Genesis Chapter 7 Part 1

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

And welcome back to our study. Today we're gonna jump into chapter seven and keep building upon the teachings from chapter six. In the last lessons on chapter six, if you just a little recap, we watched the last boundary collapse. The sons of God choosing the daughters of men without discernment. We sat with the grief of God and the first appearance of the word grace in all of Scripture. And we heard about the commission that was given for Noah to build the ark. And we watched Noah do uh according to all that God had commanded. And now we come to chapter seven. In chapter seven, the the ark is built, 120 years of faithful labor have been completed, and now God speaks again, but this time not with new instructions, not with more specifications, but with an invitation. He says, Come into the ark. And these words carry more theological weight than almost any other words in the entire flood narrative, because God did not say go into the ark. He said, come into the ark. And that's very significant. And we're gonna spend some time talking about that. We're gonna spend this lesson on the first 10 verses of Genesis chapter 7. And here we're going to talk about the final invitation, uh, the clean and unclean animals, the precise uh chronology that Moses uh gives, and the seven days of silence before the rain begins. And I would tell you to read this very carefully because uh what happens in those seven days is one of the most powerful moments in the entire flood narrative. So let's read this together. Let me grab my Bible, Genesis chapter seven, starting in verse one. And then the Lord said to Noah, Come into the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before me in this time. Keep in word in mind those words, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before me in this time. You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female, and of the animals that are not clean to a male and his female. Also of the birds of the sky by sevens, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For after seven more days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made. Noah did according to all the Lord had commanded him. Now Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of water came upon the earth. Then Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him entered the ark because of the water of the flood, of clean animals and animals that are not clean, and of birds and everything that creeps on the ground, there went into the ark to Noah by twos, male and female, as God commanded Noah. And it came about after the seven days that the water of the flood came upon the earth. So let's jump into this. Let's jump into part one, where God says, Come into the ark. The very first word that God speaks to Noah in chapter seven is the word that unlocks everything. He says to him, Come, come into the ark, not go into the ark, but come into the ark. In the English, this can seem like a very small distinction, but in Hebrew and really within the rest of the Bible, it carries enormous weight. When you tell someone to go somewhere, you are sending them from where you are. You may be sending them away out of anger or sending them away with a commission, but you're sending them. When you tell someone to come to somewhere, you are calling them to where you are. And so God says to Noah, come into the ark, which means that God was already in the ark. He was not standing outside, he wasn't pointing Noah toward a vessel that he had commissioned, and then he didn't step back. He was already there inside, waiting, calling Noah to where he was. And this is really a beautiful detail that exists within the flood narrative. This means that the ark was not just a survival vessel, it means that it was the place of God's presence. And God was inviting Noah to come into his presence, into his safety. And this is entirely consistent with everything that we've seen about God and his character throughout Genesis. You remember, he walked in the garden with Adam. He came looking for Adam after the fall. He came to Cain before the murder. He is always the one who comes. He draws near and he calls and he tells them, Come to where I am. And when you kind of tie that into the New Testament, Jesus takes up that same language in Matthew chapter 11, verse 28, when he said, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now, look at the words, you and all your household. This is important. And this is a message that I would hope would resonate with some of you parents out there, maybe grandparents, those who will be future parents. God does not just invite Noah, he invites Noah's entire household. That is so important. He says, you and all your household, eight people in total. It was Noah, his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their three wives. And this is significant for several reasons. First, Noah's righteousness did not just save him, it created a context of grace for everyone in his household. That means a faithful man's covenant relationship with God extends to those in his care. It means that there's this assumption that is made that if a man is living in a righteous way with God, then the people of his household are going to follow suit and they're going to pursue the Lord. I've said this for years. It's the inconsistency that people see. When they see someone who is talking about God and worshiping God at church on a Sunday, maybe, but throughout the week, they're living really pagan, non-Christian lives, and the children grow up seeing that inconsistency. But a faithful man's covenant relationship with God will extend to those under his care. And this is the pattern that runs throughout the entire Bible. You see this Abraham's household was circumcised as part of his covenant. Rahab's family was saved when she hung the scarlet cord. The Philippian jailer's house was baptized after he believed in Acts chapter 16, verse 33. Cornelius' household received