Genesis 7:23-8:22

Why is it important to know the bible?

Because the bible isn’t a collection of separate storys or a collection of life improvement concepts, its an integrated message relating to man’s sin and God’s redemption from it. Every page is a pointer and that pointer shows us the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus the Son of God.

I’m not in any way a bible teacher, preacher, pastor, evangelist, or any other type of minister beyond the calling of any other Christian.

I have no formal training to “teach” the bible nor am I educated. However, I believe that even a common, everyday, ordinary bloke can capture the wonders within the Word of God and that, having gained some understanding, is well able to pass it on to other ordinary people. The Word of God is intended for everyone whether a highly educated PhD or a common cook and ex-fisherman like me.

My hope and my prayer is that you’ll fall in love with the Bible and let it do what it wants to do, reveal to you our Almighty God and become the foundation of your life.

Last time we read about the coming of the judgement of the flood that covered the entire earth including the highest mountains.

After I published the episode I happened to come across an interesting piece of news about the discovery of a dinosaur that was fossilised still sitting on her eggs. The eggs apparently still contained the embryos. Although the article was interesting it was the comments that were fascinating.

The person who ran the article, let’s call him person 1, explained how fossils were all formed when they were instantly covered by sediment and water and were evidence of a huge flood pointing to the bible version of Noah’s flood.

Another person, let’s call him person 2, commented that not all fossils were formed this way so it wasn’t necessarily evidence of a worldwide flood.

Yet another person, person 3,  chimed in by saying that person 2 was completely wrong and that ALL fossils were the result of an instantaneous burial in sediment.

Person 2 must have done a bit of homework because he came back with, “Yes you are correct, ALL fossils are the result of instant burial in sediment. But that wasn’t evidence of a flood.”

Person 1 comes back with, “Do you understand that there is indisputable evidence that the entire globe was once covered by water?”

Person 2, “Yes, but that doesn’t mean it was Noah’s flood.”

Person 1, “Then can you tell me which flood it was?”

Person 2, “No, but I know it wasn’t Noah’s flood.”

Person 1, “How do you know that? Are you saying you have all the knowledge required to say for definite there was no such thing as Noah’s flood, but not enough knowledge to say which other flood it might be?”

Person 2, Silence. Off the air so to speak.

I thought I’d relay this because it’s a classic case of what we find amongst most people today. They have zero knowledge or proof of their argument but they’re adamant that if God is in any way involved it didn’t happen.

You see, this has nothing to do with the flood. It’s a desperate attempt to make a world exist without God. It’s plainly and simply an open rejection of everything to do with God, even His existence.

It’s the same as what the earth was like that caused the flood judgment. A total rejection of God.

As I’ve said previously, these arguments are fruitless unless the other party has an honest desire to find the truth.

Let’s go now to Genesis chapter 8 and verses 1 to 4 and we read, “Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.

The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.

And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.

Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.”

We’re given the record not only of the building up of the Flood but also of the prevailing and now the easing of the Flood.

We’re told that “God remembered Noah”. God focuses His attention on Noah again.

God never forgot Noah. He looked after him every day on the ark. But now He turns His active attention towards Noah. It was truly as if He remembered Noah again.

Noah had been shut up in the ark for many a day, and at the right time, God thought of him, practically thought of him, and came to visit him. God has not forgotten you and me. God remembered Noah, and he remembers us.”

Now we go to chapter 8 and verses 5 and 6, “And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.”

God knew how to make the waters subside. Even a big problem like this wasn’t a big problem to God, The One who created the heavens and the earth.

The rain that began in Genesis 7:11-12 was now stopped.

God was in control of when the rain and other waters began, and when they stopped.

“On the mountains of Ararat.” Was it God’s purpose to put the ark in a place where it might be preserved for thousands of years? If so, He chose a perfect place.

“The tops of the mountains were seen.” Here’s another indication that the flood was indeed a worldwide flood. Even the tops of the mountains were covered, and now they were seen again as the waters subsided.

It’s interesting just how many fossilised fish have been found on mountains all over the world, even Mount Everest. Of course, secular scientists put this down to tectonic plate movement. Really?

“At the end of forty days,” This was counted from the time when the rain and other water sources began in Genesis 7:11-12.

We could say that this is the beginning of the end of the Flood.

