Genesis chapter 7

Noah, the Ark, and the Flood!

Welcome back!

At the center of Christianity, we have two inseparable concepts that walk hand in hand, and they are the claims of God and the needs of man.

Notice that the only time that we read that God was not at work was on the seventh day. The moment sin entered into creation; God went back to work, and He has been working ever since. God cannot stop working so long as there is sin, so long as there is still work to do. In this chapter we see more of the same, God is working. Like a surgeon wielding a scalpel, God swings his sword and by His Word alone, he separates the righteous from the unrighteous. We see this happening when we read that Noah did everything that God commanded, according to God’s Word.

What this tells us is that God is in control. This is what we need to keep in mind as we study this chapter. God speaks and Noah not only listens but obeys. Notice also that Noah’s obedience is not a matter of degrees or percentages. It is a complete obedience. Total submission to God. This is the basic definition of a healthy relationship between God and his creation. God declares His judgment and it happens. Essentially, God is exercising his power and authority in and over his creation.

In chapter 6 we saw how God contrasted the pure with the impure. illustrating for us using physical examples to help us understand spiritual truths. Here in chapter 7 God is doing it again, only this time taking it a step farther.

We also saw in chapter 6 that one of God’s motivations for flooding the Earth was to wipe out the Nephilim. To cleanse the earth of their corruption. Which may appear to have been an exercise of futility as the text also says that their presence returned even after the flood. I say this because obviously it was not intended to be the conclusion of the matter.

The continued presence of the Nephilim reminds us of the condition of mankind and the state of the world. The Flood did not cleanse the world once and for all. It did not rid the world of sin or of its consequences. The Flood was not simply God starting over by going back to square one. Think of it more in the sense of a preview. A preview of things to come.