the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 10, verse 44. So God's grace in the Old Testament consistently flows from the individual to encompass those within that person's sphere of relationship and responsibility. Second, the sons' wives were not necessarily righteous by Noah's standard. The text does not describe these ladies as walking with God, but they were included because they were in Noah's household. And that again shows that grace reaches much further than merit alone. Now, the next thing we see is God explains to Noah why they are being invited. This is what he says. Now, two things really stand out here. First, the words you alone. In the entire pre-flood world, in all of human civilization, God sees one man whose life is in line with its own character. One man. And this tells us how corrupt the world had gone. We had established in Genesis chapter 6, verse 5, that every intent of every heart was only evil continually. And now God confirms, I searched the earth and I found one. And that should really stop us in our tracks. Not because Noah was perfect, we will see in Genesis chapter 9 that he wasn't perfect, but because in the entire pre-flood world, one man was living in a direction toward God while everyone else was running the other way. Now, the second thing I want you to see here is the end of the verse when it says, in this time, God is not making a comparative judgment across all of human history. He is saying in this specific moment, in this specific generation, in this context, there has been one. There's been Noah. Righteousness is always contextual in this sense. Noah was not the most righteous person who ever lived. He was the one man in this time who chose to walk with God, even when the entire world chose otherwise. And notice that choice that he made was sustained over 600 years. And that made him the pivot point of human history. And the lesson for us is really direct. You don't have to be the most righteous person in human history. But you are called to be a person in your time, in your context, who chooses to walk with God when the world around you refuses, when they don't, when they choose evil instead. Now, we come to a detail that often surprises careful readers of the book of Genesis. Remember in Genesis chapter 6, verse 19, God told Noah to bring two of every living thing. But now in Genesis chapter 7, verse 2, God gives a very specific instruction. He says, You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female, and of the animals that are not clean, two a male and his female. Clean animals, seven pairs. That's what sevens with an S of the means. Seven pairs and then unclean animals, one pair. Now, this, some people say this is a contradiction. This is actually not a contradiction between chapter six and seven. This is a clarification. It's very different. It's a more detailed instruction building on the general command of chapter six. But it does raise a really important question. And this is it. How did Noah know what was clean and unclean? See, that distinction between clean and unclean animals is most famously associated with the law of Moses, Leviticus chapter 11, Deuteronomy chapter 14. They give detailed regulations on clean and unclean animals. But those laws are given to Moses hundreds of years after Noah. And this is one of those details that Genesis reveals of something really important. And that is that the categories of clean and unclean were not invented at Mount Sinai. They were known in some form from the earliest generations of humanity. The Mosaic law codified and expanded what was already in ancient people. The clean and unclean distinction, though, appears to be rooted in suitability for sacrifice. Clean animals were the ones that were always offered to God. There was the appropriateness of dietary restriction, though this is developed more fully at Sinai, it's still there. And then there's a fundamental ordering of creation into categories fitting for covenant relationships with God. Noah would have known this distinction through the tradition that had been passed down all the way from Adam. Remember that Adam himself was still alive to tell almost everyone in the pre-flood world what God had revealed to him. And so the knowledge of clean and unclean was not lost. It was just simply not put in a written form yet, which Moses did. But the question also comes up why seven pairs of clean animals? And I think the most immediate practical reason for bringing seven pairs of clean animals rather than one pair becomes clear very quickly in the narrative. When you get to chapter 8, verse 20, after the flood, it says, 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. And so Noah sacrificed after the flood. Think about this. If he had only brought one pair of each clean animal, the sacrifice would have eliminated the species entirely. God provided seven pairs so that after the flood, there would be an act of worship. There would still be clean animals left to repopulate the earth. God was not just preserving pears for survival. He was preserving pears to provide for worship. He was making sure the sacrifice could happen without ending a species. And this is a remarkable act of divine foresight and provision. Before the flood even began, God is already providing for the worship that will follow it. Before the judgment, God is already planning for the restoration. Irenaeus saw this as a picture of the generosity of God, who never acts without provision for what comes after. That's because the God of the flood is simultaneously the God of the sacrifice on the other side of the flood. Remember also that the number seven in Genesis is not accidental, seven days of creation, the seventh day, the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh from Adam, which was Enoch, who walked with God. Now seven pairs of clean animals, seven days of waiting before the flood. Seven in Hebrew thought represents a completeness or a fullness, divine protection, a covenant. The Hebrew word for swearing an