Genesis 7
The Waters of Judgment

  1. The Lord Commands and Noah in Faith Obeys
    1. The Lord's Command
      1. Come into the ark, you and all your household
        1. Because he had seen that Noah was righteous
        2. So up front we are expecting obedience to the command, because that is the response a righteous man would make
        3. Notice as well that Noah and his household are brought into the ark on the basis of Noah's righteousness. More on this in point 3.
        4. For now it's enough to say that God is very clear: There is only one way onto this ark. God must invite you on the basis of righteousness - either your own or that of your covenant head.
      2. Bring seven pairs of clean animals and a pair each of those that aren't
        1. He's not contradicting his earlier statement in 6:19, as the liberals would have it.
          1. Rather he's explaining more fully his plan to Noah.
          2. The earlier concern was to establish that creation would be preserved by having at least a pair, one male, one female, of every kind of animal.
          3. Now God goes on to tell Noah he needs seven pairs of certain kinds of animals, the clean ones and the birds.
        2. This distinction between clean and unclean would have been familiar to the original audience - Israel under Moses.
          1. Don't eat certain kinds of animals - pigs, camels, horses, etc.
          2. Keep "kosher"
        3. But God has already made a provision for Noah's food in 6:21. So that "practical" concern has been met.
          1. Practically, then, Noah needs clean animals that he can offer in sacrifice to God when God is done saving him.
          2. And practically, he's going to need extra birds so he can let them out like test balloons without destroying an entire species.
          3. This at least is the reason given for needing extra birds, both clean and unclean, in 6:3 - "to keep the species (lit. the seed) alive on the face of the earth."
        4. But with the distinction between clean and unclean, surely more than the merely practical is in God's mind.
        5. What did this distinction do for Israel? It distinguished them as God's special people and the rest of the world as condemned.
        6. So here.
      3. God repeats his warning so Noah will know why he's doing this:
        1. He will send rain to destroy every living thing on the earth
        2. In 7 days:
          1. I.e. a complete amount of time.
          2. I.e. enough time to bring in all these animals and himself enter, but no more.
          3. There's no point in getting attached to this earth; it's about to go kaplooey.
    2. Noah's Faithful Response
      1. Noah does all that God commands him (5)
        1. A repetition of 6:22 (And there are a lot of repetitions in this story for a couple of reasons: 1) Dramatic effect. You don't want to tell such a major event in a few sentences. 2) Because the Creation account had a lot of repetition, so the uncreation account is mirroring that. More on this later)
        2. By faith he condemns the world, building an ark.
        3. By faith he condemns the world, getting on the ark with his family and the animals.
      2. He and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives embarked
        1. "Because of the waters of the flood"
        2. Where were those waters? Could he see them?
          1. No. But by faith he knew they would come.
          2. And thus by faith he condemned the world, his very actions confessing that he knew God was coming in judgment and that nothing in this world would survive.
      3. All the animals God had commanded entered "as God had commanded Noah" (v. 9)
        1. We're drawing this out, taking our time
        2. You need to feel a little tension building. Hurry, Noah! Get everyone and everything on the ark before the 7 days are up!
        3. And you need some time to bask in the perfection of his obedience - our story hits all the high points, making sure you know that not one of God's commands was ignored.
        4. This is indeed a righteous man. He deserves to escape God's judgment.
      4. And then, after drawing that out... judgment comes swiftly.
        1. After 7 days, just as God had said.
        2. Fountains of the great deep were broken up (11)
        3. Windows of heaven were opened
        4. I.e. The waters above and below converged
          1. This is specific uncreation language
          2. As such it sets up the next section
  2. All Creation Enters the Ark and Creation is Destroyed
    1. All Creation Enters the Ark
      1. Backtracking a little for this different point, and expanding
        1. Now Noah's sons are named (13)
        2. And a little more is said about the kinds of animals that entered as well (14)
      2. There's a sense of fullness here, every sort of creature is named.
      3. The story goes consciously through the creation story to tell you that every "beast" (animal in the generic sense) "all cattle" (domestic animals), every "creeping thing" (all the other weird stuff) and every bird "of every sort" - The whole creation goes in.
      4. The creation language is again called to mind by the repetition of "after their kind" (14), just as God created them.
      5. The calling in of the elect
    2. Creation is Destroyed
      1. Waters undivided horizontally (19,20)
      2. All those created animals died (21)
      3. Everything that had breath of life - man, cattle, birds, creeping things - everything that wasn't on the ark (22,23)
        1. This is man's uncreation specifically
        2. It was man of whom it is noted specifically that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
        3. So much for the divine breath; it has become like the breath of the animals - Who knows if it ascends to heaven or descends to the dust.
        4. This is the end.
      4. [Dramatize the judgment a bit here]
      5. Only Noah and the occupants of the ark are saved.
  3. The Significance of All This
    1. The Calling in of the Elect
      1. Noah (the Christ figure) the one elect
      2. Those covenantally in Noah
      3. The whole creation
        1. I don't want to press this as though the Gentile inclusion is here prophesied.
        2. But I want to use this to show the expansiveness of God's salvation from the point of view of the elect.
        3. On the one hand, this small remnant is saved from the waters
          1. Isaiah 10:21,22 - The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, To the Mighty God. 22For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, A remnant of them will return;
          2. Luke 13:23ff. - Then one said to Him, "Lord, are there few who are saved?" And He said to them, 24"Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25"When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open for us,' and He will answer and say to you, 'I do not know you, where you are from,' 26"then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.' 27"But He will say, 'I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.' 28"There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out. 29"They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God. 30"And indeed there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last."
        4. On the other hand, it's every creature under heaven.
          1. Acts 2:5 - And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven.
          2. Colossians 1:23 - if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.
    2. The Universality of the Coming Judgment
      1. The faithfulness of God - He promised this judgment, he promises the last judgment:
        1. Acts 17: - Having furnished proof...
        2. Hurry! God has fixed a day!
      2. The historicity of this judgment and the final one.
        1. Note specific times and dates
          1. 6 - Noah was 600 years old
          2. 11 - 600th year of Noah's life in the 2nd month of the 17th day of the month, on that day....
          3. 7 days, 40 days, 150 days
        2. The historicity of the event is undergirded by specific dates. Make no mistake. This is no fairy tale or morality play. It has often been remarked that if the 1st Adam is not a historical person, neither is the last. I.e. if Adam didn't exist in history, neither did Christ. A valid argument. Same argument here. If the first judgment is a fraud so is the final one.
        3. 2 Peter 3:4ff. - and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." 5For 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, 6by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7But 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.
    3. The Only Escape
      1. The Lord brought Noah on the ark because he was righteous (1)
      2. Can this be said of you?
      3. Do you have any hope of escaping God's coming judgment because of your own righteousness?
      4. Then you need a Noah
        1. someone whom God declares righteous on your behalf
        2. Then you can get in on his ticket (like the wife and kids)
        3. And in this sense even Noah needed a Noah
      5. You need Christ
      6. Christ, who underwent those very judgment waters on your behalf.
        1. Psalm 69:1,2 - Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. 2I sink in deep mire, Where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, Where the floods overflow me.
        2. He cried this out at the cross, yet the judgment continued
        3. Consider his agony - This flood describes the terrible wrath of God that he endured.
      7. And he came out the other side, like Noah's ark
        1. God did not leave his soul in the grave
        2. He was raised again!
      8. If you attempt this journey yourself, the waters shall overwhelm you.
      9. Only in Christ.

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