Genesis 7:1-21

It is astounding and sobering to see how God judged the entire earth because of the sinfulness of man.  It appears that God determined to make some major changes on the earth that would shorten the lives of men and demonstrate His ability and willingness to judge mankind.  Unfortunately, man has not been very faithful to remember these truths about God.  Fortunately Noah did obey the Lord and he and his family along with the animals were spared.

NOAH LISTENED TO THE WARNING: God was faithful to warn Noah of the coming judgment.  God has always been faithful to warn man of judgments that are coming.  As we read through Scripture we see that much of it is dedicated to warning man of God’s judgment.  We must follow Noah’s example and listen to these warnings and take them very seriously.  Since it had never rained on the earth prior to the flood, it must have seemed unbelievable that God would flood the earth.  We can only imagine the ridicule that Noah and his family suffered as he was building this ark.  The New Testament teaches us that he preached to the people of his day to try to warn them, but they would not listen.  God warned Noah to get in the ark with the animals seven days before the rain came and Noah did just what God told him to do.  This is what God expects from all of us, that we simply do as He commands us to do.

NOAH DID THE WORK: I cannot imagine the amount of work it took to build this huge boat with the tools that Noah had.  Besides that Noah had to gather two of every kind of animal and seven of each of the clean animals as well as food for all of them.  God did not ask Noah to do something easy, but because God asked Him to do it; Noah did the work and he did it well.  The language almost seems to indicate that the animals came to Noah willingly, but even if that is the case, it was still a huge amount of work to prepare for all of this.  I feel like sometimes we think that following God should be easy and that the minute there are hardships and difficulties we question what we are doing and even God’s goodness.  We must never be surprised by hard work.  God will provide the strength and will not require that which is above our abilities, but we must never think that laziness and godliness are in any way synonymous.

NOAH ESCAPED FROM THE WATER: God shut the door and then it began to rain and the waters from under the earth began to flow out and fill the earth.  Noah was 600 when this happened, and since he was 500 when he had children, we know that the earth was 1,665 years old when the flood came.  Adam had only been dead for about 700 years and the population of the world was likely very large.  God sent rain for forty days and forty nights and the level of the water rose to cover the top of the highest mountain so that no person or animal could survive outside of the ark.  Noah, his family and all the animals in the ark were spared but all of the rest were killed by the flood.  Man’s only hope is to listen to the warnings of God and then obey the Word of God.  The next massive judgment will be by fire and God has provided an escape from this judgment in the person of Christ.  We must learn from the example of Noah and heed this warning by placing our faith in the sacrifice of Christ and then work with all of our might to warn the nations of the world of God’s coming judgment and offer them the hope of the Gospel by spreading the fame of Christ to every nation on this earth.