What do you think is the most important sign that indicates Jesus is coming back? Wars and rumors of wars? Earthquakes? The love of many waxing worse and worse? Jesus in his end time sermon compared his future coming to the past flood. Jesus is referring to his second coming at the end of the Tribulation in Matthew 24:37-39. Jesus prophesied the sinful people before his coming would replicate the sinful people before the coming judgment of the flood who were “marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark.” In Genesis six, the godly were specifically marrying the ungodly before the flood. Being unequally yoked in marriage with unbelievers led to the Genesis flood in Genesis 6-8. Jesus warned his and our generation “to be ready” for the coming of Christ and his judgment just like the generation before the flood needed to be ready. Are you ready for the coming of Christ? Do you know Christ as your Savior? Jesus instructed us to learn from the generation that experienced the flood.
We first learn from Noah’s flood that the cause of the flood was sin.
I. The Cause of the Judgment (6:1-8)
A. The first cause is sinful marriages in 6:1-4
The ungodly line of Cain or “the daughters of men” recorded in Genesis four intermarried with the godly line of Seth called “the sons of God” or the godly sons in Genesis five. There is a “strong polemic in Genesis against intermarriage with unbelievers.”[1] For example, Abraham instructed his servant not to get a wife for Isaac from the Canaanites in Genesis 24:3. Paul admonished believers in 2 Corinthians 6:14 “Be you not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” An old Puritan wrote, “If you marry a child of the devil, you can expect trouble from the father-in-law.” The generation preceding the flood experienced trouble because of the unbiblical marriages.
B. The cause of the judgment became worldwide in 6:5-8
In Genesis 6:5, man’s outward and inward sins were only “evil.” This is in contrast with God’s original creation which he declared was “very good” in 1:31. Now it “was only evil continually.” Just as God was very pleased with his original creation, now God is grieved over his creation in 6:6. God determines to “destroy” his sinful creation in 6:7. This is the same word “blot out” used by David in his confession in Psalm 51:1 when David asked God to “blot out his transgressions.” If we do not let God “blot out” or forgive our sins, then God must judge our sins. Noah had let God blot out his sins in 6:8 and consequently, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah did not earn grace, he found grace. The grace of God that Noah and his family experienced provided an escape from the judgment that deluged those who rejected God’s grace. That same grace is available for anyone who trusts Christ as his/her Savior (Ephesians 2:8-9).
II. The Escape of Judgment (Genesis 6:9-7:9)
A. Noah escaped because God made him righteous (6:9-10)
Noah was righteous just as Abraham in Genesis 15:6. Abraham believed in God’s revelation and God imputed righteousness to Abraham’s account. Noah’s testimony was “blameless.” This word described the sacrifices offered to God in Leviticus one. The sacrifices were without blemish to the human eye. Noah’s testimony also was without fault. Noah’s testimony found its source in his “walk” or fellowship with God. John wrote that our fellowship with God can also enable us to live a holy life: “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin.”
B. Righteous Noah stands in contrast to the corrupt and violent world which God had determined to judge (6:11-13)
Three times God accused this generation of corruption. Outward violence grew out of this inward corruption. Like Noah’s day, we live in a time of inward corruption producing outward violence. Tragically, our news media supplies daily examples of drive-by shootings, gang initiation murders, and abortion. In N.C. abortion still is legal for the first twenty weeks of pregnancy and after twenty weeks if there is a medical emergency. This is violence to the unborn child. As has been sadly observed, “The most dangerous place in America is the mother’s womb.” Our generation needs believers like Noah who are willing to live a blemishless life in our culture of death.
C. God provided an escape in 6:14-15
The ark was judgment proof because it was covered which is the same word for atonement in the Old Testament. On the day of atonement in Leviticus 16:6, their sins were covered for one year. They were judgment proof for one year. You and I who know Christ are judgment proof for eternity (Romans 8:1).
