This is the 4th in a series of the series called The days of Noah, this being The Flood. This is one of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard, and it moved me to tears. I know that it will be a blessing to you, and I beseech you to either read the whole of the notes (which are long) or take the time to listen to the sermon at Sermon Audio which is linked below.
As a background, prior to Noah building the ark, God spoke to Noah, who "found grace in the eyes of the LORD" (Gen 6:8) and instructed Noah to build the ark to the LORD's specifications (Gen 6:13-16) and told Noah that he, the LORD would bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, and every living thing that is in the earth would die, but with Noah he would establish his covenant. In Gen 6:3 the LORD said "My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Noah with his wife, his sons, and his son's wives, would be safe on the ark. This is the background, and following are the notes from the sermon:
The Days of Noah - the Flood
Genesis 7:1-24
Between the end of Gen 6 and Gen 7:1 almost 120 years had passed during which Noah continued working and building the ark. And when the ark was finished, God speaks to Noah Gen 7:1-4 "And the LORD said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth." God speaks after 120 years and tells Noah to bring his family and the animals and the birds into the ark for the time of judgment had come. 120 years had passed since the first warning, since the preacher of righteousness was instructed by God to begin building the ark. Now God says there are seven days left, the time has come.
Seven more days of grace V4. The door of grace, of salvation on the side of the ark would be open for another seven days. Didn't God give the people in the world of Noah's day every opportunity. He gave them the preacher, he gave them 120 years, and now a further 7 days of grace. The bible tells us that Noah gathers his family into the ark. His wife, his sons and his son's wives. But note that Noah's sons had not been born when God had last spoken to Noah. When God told Noah that the flood was coming 120 years ago, Noah's sons were not born, because it tells us that Noah's sons were born when Noah was 500 years old (Gen 5:32) and the flood came when Noah was 600 (Gen 7:6) but God had told Noah 120 years previous that the flood would come, 20 years before Noah's sons were born. So Noah's sons had grown up when their father was building the ark and preaching righteousness. God had not directly spoken since, Noah's sons had never heard the message direct from God, just from their father the preacher. But when they were 100 years old, they and their wives went into the ark. They believed the preacher, they believed the flood was coming, but the ungodly did not and yet both groups had heard the same message from the same preacher. It saved some and condemned others. Because some people, when they hear the gospel, the gospel saves them. But some people, the gospel hardens.
Noah and his family went into the ark, and the next thing we note is that the animals came in, Gen 6:19-20 "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; 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." Some people in our day mockingly say "how could Noah have caught all those animals, how could he have captured them". But Noah didn't have to catch them, God says in Gen 6:20 "...shall come to you." and then it says Gen 7:15 "And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life." The animals went in to Noah in the ark. Noah didn't have to catch anything. That in and of itself is a miracle. And then Noah preached during those last seven days. The door was still open for those seven days.
Think about those ungodly people to whom Noah had preached, those people who lived in the same vicinity. Do you think that they would notice if all those animals all congregated in their community in the space of a week? They were all congregating around a great big ship that has been built on the land. If you know anything about people and their inquisitiveness, you know that there was plenty of buzz going on and plenty of spectators in the area because a truly amazing spectacle is going on, all these creatures coming and going into the ark on the land for a week. In the light of what we know from the new testament, that Noah was a preacher of righteousness, (Hebrews 11:7 "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet,moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.") don't you think the preacher would take the opportunity to urge the people that are watching to come into the ark knowing that they only had 7 more days of grace left? But the ungodly didn't listen. And seeing all these creatures boarding the ark still didn't make the ungodly think. Isn't that shocking? No doubt they made up some illogical explanation as to why this was happening in their willful ignorance. If we knew someone who had only a week left to live, we would preach as Noah did, whether it was authoritatively or conversationally to them with more urgency. Seven days of grace.
Look at the exactness of the date. Gen 7:11 "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened." There was an exact date when the flood came. Not only are we told the month and the year, the second month was October/November. on the 17th day, the exact day. The dates remind us that we are dealing with what actually happened in our world. There came the year, the month, the day when God's judgment fell on this world.
