Noah s Ark Genesis 6:5-22

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1 Noah s Ark Genesis 6:5-22 Parkdale Grace Fellowship Sunday AM, February 18, 2018 The historical record of Noah s ark and the global flood that devastated the world about 4,500 years ago is not a children s fairy tale as it is often portrayed but it is a factual, historical account of God s judgment on the earth because of man s sin. Modern man scoffs at the idea of there ever having been a global flood and even more ridiculous they think is the idea of two of every kind of animal being saved from the flood in a big boat called an Ark. Besides the clear Biblical record, there is a tremendous amount of scientific evidence to confirm a global flood. Part of the reason mankind rejects the idea of a global flood is because to accept the fact that there once was a global flood would give credibility to the Biblical teaching that at one time in history past God brought judgment upon the earth because of man s sin. And if God did bring global judgment against sin once in the past we must then acknowledge that He is very capable of bringing global judgment again in the future, which in fact He has promised to do. Matthew 24:37-39, "But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be [coming to judge the world]. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be." 2 Peter 3:3-7 NLT, "Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created. 5 They deliberately forget that God 6 used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. 7 And the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed." Last week we studied chapter four. Between chapter 4, the account of Adam and Eve s firstborn son, Cain murdering his brother Able, and chapter 6, which we will look at today, there has been a passage of 1,500 years. During these 1,500 years the population of the earth has been growing rapidly, it is very possible that the earth s population then, after 1,500 years of rapid growth, could have been very similar to what it is today, over seven billion people. But also wickedness and rebellion against God has been increasing. This is because every descendant of Adam and Eve was born with a sin nature; they were all born in bondage to sin; they were all born into a life of slavery to Satan.

2 2 This is still true of the human population today. It led to judgment from God in Noah s day and the Bible warns that it will again lead to judgment from God in the last days. Genesis 6:5-6, "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Little by little over the years the moral and spiritual condition of the human race had been deteriorating. This escalating evil in the world led to God bringing severe judgment upon the earth. And the Lord was sorry [not in the sense of regret, but literally it means, He suffered emotional pain] that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. To be grieved in His heart are words in the original language which express the most intense form of emotion, a mixture of rage and bitter anguish. They are the same words used to describe the way Jacob s sons felt after their sister Dinah was raped. Isaiah says that a deserted wife feels this way at her husband s unfaithfulness. (Gordon Wenham, p ) This is the anger of someone who loves deeply. You do not grieve for someone unless you love them. The human race had rejected God s love for us, we had taken advantage of His patience toward us, and we had ignored His offer of salvation. Verse 5 says the heart of mankind was against God, it was evil continually. In contrast verse 6 says that the heart of the Lord which loved mankind was grieved. Like the agony Jesus experienced in the garden of Gethsemane as He anticipated His crucifixion, so we see God here agonizing over both the sin of man and the judgment He must carry out against mankind. God is reluctant to punish man whom He loves deeply. (God does not delight in punishing man but He agonizes over it). But the consequences of sin is death everlasting separation from God and from all of His goodness. To be just God must execute justice and punish sin. Genesis 6:7, So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. As we see in chapter seven, this destruction will come in the form of a global flood. When God sent the flood the devastation was so catastrophic that to this day there is almost no evidence anywhere on the face of the earth of human life or civilization prior to the flood. And one day soon God will once again bring severe judgment upon the world because of the rapidly increasing wickedness.

3 3 Matthew 24:7-22, For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect s sake those days will be shortened. Genesis 6:8, But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. But doesn t mean a change in God s plan it means God has planned an exception to the complete destruction of everyone it means all would be destroyed with a small exception who would be saved by grace. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This does not mean that God found something good in one man, so He made an exception for that man. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord means that God took the initiative and extended grace to one of the undeserving wicked humans who was a captive of Satan so that he was set free and was radically changed. Grace is those good things which God freely does for us, or gives to us, when we have not earned it or deserved it. Genesis 6:9, This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. What made Noah a just man? The grace of God that he found. What made Noah perfect in his generations, when he was born of the same stock, raised in the same environment? Why did he turn out so different? The grace of God had been extended to Noah. In other words, Noah, like everyone else in his day, deserved judgment. It was by the sovereign grace of God that Noah escaped the judgment. That is the only way that anyone escapes judgment or becomes godly even still today; it is by the grace of God. It wasn t because of anything good in himself that Noah was a godly man. It was because of grace, undeserved favor with God, that he became a godly man. It is the same today, we only come to salvation by the grace of God, and the evidence that a person has received the grace of God is that their lives are changed.

4 4 Ephesians 2:8-10, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Genesis 6:11-12, The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. This same kind of society is fast becoming common in our world today. That which is wrong and immoral is being called right and that which is pure and right is being called narrow, bigoted and wrong. The Bible says that as it was in Noah s day so shall it be at the second coming of Christ to judge the world once again. The moral pressures in Noah s day must have been overwhelming. The temptations of such a hedonistic society must have been very difficult to stand against. 2 Peter 2:5 describes Noah as a preacher of righteousness. But no one believed or responded to his message except seven members of his family. And yet, by the grace of God, Noah continued to walk faithfully with God although he lived in such an ungodly environment with such discouraging fruit to his ministry. Twice Ezekiel mentions Noah as one of the three most righteous men in history along with Job and Daniel (Ezekiel 14:14, 20). It is interesting to note that both Noah and Daniel lived during exceptionally wicked times in history and yet they were exceptionally godly men. We can never use the wickedness of our surroundings as an excuse for our failure to walk with the Lord. No matter how bad the world around us gets, God will enable us to live a blameless life if we trust in His grace. Now look at God s plan of salvation in Noah s day. It was called an ark a massive wooden boat. As the ark is described notice the parallels with the New Testament plan of salvation: Genesis 6:13-14, "And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make yourself an ark of gopherwood [the cross was made of wood]; make rooms in the ark, [Jesus said, in my Father s house are many mansions, or rooms, or dwelling places],and cover it inside and outside with pitch. The Hebrew word for pitch (kopher) is equivalent to the Hebrew word for atonement (kaphar) meaning covering.