The ark was big enough to provide an escape for all who would come. James Montgomery Boice posed a question the skeptic may ask, “What about the millions of species? ... [Boice responded] not all species had to be on the ark. Obviously, the fish did not ... most land animals are in fact quite small. The average size is less than that of a sheep. Since 240 sheep fit comfortably in an average size two-deck railroad car and since the volume of the ark would have been equal to 569 such cars, calculations show that animals to be saved would have fit into approximately 50 percent of the ark’s carrying capacity leaving room for people, food, water, and whatever other provisions may have been necessary.”[2] LaHaye and Morris added, “Such simple calculations are certainly not beyond the abilities of the scoffers. What does seem to be beyond them is the willingness to try to see if the biblical story is feasible.”[3]
Peter states in 1 Peter 3:21 that the flood that buoyed up the ark that saved Noah and his family was a “type” (Greek word antitypon “antitype”) of baptism for persecuted believers today. Noah and his family identified with the people of God by going into the ark while the world that persecuted them refused to go in. Believers identify with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ in baptism and the local church in spite of the persecution that might follow. Noah and his family were delivered from persecution by the waters of the flood. Thomas Constable wrote that for believers “by that act of baptism they had also testified to their ultimate victory over their persecutors. Because they had taken a stand for Jesus Christ they could be sure that He would stand with them” (cf. 2 Tim. 2:12).[4]
D. God’s invitation for escape must be accepted in 7:1.
This is the first “come” in Scripture. Jesus will later invite, “Come unto me and I will give you rest.” The last “come” is the last chapter of God’s Word: “Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). Noah and his family obeyed in 7:16a, and God shut them in the ark in 7:16b. God kept them secure in the ark. Noah and his family did not drive eight pegs into the outside of the ark and hang on and endure until the end. When God shut the door, the judgment of the flood immediately came in 7:17. There are at least three different views on the extent of the flood.
Local Flood View
Some scholars like Bernard Ramm in Christian View hold to a local flood. Ramm argued, “The flood was local to the Mesopotamian valley. The animals that came, prompted by divine instinct, were the animals of that region.”[5] Ramm argued how could animals have traveled from all over the world to get to the ark. Boice responded, “There was certainly time for migrations if Noah spent 120 years building the ark.”[6]
Continental Flood View
Others like Herbert Wolf hold to a continental flood because of the deficiencies of the local flood arguments but also because the universal flood view called for additional miracles. Wolf writes, “If the Flood was global, the number of miracles involved was greater than if it was local ... something on the order of a regional or continental flood might be the best choice. This would explain the need for a sizable ark and also account for the destruction of all mankind. It is unlikely that a strictly Mesopotamian flood could have accomplished this.”[7] For Wolf both the local and global floods are indefensible.
Universal Flood View
Scholars like Kenneth Mathews argue for a universal flood
Because of the universal terms used in 7:19, 21-23. “The inclusive language ‘all’/’every’ occurs eight times (in Hebrew) in vv. 19-23, leaving no doubt about the all-encompassing nature of the destructive floods and the death left behind. There can be no dispute that the narrative depicts the flood in the language of a universal deluge (‘entire heaven’), even the ‘high mountains’ are ‘covered’”[8]
Also, God promised to never judge the planet again with such a flood. If this were only a local flood, then God has not kept his promise.
Peter referred to the past universal flood to predict the future universal judgment by fire in 2 Peter 3:3-7. Peter is arguing against scoffers who reject the coming of Christ with their doctrine of uniformitarianism which contends there has been no supernatural interventions in history. Bart Ehrman is a modern scoffer who denies the supernatural intervention of the flood:
Some modern readers have suggested that there are so many flood stories in ancient texts because there really was a worldwide flood that destroyed the entire human race except one man (Noah? Utnapishtim? [in the Epic of Gilgamesh] Atrahasis [Akkadian epic,]?) his family, and the animals he saved. Since, however, that is physically impossible (for a flood to cover the earth), and since there is not a stitch of geological evidence for any such thing – in fact, just the opposite: there is undeniable evidence that nothing like this actually happened – it is better to think that these various texts arose in cultures that were rooted in areas that were in fact susceptible to occasional floods, some of which were so severe that they became the stuff of myth.[9]
Let’s say Ehrman is correct in that occasional severe floods spawned the myths of global floods. Then as Kenneth Mathew, the biblical flood story was a refutation of those myths: “As commentators have commonly noted, biblical Genesis shows a rejection of pagan ideas. viewed as a ‘polemic,’ the biblical description of ancient events takes on a remarkably different meaning. Instead of a borrowing or a historicizing of ancient myth, it is fairer to say that Genesis comes closer to a reputation of pagan ideas about origins, mankind, civilization, and the flood.”[10]
Dr. John Whitcomb wrote, “It was the flood to which Peter appealed as his final and incontrovertible answer to those who chose to remain in willful ignorance of the fact that God had at one time in the past demonstrated his holy wrath and omnipotence by subjecting ‘all things’ to an overwhelming, cosmic catastrophe that was on an absolute par with the final day of judgment, in which God will yet consume the earth with fire and cause the very elements to dissolve with fervent heat.”[10] Paul described the future universal judgment when “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11). We, believers, have already bowed in submission and trusted Christ. Now we need to bow in worship out of gratitude for God’s great deliverance from judgment.