Notice what Noah does in chapter 8 verses 7 to 9, “Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself.”

Then verses 10 to 12, “And he (Noah) waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark.

Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.”

“He sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro.”  This is now after Noah’s spent over a year in the ark. He sent forth a raven, and the raven never came back. Maybe because the raven is a scavenger, an “unclean” bird that may have rested and fed upon the many dead, floating carcasses.

However, the dove kept coming back and even brought in its beak a little bit of greenery, an olive leaf.

The great Charles Spurgeon once commented, “Perhaps you have seen a picture of the dove carrying an olive branch in its mouth, which, in the first place, a dove could not pluck out of the tree, and in the second place, a dove could not carry an olive branch even if she could pluck it off. It was an olive leaf, that is all.

Why cannot people keep to the words of Scripture?

If the Bible mentions a leaf, they make it a branch; and if the Bible says it is a branch, they make it a leaf.”

I don’t know why the dove and olive leaf have always been symbolic of peace, but they are.  When the dove didn’t return at all, that was the sign that the judgment was over and that peace had returned to the earth, so maybe that’s where the peace symbol comes from.

The disappearance of the dove proved that the earth was habitable again.

In the dove and the raven, there’s a great spiritual lesson.

Remember that 2 Timothy 3:16  tells us that All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. So, we shouldn’t be surprised at the many spiritual lessons in the Book of Genesis.

First, notice that the humans going out of the ark are the same type of human as all the sons of Adam, who’d caused God to send the judgment of the Flood in the first place.

There’s no improvement at all in man after the Flood.

Now, the raven was classified as an unclean bird, while the dove is a clean bird and we see this clearer later on in Scripture.

Remember that Noah took both the clean and the unclean animals into the ark.

The dove brought back information. With the dove’s second trip, she brought back evidence that the dry land was appearing. The third time, the dove didn’t return, and Noah knew that the waters of judgment were gone.

As we’ve said before, all great truths of the Bible have their seed in Genesis.

The Bible teaches that the believer has two natures, an old and a new nature: 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

The clean and the unclean exist together.

You and I as believers have both these two natures.

Our Lord said in John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ”  And Paul writes in Romans 7:18 and 19, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.”

Paul spoke of a struggle between the two natures. And it’s the struggle believers have today between the old nature and the new nature.

The raven went out into a judged world, but he found a feast in the dead carcass because that’s the thing he lived on. The bloated, putrid carcasses floating around would have made him a banquet.

That’s the picture of the old nature, it’s like that raven.

The old nature loves the things of the world and feasts on them.

The dove went out into a judged world, but she found no rest, no satisfaction, and she returned to the ark.

The dove represents the believer in the world. The old raven went out into the world and loved it. When he found an old carcass, he probably thought the Millennium had arrived!

Today, most people believe that what’s right and wrong is relative.” They’re right; it is. It’s relevant to what God says is right and wrong. And if they say different then I’m afraid what they say is wrong.

What God says is wrong is wrong.

As believers, we’re told in 1 John 2:15 and I’ll read, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

You and I are living in a judged world today. We’re in the world, but not of it. We’re to use it, but not abuse it. We’re not to fall in love with it, but we’re to attempt to win the lost in this world and get out the Word of God.

Our Lord told us, “… Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” That’s Mark 16:15.

We try as far as we can to get out the Word of God—that’s the most important thing we can do.

The dove recognised what kind of a world she was in, and she found no rest. She found rest only in the ark, and that ark represents Christ, the one and only hope in a dying, judged world.

Let me ask you this very personal question: What kind of bird are you? Are you a raven or a dove? If you are a child of God, you have both natures—but which one are you living in today? Do you love the things of God, or don’t you?

Now we move to Genesis 8 verse 13, and I read, “ And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry.”

Verse 14, “And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.

Verse 15, 16 and 17, “Then God spoke to Noah, saying, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

Verse 18 to 19, “So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him.

Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.”

Let’s look a little closer at these verses.

“In the six hundred and first year.” Genesis 7:11-13 says that Noah entered the ark on the seventeenth day of the second month of the six hundredth year of his life. This is almost a full year later, and in the second month of his six hundred-and-first year, Noah left the ark. It seems he was in the ark a full year.

“Bring out with you every living thing.” Just as the ark was loaded with animals before the flood, it was then unloaded. We don’t read of any animals dying in the year on the ark.