oath is related to the word seven. So when God brings seven pairs of clean animals, he is marking this as a complete and covenant-shaped act. Um, and that's really important. This is not just practical provisioning, this is God acting in sevens in the language of covenant completion, which he always does. Now, look at verse four. The 40 days and the and the 40 nights announcement. God gives Noah one final piece of the timeline. And this is what he says. For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth 40 days and 40 nights. Seven more days and then 40 days and 40 nights of rain. The 40 days and 40 nights is a number that echoes throughout the rest of Scripture. Remember, Moses fasted for 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain receiving the law in Exodus chapter 34, verse 28. Elijah traveled 40 days and 40 nights to the mountain of God in 1 Kings 19, 8. And then Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness before his temptation in Matthew chapter 4, verse 2. In each case, the 40 days marks a period of a sustained trial or a judgment, a time of testing and proving, and the ending of one time period or era and the beginning of another. And so the flood's 40 days of rain is not just a weather event, it is a divinely appointed period of judgment that ends the pre-flood world and prepares the earth for its renewal. And the number 40, like seven, is the fingerprint of God's deliberate action in history. This is not random. This is precisely 40, because God does not act in approximations. Notice the language here. The language God uses for the flood's effect is striking. He said, I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made. The Hebrew word translated blot out means to wipe away, to obliterate, to erase completely as ink is wiped from a surface. And it's a word of total removal. And it's paired with a phrase we shouldn't rush past. He says, every living thing that I have made. God is not blotting out things he regrets creating. He's not erasing a mistake. He is removing the total corruption that has infected what he has made while at the same time preserving his promise in the ark. And that distinction matters enormously. God does not say every living thing that should not have existed. He says every living thing that I had made. Remember, creation itself in the beginning was declared good and then very good. And so the flood does not undo the goodness of creation, it removes the corruption that had overwhelmed it. So the goodness of God and the goodness of that creation can begin again. This is why the flood is better understood as a recreation rather than a destruction. And the waters that cover the earth in Genesis chapter 1, verse 2, what we saw there was chaos that God's spirit moved into an ordered creation. And then you come back to Genesis chapter 7, and God's spirit will move again over the chaotic waters, and then begin a new creation. This new beginning will emerge. Now, let's consider this in verse 5 of Noah's obedience. Genesis chapter 6 ended with this sentence, and now in chapter 7, we see it again. Noah did according to all that the Lord had commanded him. Moses repeats this phrase because I don't think this phrase can be said often enough. That he did all that the Lord had commanded him in a world where every intent of the heart was only evil continually, that where every person chose whomever they pleased, where the whole earth was filled with the doing of what seemed right in their own eyes, Noah did according to all that the Lord had commanded. Not some of it, not the convenient and easy parts, not after questioning and negotiating and modifying to his own preference. All that God had commanded, every word that God said, he followed that. And the repetition is not literary redundancy, it is a theological emphasis. Moses wants us to feel the contrast between Noah and everyone else in the pre-flood world. And the application to you and I is the same. In a culture that celebrates personal freedoms, that says your truth, your way, your choice, the calling of God's people has always been the same as Noah. To do according to all that the Lord has commanded, not what's comfortable, not what, not what's culturally acceptable. We don't bend to the culture. We don't stop doing ministry because of some what someone may think of us. All that he has commanded. Now, the next part is really important. We talk about the chronology of Noah's age in verse 6. It says, Noah was 600 years old when the flood of water came upon the earth. And again, this is a precise age, 600 years old. Now, in light of our discussion going back to Genesis chapter 5, this is not unusual for the pre-flood world. Methuselah, for example, 969 years. Adam lived 930 years, but the precision is the point. Moses is not writing mythology or legend. He knows exactly how old Noah was. And he will tell us the month and the day in the next verse. He said, This is the writing, this really is the writing of someone who is treating these events as dateable and verifiable history. Now, just compare there for a second before we go to the next verse to the ancient Near Eastern parallels, the Sumerian Kings list, the Gilgamesh epic. They give their figures a sweeping, round, legendary number, reigns of 28,800 years, 36,000 years. Moses gives us Moa. Moses gives us 600 years. Moses writes like a man recording what happened, not like a man composing a poem about what should have happened. The flood narrative in Genesis is one of the most precisely dated events in the entire book of Genesis. We know Noah's age at the start of the flood, 600 years old. We know the month and the day the flood began, the second month, 17 days, Genesis chapter 7, verse 11. The duration of rain, 40 days and 40 nights. The duration, the water prevailed, 150 days. The month, the day, uh, and day that the ark rested on the mountains, the seventh month, seventeenth day, Genesis chapter 8, verse 4. The month Day the tops of the mountains were visible. The tenth month, first