Genesis 07: The Flood

Forty days of rain is dramatic, but the real test of Genesis 7 is what happens after the door closes. We slow down and read the flood story with open eyes: Noah’s long obedience, the specific instructions God gives, and the detail that they bring extra pairs of clean animals because life after the water will require food and sacrifice. This isn’t a cute tale about animals in pairs. It’s a survival account that shows God’s judgment is real and His mercy is just as real.

We also talk about the part people skip, the confinement. The ark is crowded, dark, and relentless. Someone has to feed and water every creature. Someone has to handle the waste. Day after day, with no sunlight and no quick way out, Noah’s family lives the kind of faith that looks boring from the outside but heroic on the inside. If you’ve ever felt trapped in a hard season, Genesis 7 puts words to that pressure and reminds you that endurance is not failure.

Then we tackle a common modern claim head-on: the idea that if you pray enough or “speak it,” you can avoid trouble. Noah couldn’t speak away the flood, but he did experience God’s protection through it. The takeaway is simple and hopeful: God doesn’t always stop the storm, yet He stays with you in it, and He may be carrying you away from something you can’t see and toward something you can’t imagine yet.

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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

Why Genesis 1:1 Matters

Reading The Flood Narrative

Trapped In The Ark With The Animals

Hard Roads And Bad Theology

Prayer And Tomorrow’s Chapter

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Genesis chapter seven. And today's title is just simply The Flood. The Flood. There are so many things I'd want to say, but I can't help it. It's just about the flood. And so we're going to get just jump right into it. And can I tell you how claustrophobic, claustrophobic this makes me feel when I read this? And we'll talk about why in just a moment. But if you have your Bibles, got your popcorn ready, you want to get ready to dive into Genesis chapter seven. Also, make sure you take just a moment, like, share, subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure to leave us a five-star review on the podcast. It really does help. And make sure you're going to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. It's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job. And you can get all of that at the BibleBreakdown.com. Well, don't forget, if you've been with us over the past little while, that we are going through the book of Genesis, which is the beginning. And one of the things that we have said throughout this is that the most important verse, maybe in the entire Bible, is Genesis 1.1. And the reason why is because in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And we say that if that's possible, then anything else is possible. And so if we can take the fact that God created everything we see, anything's possible. And I love that because we've needed it. Because remember, we're we're thinking from the idea of a recently liberated Jewish person who has heard all of this, you know, randomness about a polytheistic society, and there's there's gods running around everywhere, and God is saying, No, I am the only true God. Let me tell you how I did it, and I'm in charge. And so the first three chapters we hear about creation and then the fall, four and five, and six is about how it's getting worse, worse, worse. And then the Bible said in chapter six toward the end that Noah found favor with God. And God is gonna destroy the whole earth. He's gonna start over again, but he is going to bring Noah through it. And that's one of the important things already is God didn't say, I am going to stop the flood. He said, No, no, I'm gonna still do the flood, but I'm gonna take you through on the other side. And that's already something that would be amazing for all of us to think about. God doesn't always stop us from going through bad times, he's just with us through the bad times, right? Well, let's look at what bad times are all about, and then when we get to the end of it, we'll talk about why this makes me so claustrophobic. So if you're ready, Genesis chapter 7, verse 1 says this. When everything was ready, the Lord said to Noah, by the way, it took him about a hundred years to get ready. It's a long time. The Lord said to Noah, get or go into the boat with all your family from among all the people of the earth. I can see that you alone are righteous. Take with you seven pairs, male and female, of each animal, which I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others. Now, pause, did you know that? We talk about how taking, you know, one of each kind, but they were supposed to also take seven pairs of the clean animals, because if you think about it, there wasn't going to be any crops, right? When they came out of it. So they're gonna be on a carnivore diet for just a little while while everything started growing again. So definitely something to think about. Verse three, also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. They must be male and female in each pair to ensure all life will survive on the earth after the flood. Seven days from now I will make the rains pour down on the earth, and it will rain for forty days and forty nights, until I have wiped from the earth all living things I have created. So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old when the floods covered the earth. He went on board the boat to escape the flood, he and his wife and his sons and their wives. With them were all the various kinds of animals, those approved for eating and for sacrifice, and those that were not, along with all the birds and all the small animals that scurry along the ground. They entered the boat in pairs, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. After seven days the flood waters uh the flood came and covered the earth. When Noah was six hundred years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky. The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights. That very day Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal, domestic and wild, large and small, along with birds of every kind. Two by two they came into the boat, representing every living thing that breeds. A male and female of each kind entered, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them. For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth. As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the blow the boat floated safely on the surface. Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, rising more than twenty two feet above the highest peaks. All the living things on earth died. Birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people. Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died. God wiped out every living thing on the earth. People, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky. The only people who survived were Noah and those who were with him in the boat. And the floodwaters covered the earth for a hundred and fifty days. It was gone. But what happened was is the floodwaters, the floods came, the rains came for 40 days and 40 nights. That's a long time for it to rain, but it had a lot of water to cover up, right? And then when it was over with, it stayed for 150 days just to soak everything in real good. It's a long time in water. And the reason why this chapter makes me feel claustrophobic is because they had to stay inside that whole time. Now, let's get it straight. They had a lot of work to do. They had to make sure that they were able to feed and to water, and they had to figure out a way to kind of get rid of all the waste. Think about that for a moment. Okay, think about how it smelled while they were in there. And these are these are likely babies, but still, they had to figure out what to do with all the waste. They had a full-time job, but I don't like being confined inside anyway. But you imagine you have not seen the sun for 40 days and 40 nights. You've not been outside for 40 days and 40 nights. That makes me so claustrophobic. But on the other side, the alternative is drowning, so I'll figure it out, right? But what can we take from this? And that is this that there is this aberrant, incorrect theology out there that says that if you're a Christian, because you have Jesus, that if you pray enough, and if you give enough, if you have faith enough, and if you this, that, and the other, that you can command your reality, that you can say, I'm only gonna have good days, that everything's gonna be, you know, whatever. I'm gonna speak into existence what I want. Can I tell you, and I mean this with all of my heart, run from anybody that tells you that, because that's not God's word. Anybody that tells you that you can speak something into existence, that therefore that means that you can just speak into existence anything that you want. You think that Noah would have liked to have done that? Like you speak that you're never gonna have a bad day. It's not in the book. As a matter of fact, you know what the book says? The book says that in this life you will have troubles, trials, suffering, you'll have bad days. But here's the amazing thing God will walk with you through every one of those days. And you know what's beautiful about this? Is that Noah could have just been killed with everybody else. But God had mercy on him. And here's the amaz here's the beautiful thing about this to me is God paints for us reality. The the road through this dark place was not easy. That for 40 days and 40 nights it rained, then another like a total of 150 days, they were in this boat. They didn't do anything wrong, but it was still hard. But they made it. So here here's the promise from God's word. You it may not be an easy road, but I'm gonna make it possible and I'm gonna be with you the whole way. Therefore, make sure you understand that just because something is hard doesn't mean that God's not in it. Just because it's difficult doesn't mean that God has abandoned you. To realize that sometimes God is keeping you through something that is ten times worse than what you're going through. And so we keep our faith in God. And I say that because there's so many people that think that if you ever have a bad day, God's not faithful. What about this? Was God not faithful to Noah and his family? Like it had to be hard. You imagine day 137, you know, of of shoveling, you know, poo this way, shoveling hay in that way, and going, oh my goodness, this is so hard. This is so difficult, I don't want to do this anymore, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you know what? I'd rather be in here than be on the outside of the boat. And that's my encouragement for you. And I I in no way am I trying to say what you may or may not be going through. Is I'm not saying it's not hard, I'm saying it's not it's not difficult, I'm not saying it's the hardest thing you ever went through, but you have we have no idea what God is saving us from and what he is carrying us to. That's why we put our trust in him. We trust in him because we take chapters like this and realize, God, you're probably doing something that I don't even realize. So my question for you is, is is there is there something that maybe instead of looking at it, it's still not good, but maybe it's the boat that's taking you to where God wants you to be. And so we look at it a little bit differently when we see it like that. Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you are always doing more than we can see. So we trust you. We trust that you're with us and you're for us, and you're doing more than we can imagine. We celebrate that right now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Anyway, what God's Word says in Genesis 1, verse 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We're about to have a good chapter coming up tomorrow, and I'll see you tomorrow for Genesis chapter 8.