Noah's Ark Part 3

(Genesis 7:1-10)

The King James version makes this sound more like an invitation then a command. It says, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.”

This suggests not only an invitation, but that God was already in the ark inviting Noah to join Him there. God was extending an invitation to Noah to be saved from the coming judgment. If Noah had refused or said, later, he would have lost his chance and his life!

Because judgment did come, and on his own, Noah would have been helpless to survive. We all saw pictures of the tsunami and heard the stories. That was nothing compared to this flood.

So just like we talked about all the warnings we get: to listen, repent, judgment is coming – we also receive an invitation from God to come into the Ark. He has provided a means of salvation from His judgment.

God’s judgment is like the rain, it falls on everything not covered by an umbrella - or an ark’s roof. Our umbrella is the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross. When judgment falls, it falls on Christ and His blood covers all believers and they are saved.

You know, when Noah entered the Ark the sun was still shining, the sky was blue. But, God said, “Come now. Today!” And Noah went in faith.

And wasn’t Noah’s family lucky to have him as their spiritual leader? For 120 years he had probably been talking to them about God, even as he preached to his neighbors. He showed them an amazing example of obedience to God. A tremendous example of faith. And so they entered the Ark too.

(Genesis 7:11-16)

“The Lord shut him in.” God Himself closed the door. God knew how many people were going to repent and believe Him, just as He knows when all the people who are going to, will have accepted His Son. And then “He shut the door.”

And it began to rain.

It was too late for anyone else.

And this wasn’t just rain. “Springs of the great deep burst forth and the flood gates of heaven were opened.”

Remember, when God created the heavens and the earth He separated the waters below from the waters above. We just read that God watered the earth from some kind of underground reservoirs. The water above was some kind of vapor canopy that trapped billions of tons of water, giving the earth a kind of greenhouse effect. When God sent the flood, the earth’s crust ruptured and created something like thousands of geysers. One commentator said there may have been gigantic tidal waves just like the tsunami, but LOTS.

Then the canopy split, dropping all those tons of water onto the earth.

Some astronomers believe our planet used to look like Saturn, with its rings forming the canopy over the earth. Saturn’s rings are composed of ice particles. In fact there is a lot of ice in space. In 1908 an enormous piece of a comet, which was ice, collided with the earth, somewhere near Russia and the impact was felt around the world.

So the collapse of the canopy would have been; ice, water and vapor, which would explain why large numbers of great mammoths and other animals have been found embedded in ice. Animals that are warm weather animals, found in the Artic – why would they be there? Because at one time the whole earth was tropical – like a greenhouse – and it suddenly was plunged into sub-freezing temperature. These animals were frozen still chewing the grass they were eating!

Even after 120 years of warning it still seemed to come out of nowhere didn’t it?

While Noah and his family were in the Ark during the judgment, do you think he wondered if he built the Ark right? If he had followed God’s instructions exactly and it would be strong enough to save him?

If he had been obedient to God, he could depend on God’s power to save him, just as - if we are obedient – if we place our trust in Salvation through Jesus, we can depend on His power to save us.

We can also depend on Him to keep us safe through any storm we may be going through in our lives. There are 2 examples of storms in the New Testament – one time Jesus calmed the storm and one time He calmed His disciples’ fears during the storm.

The flood was worldwide. The entire world was submerged. Even the mountains! Everything that moved on earth, perished.