 

“That they may abound on the earth and be fruitful and multiply.” Living things from the ark would once again repopulate the earth.

 

“Noah came out of the ark.” Finally free from being confined in the ark, he walked out, and the whole world was before him but a world completely different to the one he’d known when he went into the ark a year ago.

He‘d survived because God had kept His promise. I don’t think he was ever surprised at this. He was the original great man of faith and he would have known that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, as is written in Hebrews 11:1. I do think he would have been surprised at the completely different world he’d just walked out into.

God is now going to make a covenant with Noah. We’ll see this new beginning as we get into the next chapter. This covenant or promise is a very important one. When God made it with Noah, He made it with the human family that’s on the earth today. That’s you and me friends.

To Genesis 8 verse 20 now, “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.”

The first thing Noah does when he comes out of the ark is to build an altar to the Lord and offer a sacrifice, a burnt offering, to Him.

 

Now, here’s why Noah took seven of the clean beasts and only two of the unclean. He’s offering the clean beasts as sacrifices and it’s through this alter and sacrifice that God makes His covenant.

 

He worshipped God through sacrifice. His gratitude and admiration of God’s greatness led him to worship God.

That burnt offering speaks of the person of Jesus Christ. It was offered on the basis of acceptance before God and of praise to God in recognition of Him.

This was surely one of the things that caused God to be pleased with Noah.

Noah continues to believe and trust in Almighty God.

Genesis 8 verse 21 to 22, “And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.”

Prior to the Flood, man learned what J Vernon McGee calls the three R’s: (1) Rebellion, Revelation and Repentance.

Rebellion against God was realised—it came right out in the open. (2) Revelation from God was rejected by man. Noah’s and Enoch’s witness just didn’t reach them. (3) Repentance was absolutely scorned and thrown out. There was no return to God at all. Men refused the refuge that God provided, and for 120 years Noah had no converts.

Now as Noah comes out of the ark, he stands in a very unique position.

He stands in the position of being the head of the human race again—the same position Adam had.

It’s said that we’re all related to Adam, but we have a closer common relative than that, we’re all related in Noah. In one sense, Noah is the father of all of us today.

Now God makes a promise to Noah and to all mankind, including you and me.

And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

“While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.”

More pleasing to God than the smell of the sacrifice was the heart of Noah in his sacrifice.

“I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake.” God promised to never again visit the earth with judgment by a flood on this scale, to destroy every living thing. God did this with the full understanding that the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. This was a promise full of mercy.

Let’s not miss the great truths here.

First, the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth and second, God’s promise to never again curse the ground for man’s sake.

It would seem as if man’s evil would invite God’s curse, not put it away.

The strange combination is accounted for by Noah’s altar and sacrifice, and God’s pleasure in the sacrifice (the LORD smelled a soothing aroma).

Spurgeon puts it like this, “The sacrifice is the turning-point. Without a sacrifice sin clamours for vengeance, and God sends a destroying flood; but the sacrifice presented by Noah was typical of the coming sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son, and of the atonement it provided for human sin.”

In Genesis 6:5 and here in verse 21, God speaks of the intense evil of man’s heart. In the first instance, there was no sacrifice, and judgment ensued. Here there is a sacrifice, and God acts in mercy.

Also, just as we’ll see later in the life of Abraham, this covenant made with Noah and by extension us today is unconditional. It required no performance by Noah or us. If it did require our performance it would have failed immediately.

Noah’s story illustrated many things found in the lives of believers.

Noah showed the believer’s freedom, the believer’s faith (in sacrifice), the believer’s heart (by sacrifice) and the believer’s covenant of mercy (in light of sacrifice).

“Cold and heat, winter and summer.” God promised that after the flood, the earth would have established seasons.

This speaks of the enormous climate and environmental changes in the earth since the covering of water vapours covering the earth was emptied. Now, there’d be seasonal and temperature variations.

One of the results of this change is found in the rapidly decreasing lifespans. There will never be 900-year-old men after the flood. The mass extinction of animals revealed in the fossil record (such as dinosaurs and other such creatures) could have taken place during the flood, or after the flood when the ecology of the earth was changed so dramatically.

Next time friends, we’ll see the details of God’s covenant with Noah and see more of Noah’s descendants