III. Worship should be our response (8:1-22)
God remembered Noah in 8:1. What does this statement mean? Had God forgotten about Noah? Maybe Noah wondered if God had forgotten him. Noah has been in the ark for over one year when God finally speaks again in 8:15-16. In Genesis 7:1, God commanded Noah and his family to enter the ark which they did when Noah was 600 years old on May 17 according to Genesis 7:11. One year later (actually one year and ten days according to Genesis 8:14), in Genesis 8:16, God commanded Noah and his family to exit the ark. It seems that for over one year God had not spoken to Noah.
Sometimes in the Christian life, it seems that God has forgotten us when he does not answer our prayers (the way we believe he should answer our prayers) and Romans 8:28, does not seem to be working. When Moses wrote that God “remembered Noah” he meant God responded to Noah in keeping his promise. When barren Hannah prayed for a man child, 1 Samuel 1:19 recorded that “the Lord remembered her” and answered her prayer. God had made a “covenant” with Noah in Genesis 6:18. God had declared that he was going to destroy all of mankind but Noah and his family would be preserved in the ark. There is no indication that Noah was doubting God’s promise. Just as soon as Noah and his family departed from the ark, Noah built an altar and sacrificed and worshiped God in Genesis 8:20-21. For sure, Noah worshiped God for protecting him and his family from the judgment that exterminated the sinful human race.
After Paul reminded us of God’s mercy in providing our salvation in Romans 1-11, he admonished us “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” One of the many mercies experienced in our salvation is deliverance from the wrath of God because Christ propitiated God according to Romans 3:25. Like Noah, we should worship God for delivering us from his wrath. God has rescued us from eternal conscious suffering in hell. We don’t like to think about hell. We avoid the thought that our unsaved family and friends are destined for hell. We go through each day caught up with the urgency of the moment forgetting that God has saved us from eternal separation.
I reread Jonathan Edward’s Sinners in the hands of an angry God. In this famous sermon, Edwards warned the unsaved, “Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf.”[11] Edwards was not able to finish his sermon. “Such was the impact of his preaching that the people listening shrieked and cried out, and the crying and weeping became so loud that Edwards was forced to discontinue the sermon.”[12] At least, they allowed the doctrine of God’s wrath to move them out of complacency. Let’s join Noah and Paul in worshiping God for delivering us from what we deserve, God’s eternal punishment, which was born by our Savior in penal substitution. We can start our worship with Isaiah 53:6, “He was wounded for our transgression; He was bruised for our iniquity; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes, we are healed.”
We can “be ready” for the future coming judgment that Jesus predicted just as Noah and his family were. We can find grace through salvation which is “by grace, not of works lest any man should boast.”
[1] Herbert Wolf, An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), 99.
[2] James Montgomery Boice, Genesis: Volume I (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1982), 328.
[3] Tim LaHaye and John D. Morris, The Ark on Ararat (Nashville and New ork: Thomas Nelson, 1976, 73-85.
[4] Thomas Constable, Netbible.org on 1 Peter 3:21.
[5] Bernard Ramm, Christian View (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1954), 229-249.
[6] James Montgomery Boice, Genesis: Volume I, 348.
[7] Herbert Wolf, An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch, 104.
[8] Kenneth A. Mathews, The New American Commentary: Genesis 1-11:26 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 380.
[9] Bart Ehrman, “Other Myths of the Flood from the Ancient Near East” in The Bart Ehrman Blog, July 6, 2016. Herbert Wolf responds to this criticism: “Only in Genesis are we given a clear reason for the Flood and an equally clear reason why only Noah and his family are saved. By way of summary, then, the Babylonian flood stories present a garbled and confused account of a real event and manage to preserve only a few details relatively intact” [Herbert Wolf, An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch, Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), 105-106. James Montgomery Boice in chapter 50 “Geological Evidence for the Flood” provides geological evidence for the universal flood [Genesis: vol 1, Creation and Fall Genesis 1-11 360-366].
[10] Kenneth A. Mathews, The New American Commentary: Genesis 1-11:26, 89.
[10] John C. Whitcomb, The World That Perished (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1973), 58.
[11] Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of Angry God, “The Works of Jonathan Edwards” Vol. 2, (Edinburgh, 1988), 9.
[12] Josh Moody, This Day in History: Jonathan Edwards Preaches “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” July 08, 2018. https://www.crossway.org/articles/this-day-in-history-jonathan-edwards-preaches-sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god/