of years.
No.
First of all the earth isn’t millions of years old.
Secondly they have no idea, they weren’t there to verify it any more than you were, they are just guessing at best.
Let’s reason for a bit. If the fountains of the deep broke open during (causing) the flood… what would that involve… what would that look like?
I guess the closest thing we could imagine would be earthquakes and volcanoes. The earth ripping open, great geysers of water spewing forth, steam and water and volcanic ash, mountains being created, the earth’s crust plunging in areas where it released its store of water…. The crust crumpling and folding as it is distorted from the rapid release of all that pent up pressure.
Science tells us that mountains took millions of years to form… really? I bet a couple days of this sort of activity and we could be looking at mountains and valleys in a relatively short amount of time. We know from recent history (late 1800’s/ early 1900’s) one large volcanic eruption produced the “Year without a Summer” … cold, poor crops, sun blocked by volcanic ash… imagine if you can what result a world full of erupting volcanoes and ensuing earthquakes would produce (Ever wonder about the Ice Age…. It all ties into the Bible account!!)
So this adds more drama to our story… not only were the people outside of the ark terrified because of the rains, now the earth was convulsing in ways unknown to them.
Can you even begin to imagine their horror? Probably those who weren’t instantly killed tried in vain to save themselves… maybe they clung onto the outside of the ark for a while… clawing into the wood, trying to grasp a little lip or ledge of the boat…. Maybe some ran to higher ground… some could have climbed on trees like we see often in local flooded areas… maybe even some built little rafts for themselves and their families…. But in the end it was all for nothing, because in the end they all perished.
It’s that way today with those who will refuse to enter in through that one door – Jesus Christ – of our ark; they may be able to ‘save themselves’ for a while … clinging on to church or good works, treading water with false religions and false hopes, maybe running to higher ground by being spiritual and religious, and some will even build rafts of salvation with sticks from the Devil himself…. But their fate will be the same, When God closes that door and the rain starts and the flood begins all hope for salvation is gone. The ark will float, it will drift away and inside its cargo will be safe and sound while all “Hell” breaks loose outside.
The ark didn’t have a window except along the very top…. I guess God had many reasons for that design!
My word processor is showing 7 pages worth of ramblings for this lesson, I better cut it off here… we’ll pick up on the story next lesson and talk a little about the false ‘evidence’ of evolution and a million/billion year old earth.
You’ve been taught a lie, our schools are still teaching our kids falsehoods, and it’s time that we took a stand for the truth.
Blessings!
Nancy
No comments:
Post a Comment