day, Genesis chapter 8, verse 5. The exact day Noah removed the ark's covering, first day of the first month of Noah's 601st year, Genesis chapter 8, verse 33. The day that Noah and his family left the ark, second month, 27th day, Genesis chapter 8, verse 14. This is not the chronology of a myth. This is the chronology of an eyewitness account preserved with extraordinary care. And again, compare that to the ancient Near East. Compare that to the Gilgamesh epic, where the flood duration is vague. The hero's age is never given, and the timeline is loose and unspecified. Genesis reads like history because it is history. It's precise, it's dated, and it's verifiable against the internal chronology of Genesis chapter 5 and Genesis chapter 11. Now let's move on. Let's go into the ark in verses 7 through 9. Now these verses describe the entry into the ark. Noah, his family, and the animals. It says then Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him entered the ark because of the water of the flood. The phrase because of the water of the flood is really interesting. It could mean in anticipation of the coming flood, or it could indicate that the first signs were already appearing when they entered. Either way, the entry is orderly. The family goes in, the animals go in, the two male and female, as God has commanded. And then verse 9 repeats the obedience formula again, as God has commanded Noah. Three times now in this short passage, starting in Genesis chapter 6, verse 22, Genesis chapter 7, verse 5, and Genesis chapter 7, verse 9, Noah did according to all that the Lord had commanded. Again, Noah, Moses is not being redundant in the writing about Noah. He is making the most important theological point in the entire flood narrative. The only thing that separated the saved and the perishing was obedience to the word of God. It wasn't intelligence, it wasn't how strong you are, it wasn't cultural achievement, it was obedience and one family, one word from God, and they did what he said. Now, let's talk about the seven days of silence. This is a detail that most people just skip right past when they read it. The detail I've been building toward since the beginning of this lesson, to be honest with you. It came about after the seven days that the water of the flood came upon the earth. Seven days. God said in verse 4, After seven more days, I will send rain. And then silence. Noah and his family are in the ark. Think about that. They are in the ark. The animals are in the ark. The door is not yet closed, not yet. And for seven days, nothing happens. Seven days of waiting, seven days of silence, no rain, seven days of what? Seven days of the world going on as exactly as it always has. The sun is rising, the sun is setting. People are eating, people are drinking, people are marrying, and they're giving in marriage, building and trading and living and just doing their thing, evil all the time. And in the middle of all that, an enormous wooden boat is sitting filled with animals and eight people just waiting inside. Can you imagine just for a second what those seven days were like? Think about it from Noah's perspective and his family's perspective. He had spent 120 years building the ark. He had been a preacher of righteousness, warning the world of what was coming. And he had gathered the animals and an impossible, miraculous undertaking. And he loaded the provisions and he had entered the ark with his family, and now they waited for seven days while the world outside is continuing as normal. And you think about this. Perhaps people are watching this and they're laughing and mocking outside of these walls. Perhaps Noah's family is sitting there wondering, is this the day? Is tomorrow the day? When is this actually going to happen? How long do we have to sit here? Seven days in that context is a really long time to sit in the boat waiting for a flood that has never happened on the face of the earth before, in a world that looks exactly the same as it always did. And this is the moment where our faith is most tested. It's not when the rain begins, not when the evidence is unmistakable, but in the seven days before, when God has spoken and you're sitting in the ark and nothing is happening. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1 says, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Those seven days were the faith of Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1 lived in real time, the assurance of things hoped for, a flood that hasn't arrived yet, the conviction of things not seen, rain that had never fallen. Now think about that from the world's perspective. The Ark had been under construction for over a century. It had become part of the landscape by now. People have grown accustomed to this eccentric old man and his sons building their enormous wooden boat in the middle of a place where there was no water. And they heard the warnings, and nothing ever happened. And now out of nowhere, most of the animals have gone in, the family have gone in, and for seven days still nothing. What do you think the world around them was saying in this time? They were probably saying something along the lines of what they always said. See, nothing happened. Noah was wrong. We're right here, we're fine. Where's this flood? He promised. Where's this God? Where's this judgment? In 2 Peter chapter 3, verses 3 through 4, I think Peter really answers this question about what they were doing in that time because it's what we're going to see people doing in the end times of our world. He says this in 2 Peter 3, starting in verse 3. Notice, first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lust, 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. The mockers of the last days sound exactly like what the mockers of the seven days before the flood would have sounded like. Everything continues as always has. Where is the judgment? And where is this God who's supposed to act? And Peter's answer in the very next verse, I believe, is the answer of Genesis