5 5 Therefore the pitch worked as a waterproof covering for the Ark, to protect all who were inside by keeping out the waters of judgment. Just as the blood of Christ provides a perfect atonement for the soul protecting us from the judgment of God. (Henry Morris, p.181) This Ark which was built for the purpose of saving all who were inside from God s judgment against sin, had only one door, and all who entered the Ark must enter by that door. This serves as an Old Testament illustration of Jesus Christ who is the only way to Salvation (John 14:6). In John 10:7-9, Jesus describes Himself as the Door through which His sheep must enter to find safety and rest. Genesis 6:15-16, And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16 You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks." Many critics have argued that it would be impossible for primitive ancient men to have built a boat large enough to hold all the animals and yet strong enough to be seaworthy. But there is much evidence from the most ancient civilizations that sprang up shortly after the flood to point to the fact that pre-flood civilizations were probably very highly advanced in their technology and culture. They were capable of some technological achievements that we today cannot duplicate. But more importantly, regardless of the technological ability of the men of Noah s day, verse 15 reveals that God was the architect of the Ark. If God designed the plans we know it was well designed. The Ark was a huge boat. In modern measurements the dimensions of the Ark would have been about 150 meters long (1 ½ football fields long), 25 meters wide, and 15 meters high. A vessel of these dimensions would have been extremely stable, almost impossible to capsize. There is record of a 120 m long Greek catamaran galley, Tessarakonteres, which sailed in 210 B.C. That is almost the size of the ark, giving evidence that ancient cultures were building massive ships. (Tim Lovett, Noah s Ark, p. 38) If you want to do further research into the details of the likely design and construction of the ark I recommend Tim Lovett s book and DVD by the same title, Noah s Ark; Thinking Outside the Box, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, Genesis 6:17-21, "And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. 18 But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark you, your sons, your wife, and your sons wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the

6 6 ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. 21 And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them. " The expression two of every kind" refers to a broad classification of animals similar to our modern biological classification of genus. For example God would not have put onto the ark two Wolves, two Poodles, two German Shepherds, and two Coyotes, etc. He would simply have put two canines onto the Ark. And from those two dogs all the present species of dogs both wild and domestic would have descended. Based on the dimensions of the ark given in the Bible the ark would have had a cargo capacity equal to about 522 standard livestock railway cars. The average size of all land animals is about the size of a sheep. Of course there are some really big animals like elephants, dinosaurs, hippos, etc., but I suspect that God would have put young ones on the Ark, not full grown specimens. Most animals however are small like mice, sparrows, rabbits, frogs, snakes, etc. Using the average sized animal being the sheep, we know that about 240 sheep can be transported in one railway stock car. Multiplying 240 sheep by the cargo capacity of the ark, which was equivalent to 522 stock cars, equals a total of over 125,000 average sized animals that could have fit inside the Ark. (Henry Morris, p. 181) At the very most there would have been 75,000 animals on the ark, probably much less than that. But the ark could hold over 125,000 average sized land animals. Therefore a maximum of 60% of the Ark s capacity would have to be used for the animals on board the Ark. How did Noah catch and round up all these animals to put them on the Ark? In verse 20 the Lord told Noah that that the animals would come to Noah at the proper time so that Noah would not have to go looking for them. The salvation of all who were on the ark was entirely a supernatural work of God. Even today God causes many animals to instinctively migrate to a specific place without anyone having to train them or show them the way or prompt them to go. Another question that causes many to think that it is impossible to keep so many animals on the Ark is How did Noah and his family keep so many animals fed? Although about half of the ark s cargo space could have been used for food, Noah s family would have to work around the clock to feed and clean up after all these animals.

7 7 The next chapters indicate that Noah and the animals were on the Ark for more than one year before the flood waters subsided. Any farmer who has to keep cattle over winter knows that they eat an awful lot of food and they make an awful lot of manure which would have to be cleaned out of the Ark constantly. But this is no problem for God. There is another common phenomenon in nature that demonstrates one possible way that God could have easily taken care of this logistical problem. It is something known as hibernation in which the animal goes to sleep and its body functions slow right down until they almost stop breathing. This God given ability enables animals to go for very long periods of time with very little or no food intake and very few if any bowl movements. God could easily have caused all the animals to go into hibernation. This way they would eat very little food, would make very little mess and would not grow restless during the long confinement on the Ark. Did God cause the animals to hibernate on the ark? We don t know, the Bible doesn t tell us how God did it, but simply that He did it. Remember that Jesus only needed 5 loaves and 2 fish to feed a crowd of 5,000 people. With God nothing is impossible. Genesis 6:22, "Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did." Four times the Bible repeats this statement that Noah did everything God commanded him (also 7:5, 9, 16). Noah was faithful, but he walked a lonely road, in all the earth he stood alone in his walk with God; living in a world that was more corrupt than the world has ever been since; and yet he remained blameless. But God s grace was greater than the influence of the world around him. We have this same hope and opportunity today, that the grace of God will not only save us from our sins but it is able to give us a victorious, godly life in an ungodly world. Copyright 2018 by Parkdale Grace Fellowship Permission: You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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