GENESIS – An Expositional Overview of the Beginning of God’s Revelation: Chapter SEVEN

Contributing commentaries by Sonny Islas and James Fire

Chapter Seven – by Sonny Islas

Contributing commentaries by Sonny Islas and James Fire

Audio teachingon GENESIS 7 by Lambert Dolphin - 

Commentary on GENESIS by Ray Stedman - 

GENESIS 7 – THE GREAT WORLD FLOOD  
To watch this teaching click here for the video.

                

GENESIS 7 is a vivid reminder of the fact that God is “Holy, Holy, Holy” (ISAIAH 6:3; EZEK 39:7; REV 4:8). He’s also The Righteous Judge and because of this, He rightly drowned the entire world except eight souls – Noah and his family. 

The great world flood = God hates sin.
The Ark = God loves humanity – by providing salvation (a way of escape). 

AND that God keeps His promise in the fact that “the Seed/Jesus” would come from the line of Noah.

We also see this in the cross of Christ! God’s hatred for sin and God’s love for souls.

Again, God justifiably destroyed millions (some say billions) because of their unrelenting evil, especially due to the fallen angels (aka demons) and their notorious perversion. 

Read GEN 6:5-8 (Noah was saved by grace (God’s kindness extended) just like we are today).

The flood happened approximately 1100 years after Adam was created. It didn’t take long before man because completely corrupt – thanks to the help of the fallen angels we read about in GENESIS 6.

GENESIS 7:1
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.

Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come”

Spurgeon makes a good observation here; he says, “Notice the LORD didn’t say “go” into the ark but “Come into the ark” – where the LORD was. As though God was standing at the Ark’s only entrance with a hand gesture, saying “Come.”

Today the LORD still bids men to “come!” and trust in Him alone for salvation.

Jesus says,

MATTHEW 11:28
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 

By the way, Noah’s name means “rest” and “comfort.”) And in ISAIAH 55:1,
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; (not the flood waters but the living waters) and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price (this is grace!).”

God bids men to come to the ultimate saving ark which is Christ

Regarding Heaven: one day God will tell every faithful servant:

MATTHEW 25:23
“Enter into the joy of your LORD.’’

“Into the ark” The Ark is a type of Christ in the sense that they were safe only in the ark, just as we too are safe only “in Christ.” 

“You and all your household”
This was a bitter sweet moment for Noah. Bitter because only eight were saved and sweet because those eight were his immediate family.

I’m sure Noah thought,
My cousins, aunts and uncles are not in here. My neighbors, friends and co-workers are not in here.
This is a sad reality for many of us today – where those we love, refuse to come into a saving relationship with Jesus. BUT like Noah, we keep trying until God finally closes Heaven’s door!

“All your household”
This is every Christian parent’s greatest desire. If we have unbelieving children, parents, family members, let’s not lose heart or give up on praying and believing in God’s great mercy and power to save them.

Noah’s family was saved because they too believed in God’s salvation and heeded the words of their father. Only eight souls out of millions, possibly billions were spared.

MATTHEW 7:13,14
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

GENESIS 7:1
“Because I have seen”

This is a reminder that God’s all-seeing sovereign eyes are on the ways and actions of every individual. And not only does He see the outward works (good or bad) but also the inward heart and motives (the good or the bad).

Noah was special in the eyes of God (the apple of His eye) because Noah’s faith and works pleased God.

2 CHRONICLES 16:9a says,
“For the eyes of the Lord run to and from throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”

This was true of Noah and may it be true of us as well!

GENESIS 7:1
“That you are righteous BEFORE ME in this generation.”

Noah was one in a billion – literally! Notice, God says “you” as in specifically, the man Noah.

How was it that Noah was righteous (right standing with God)?

He became righteous “by faith” (the only way anyone can ever be made right with God!) Noah believed God’s Word/warning of the coming wrath on sin and sinners and believed that the ark was the only way of salvation. Noah never saw rain before in all his long life – no one on Earth ever had! Yet because God said it – it must be true!

