THE HARDEST THING TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE FLOOD

Genesis 7

There are few stories in the Bible that creates the confusion, and wonder, and the skepticism as the flood account.

  • In fact, there is perhaps no story in the Bible with the exception of the resurrection of Jesus that skeptics scoff at more than the story of Noah.
  • Skeptics think this story proves that the Bible is full of myths.

Personally, I don’t have a problem believing this story. I think over the centuries God has furnished scientific as well as historic evidence of the flood.

  • But regardless of the scientific or historic evidence, I don’t have a problem believing something that Jesus believed in.
  • You see, I believe that God wants us to walk by the same faith that Noah walked in.
  • So, I do believe this story although I admit that it does raise some crazy questions.

And that is what I want to do this morning…is try to answer some of the questions that come up from this story. (I may not answer them to your satisfaction…if not I would encourage you to study and find the answers for yourself).

  • So let’s begin to try and answer some of the questions that many have come up with from this story.

The first question: How many pairs of animals entered into the ark?

  • If you look back in chapter 6:19-20 God said to Noah “bring 2 of every kind into the ark.”
  • But then in chapter 7:2 God says, “Get 2 of the unclean and “seven seven” of the clean.
  • Most scholars think the “seven seven” is two pair of sevens.
  • So why is the number in chapter 6 different from the number in chapter 7?

Well, in chapter 6 that was the instructions that was given to Noah 100 years before the flood. It was a very general instruction.

  • But here in chapter 7 God gives Noah more specific instructions just a short time before the flood.

Now, in here in vs. 2 is the first time in the Bible that the idea of “clean animals” appears.

  • Clean animals were those that were judged suitable for domestication and for food, and they were also the ones that were offered for sacrifices because they were the most useful to man and therefore they were the most valuable.
  • And there is a principle there. Anytime you make an offering or sacrifice to God it needs to be something you value. God is not honored by culls or leftovers.

Now, either God had revealed what the clean animals were or God let Noah decide which animals He preferred.

  • But for the sake of preserving the human race God planned that a greater number of the animals that were the most necessary to man be saved.

And when you get over in Genesis 8: 20 it says that Noah “took some of the clean animals”

and offered them as a sacrifice to God.

  • So God evidently provided that there be enough clean animals to be useful to Noah and to be able to worship God with sacrifices.

Question 2: How in the world did Noah gather that many animals?

  • The answer: He didn’t!
  • Look back at chapter 6:20:

Gen 6:20 Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind shall come to you to keep them alive.

So, Noah didn’t have to go all over the earth to find all the different kinds of animals. They came to Noah.

Look at chapter 7:8-9: Of clean animals and animals that are not clean and birds and everything that creeps on the ground, 9 there went into the ark to Noah by twos, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.

Gen 7:15 So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life.

The animals answered God’s call. (Have you ever seen these children’s pictures of these little animals just lined up in pairs meekly walking into the ark? That may have been the way it was.)

  • God gave them a command and they answered the command and then literally pairs came to Noah and evidently he didn’t have any trouble getting the animals loaded into the ark because they were answering God’s call.

Now, to me that further attests to Noah’s faith. Because remember for over 100 years he is building an ark, a floating zoo with no rain or animals in sight…trusting that God is going to deliver.

Now, some people will say, “How did he get all the different animals from all the different parts of the world?”

  • Well, if it took 120 years to build the ark that would have been plenty of time for the animals to migrate from wherever they were and come to Noah.

But, I want to give you another thought.

  • I don’t think the animals migrated from all these different parts of the world over 120 years.
  • Before the flood the world was completely different than it is now.
  • And it is very possible that all the different kinds of animals that live in certain parts of the world now, all lived together.
  • Apparently in chapter 1 all the animals were together or at least in close proximity because Adam named them all.
  • Evidently there was a time in the beginning where every animal God made was in the same place.
  • So I am not so sure that Noah had to go all over the world to find the animals because the animals God made were in close proximity of where Noah lived.

Next Question: How in the world did all those animals fit into the ark?

  • First you have to remember that the ark was not a little tug boat.
  • The ark had a capacity of over 3,000,000 cubic feet.
  • It was about the size of 2000 railroad cattle cars.

Also, we learned from the creation that from one species can come a variety of species.

  • It wasn’t necessary for Noah to get all the different kinds of dogs that we know today.
  • It was just necessary to get 2 dogs. And from those 2 can come all kinds of dogs as we know them.

In fact, today researchers say that at the present time there is only 292 species of land animals on earth larger than a sheep.

  • There are about 750 species the size from a sheep to a rat.
  • And there are about 1300 species of animals that are smaller than a rat.
  • Noah could have gotten a representative of every one of those species in the ark and still had over 40% of the ark left over for food and for storage.