The terrible reality. Gen 7:16 "And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in." capital letters, LORD is Jehovah. God closed the door on the ark. For those inside the closing of the entrance meant their salvation, but for those outside it meant their destruction. When you read that verse you can't help but think about the parable that the Lord Jesus told of the 10 virgins, and 5 were wise because they prepared beforehand, and 5 were foolish because they did not prepare beforehand. And the bridegroom came and the wise who had prepared to meet the bridegroom went into the marriage feast, but the foolish who had not prepared did not go in but they panicked and tried to prepare at the last minute and they came to the door but the door was shut. They were shut out. Here in Genesis 7 the day of grace was over and God closed the door of the ark. And God doing that saved Noah's conscience for the rest of his life. Could you or I have closed the door on all those people? We wouldn't have been holy or righteous enough to do that so God did it. For Noah to do it, he would never have gotten over it. But the day did come and the day will come again when God will close the door on the day of grace.
Then the clouds gathered and the terrible reality dawned and the ungodly must have realized that Noah was right. The clouds of judgment gathered and a global storm such as was never seen before. 7:11 "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened." The word fountains means openings in the ground through which water comes. The great deep means the abyss of the water under the earth's crust. It was broken apart. The earth's crust was torn open and that is why we can see the continental plates, they are the scars of the tear. The magma and the water rushed out under great pressure. The water in the flood came from the rain and from underground through volcanic activity. When a volcano erupts, 70% of what comes out is water in the form of steam. This causes more clouds and more rain. The waters prevailed greatly upon the earth and we can imagine the tidal waves that the opening of the plates of the earth's crust would cause. The earth was flooded with water.
It says in V17 of Gen 7 that the ark rose on the flood waters "And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift 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." and those left outside scrambled for the high ground trying to reach safety by human effort and self will but it was of no avail but it says in 7:19-23 "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, 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. 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 only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." This went on for 150 days and all outside the ark died. They were all inundated with God's judgment. There are many fossils of footprints and many, if not most, creatures, dinosaurs and humans. The toes are deeply imprinted in the fossil and that means that the person was running. They were running from the flood.
Evolution will say that fossils were formed gradually but that is nonsense, it has to be quick. Most of the fossils show signs of catastrophic death of the creatures. The fossil record is not proof of evolution, it is proof of the flood.
The scope of the flood: it is a worldwide flood. Gen 7:19-23. All died. Therefore the flood needed to cover all the earth. Gen 7:3 Many people think that the flood was local, but what does V3 mean? "....to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth" if the flood was only local, that verse is meaningless. If the flood was a local event, why did God tell Noah to build the ark? If a professed Christian says the flood was local, they make God look stupid and they make Noah look stupid.
Afterwards God promised that he would never flood the world again but every year there are plenty of local floods. We still have local floods, but God promised not to flood the whole world again. This was an exceptional flood. The Hebrew word for flood here is a unique word, and this was a unique flood, once for all.
Now what is the message? There is no other message but a somber message on the seriousness of sin. God is holy and just and loving. He provided a way to escape the consequences of the judgment but if people refused that one and only way to escape the judgment then God judges the sin and the sinner. He judges the sin on the sinner. He judges both. If people refuse God's only way to escape the judgment they bear the consequences of their own sin.
What do you know about children? Can you think of any child who, if they were to go down to a harbour and see a great big ship, and the captain said "come on," can you think of any child who would not want to go on? Children are inquisitive. They would have been on board the ark in an instant. Then why were there no children on the ark? Not one when the flood came. There can only be one answer. Their parents stopped them, their parents hindered their children's salvation and as it happened then, so it still happens today. Ignorant parents.. "oh we will wait until they are old enough and let them decide" but only when it comes to God, deliberately hindering the salvation of their children, neglecting their souls. Parents will be held accountable for the way they raise their children. Bring up your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. If you have tried to do that, you can rest in peace because there is no more you can do.
The message is clear, 7 more days of grace. Today we are still in the day of grace for sinners to repent and trust in Jesus Christ but if they don't go in God's way of salvation, there will come a day when it is too late because the door of grace will someday close. Does anyone know how much more time we have? Now is the only time we are sure of. Now is the time to get saved. Jesus Christ is God's way of salvation.
Those on the ark were safe, and if today sinners trust in Jesus Christ, then the judgment that falls upon all sinners will pass us by because it fell upon Christ for us. Jesus paid the price for everyone that believes.
There is one way: in the ark or outside. God's way of salvation is the ark.. Jesus is the only way. We are in God's way and we are safe or we are not and we will face the judgment.
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The above notes were taken by myself from the sermon by Paul Dowling of Whiteabbey Congregational (Reformed) at Sermon Audio.
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=102015111460
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