So, we can see here that true saving faith takes heed to God’s Word and warnings, despite our personal experiences, observations and perspectives. We hear, believe then obey God. In our case we place our faith in Jesus which leads to good works and obedience.

When God told Noah he was righteous, God was basically saying “Noah, you trust in Me, you obey Me, you resemble Me (not perfectly), so, get in the ark!

In 2 PETER 2:5 Noah is called a “preacher of righteousness.” Not only did he live upright in one of the darkest most godless times ever, but he also preached righteousness! Noah preached “Turn from sin. Trust in God!” - faithfully and most likely restlessly! He was a local town pastor and preacher and his boys were most likely pk’s (preacher’s kids). He was the ONLY preacher left! The last man standing!

GENESIS 6:9 says of Noah,
“Noah was a just man, perfect in his generation. Noah walked with God.” 

Noah did what was right while everyone else was doing what was wrong. Listen, if we walk with God, we can’t walk with devils at the same time. This speaks of Noah’s deep intimacy, closeness and relationship with God. Noah knew God. Do we?

If Noah could represent God well in a sin filled, demonically saturated time and culture, then we have no excuse. We can and we WILL live upright in our day with the help of the Holy Spirit!

GENESIS 5:23
“Noah walked with God” the same thing is said about his great grandfather Enoch who was bodily raptured because of it.

Enoch walked with God and was raptured, Noah walked with God and was also ‘raptured’ - in a sense as the ark rose up from the Earth - then with the receding waters of the flood, brought back down. Those who walk with God will eventually be taken up with God. Those who walk with the enemy and his fallen world will be left behind and destroyed.

GENESIS 7:4
“After seven more days I will…”

God gave the people 120 years to get right and get in while Noah preached. But now it was only seven days left. Imagine how Noah must have felt – the urgency – it’s crunch time! In a similar way, I believe that we’re in that seven days left period, in the sense that the LORD’s coming is at hand and the time is very short.

GENESIS 7:15-16
“So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.” 

This must have been really hard for Noah and God. This was the moment of reality.

Like the ark, the day is coming when both the gates of hell and the gates of heaven will be shut. The gates of hell will be shut to the righteous and the gates of Heaven will be shut to the wicked. And what GOD shuts no one can open (REV 3:7b)!!

GENESIS 7:17
“Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.”

Again, the Ark is a Christ type, as the Ark was lifted up to save those who were in it, Christ was also lifted up on the cross to save those who are in Him!
You can take the analogy one step further – just as the ark was raised up to the heavens at the end of the old world, so Christ ascended from this old world under the government of Satan (2 COR 4:4), but when He descends from the heavens, He will inaugurate the new world under His only Holy and Righteous Reign, just as Noah and his family entered into a new world to re-populate the Earth.

“And the Ark moved about on the surface of the waters”

I picture God looking down with pain from heaven -

PSALM 29:10 says,
“God sat enthroned at the flood above the floor as the Judge and as King’’ but I imagine Him looking down, seeing only the boat on all the face of the earth as the means for salvation and in the same way He looked down from Heaven at the cross as the only means of salvation.

Keep in mind that Jesus in a sense was in that boat because He would come from Noah’s line – His son Shem.

GENESIS 7:19
“The highest mountain was covered”

2 PETER 3:5
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

This verse tells us that people willfully deny the flood even after much evidence.

There are undeniable proofs that there was a great world flood. i.e., the Grand Canyon is a sure sign of the flood. The horizontal lines on the Canyon’s wall points to receding waters.

The huge boulders stacked one upon another on Mt. Lemmon, here in Tucson, AZ. and the way they were shaped points to the work of a world flood. Sea creature skeletons have been found on the peak of high mountains points to a world flood. Scientist know but they blatantly deny it because they want a world without God – period.

And if this isn’t enough evidence that there was a world flood, Jesus Himself who is God, the one who caused the flood taught about the flood and even preached to those who died in the flood at His death.

MATTHEW 24:38-39

38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

1 PETER 3:18-20
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.