So, the ark could have easily housed all the different animals.

Next Question: How long was Noah and his family and the animals in the ark?

  • If you look at chapter 7:11 and chapter 8:14 they were in the ark 1 year and 10 days.

Next Question: Was the judgment on living beings total or partial?

  • Well, the Bible says that it was partial.
  • It was partial because the Bible says that the judgment only pertained to the dry land creatures.
  • In other words Noah didn’t take an aquarium with him on the ark.

Last Question: In what ways did God manifest grace and mercy?

  • Well, first of all I want you to notice that nowhere in this story does it say that God was angry.
  • The flood was not a sudden vindictive impulse.
  • Just the opposite…it was a demonstration of God’s patience, grace and mercy.

In Romans 1:20 we are told that these people could learn about God’s invisible attributes, His eternal power and His divine nature from the creation.

  • In Romans 2 we learn that these people had their own God given conscience that is given to all men to help them understand right and wrong.
  • They also had Genesis 3 and the promise of a Redeemer.
  • They also had the testimony of preachers like Enoch and Noah warning them of God’s coming judgment.
  • They had the naming of Enoch’s son Methuselah – “when he dies it will come.”
  • They had 120 years of watching the ark being built.
  • Then finally they had the testimony of all these pairs of animals just peacefully coming to Noah.
  • The hardest thing about the story to believe is that these people still ignored God!

And that leads me to two applications that I want us to remember. The first is: God’s patience should not be mocked.

  • Today scoffers ridicule our expectation of God someday bringing judgment on this world.
  • They scoff at our belief that one day Christ will return.

But I want you to notice again what the apostle Peter says in 2 Peter chapter 3:

3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, 4 and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." 5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice (they deliberately ignore the fact of the flood) that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, 6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. 7 But the present heavens and earth by His word are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

  • This is the reason Jesus hasn’t come back yet.
  • It is the same reason why God waited 120 years before He brought on the flood.
  • And my question this morning is, “How are you responding to God’s patience?”
  • Are you mocking God’s patiences by continuing on in what insults Him?

Rom 2:4 asks, Do you think lightly (or show contempt) for the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

It is a dangerous thing to mock God’s patience because He hasn’t brought forth the judgment because the truth is, God is patient but there will come a time when His patience and gracious dealings with a man, or a nation, or with the world will end.

And just like the flood it is God who determines when the door is shut and you can’t get in.

  • The only difference between what happened in the days of Noah and what the Bible says is going to happen again is the first time it was water…and the next time it will be fire.

And so what the Bible says to you and me in Luke 17 and Matthew 24 is, “Don’t let business as usual cause you to forget that a day will come when God’s patience is terminated.”

  • Jesus says that the people were “Marrying and buying land…and have parties in the day of Noah.”
  • I guarantee you the very day that the Lord comes back somebody’s going to be getting married…someone is going to be buying their first car…somebody is going to be studying at school.
  • It is going to happen when Jesus comes back…but God will make that call.
  • So stay alert…don’t fall asleep…and if you are not ready then it is time to get that way.

Several years ago a volcano in the Philippines exploded and scores of lives were lost and billions of dollars in damage was done.

  • The world’s mightiest army had to evacuate a very important military base because of the force of the eruption.
  • And one of the Philippines premier geologist said, “One of the reasons the devastation was so great is because the mountain has been silent for 600 years. And when a volcano is silent for a long time people forget that it is a volcano and start treating it like a mountain.”

I wonder, because God has been silent for so long if we have started treating Him like anything but the “consuming fire” the Bible says He is?

  • Yes He is a God of love…but He is also a God of fire…and when He decides judgment will come. Do not mock the patience of God.

And finally I want you to notice verse 1 of chapter 7 again: Then the LORD said to Noah, "Enter the ark, you and all your household;

The NKJV and the ASV say, “Come into the ark.”

  • The point is, God never sends judgment without first sending an invitation.
  • All through the Bible God says over and over again, “Come. Come. Come and escape!”
  • God has announced judgment but He has also offered an invitation: “Come to me and escape.”

Years ago when Calvin Coolidge was Vice President he was presiding over the Senate like he was supposed to do when two Senators got into a debate and before long their debate turned into a heated argument. Well while the two Senators were arguing Calvin Coolidge was thumbing through his Bible.

  • Finally one of the two Senators told the other, “You can go to hell!”
  • And the offended Senator turned to Calvin Coolidge and said, “Did you hear that? He told me to go to hell!”
  • Calving Coolidge very calmly said, “I have been reading the rule book. It says you don’t have to.”

The “rule book” says the same thing about each one of us today.

  • Once you come to Jesus…you don’t have to worry about the judgment coming to the earth.
  • God will punish sin…but Christ has already suffered the punishment for sin for those who come to Him.