chapter seven. In chapter two, verse three, verse nine, Peter says, 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. The seven days were not God being slow. The seven days were God being patient. One last week before anyone who wanted to change their mind could. One last week before the door closes and the rain started. There is one now, there's one more layer here I want you to see to the seven days that I find deeply moving. In Jewish tradition, when someone close to you died, the mourning period was always seven days. And during those seven days, you did not work. You didn't work. You would sit and you would grieve. You receive comfort from those who came to be with you. And many Jewish scholars and some early Christian commentators have suggested that the seven days before the flood was God sitting back, observing, in some sense, a period of mourning before the judgment fell. We saw in Genesis chapter 6, verse 6 that God was grieved in his heart. The seven days of waiting may have been, let me emphasize, may have been the outward expression of that grief. It would have been a divine pause before the sentence, the judgment was carried out. The God who grieves did not rush to judgment. He waited seven days for the grieving of what must be done, still hoping that someone would walk through that door. And then on the eighth day, the rain began. Now let's just take a minute to consider what these passages speak today. Well, one of the most common challenges to our faith is what theologians call the problem of delay. Why does the ark sit for seven days and nothing happens? Genesis chapter seven gives us the answer not to not in a philosophy, but in a story. The seven days of silence were not indifference. They were not weakness, they were patience. The patience of a God who does not wish for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. The pre-flood world had 120 years. They had the testimony of the ark under construction. They had Noah preaching righteousness. And then when Noah went in, they had seven more days. God gave the pre-flood world every possible opportunity. The delay was mercy dressed in his silence. And they walked past the open door every day for seven days. And they never entered. This is the pattern throughout Scripture. God is slow to anger. God is patient. God gives warning after warning after warning. And the patience of God is not evidence of his indifference, it is the evidence of his love. Remember, God said, Come into the ark. And that invitation in one form or another has never been withdrawn. Never. In Revelation chapter 22, verse 17, we read, The Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let the one who hears say, Come, and let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who wishes to take the water of life without cost come. Come. The last invitation in the entire Bible uses the same word as the first invitation in the flood narrative. Come here. Don't go, but come here with me. Come to where God already is. Come through the one way, the one door before the door closes. The ark set open for seven days, and no one outside of Noah's family walked through that door. Now for you and I, the door is open. The invitation is still come to Jesus. And the God who called Noah to where he already was is still calling you and I today. And in all of this, we see a New Testament fulfillment. We establish in Genesis chapter 6 lessons that uh 1 Peter 3, verse 20 and 21 connects the flood waters directly to baptism. And the seven days before the flood have their own New Testament echo. After Jesus' resurrection, he appeared to his disciples for 40 days, and then he ascended. And he told them to wait in Jerusalem. Acts chapter 1, verse 4 says, gathering together, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised. To wait, just as Noah waited in the ark seven days before the waters came, and the disciples waited in Jerusalem before the Spirit came. Waiting rooms are not empty in Scripture. They are the place where faith proves itself before the promise is fulfilled. Now, for those listening, there's still an invitation for you and I today. Noah called his family into the ark, the place of safety. Jesus calls the whole world into himself the place of eternal safety. Noah stood at the door of the ark and presumably urged those outside to enter. Jesus stands at the door of every heart and knocks and invites you to come in. The pre-flood world had seven days and an open door, and they chose to stay outside. The world today has the same open door and the same choice. Matthew chapter 24, verse 37 through 39, and Jesus' own commentary on what we're reading today. He says, Just as in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. The days of Noah were not defined by a supernatural spectacle. They were defined by ordinary life conducted without reference to God, while an ark set open and one family waited inside. And this is still the world that we live in today. The door is still open, and God is still saying, Come. Now here's a word I want to leave you with. Those seven days between Noah entering the Ark and the rain beginning are the days that we're living in right now. The Ark has been built, Jesus. The door is open to salvation. God has spoken through his word, and the warning has gone out. And the world is still just eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage. The door is still open, and the call is still come to where I am. So I would challenge you to consider where you are with the Lord right now. If the Lord is calling you, and I believe that he is, that you simply say, Here I am, and you walk through the door and receive Jesus. Now our next lesson will be Genesis chapter 7, verse 11 through 24. And in those verses, we will see the fountains of the deep break open, the windows of heaven are open, and we see God closes the door. And the world that had rejected the word of God, it comes to an end. I hope that you've enjoyed today's lesson. Until next time, I hope that you have a blessing.