The flood reminds us of God’s holiness, judgment, and the grace he will eventually bring about through Jesus Christ. The flood is the picture of what God does in judgment in order to cleanse sin. With the waters of the flood, He judges all the sin on the earth. And in the ark, he brings through Noah and his family for the purpose of establishing a new world, a new world in righteousness.
Genesis 5:5-7 NLT | 5 The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. 7 And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.”
Here we see the extent of how bad the human race is. God is angry at the disobedience to instruction.
Matthew 24:37 NLT | “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day.
Essentially the world is;
- Exploding population (Gen 6:1)
- Sexual perversion (Gen 6:2)
- Demonic activity (Gen 6:2) .
- Constant evil in the heart of man (Gen 6:5)
- Widespread corruption and violence (Gen 6:11)
Genesis 6:8 NLT | But Noah found favour with the LORD.
Noah didn’t earn grace he found it. In Him, we live and find our being.
Genesis 6:9 NLT | This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God.
We don’t have to gain favour with Him, but the price isn’t cheap. Someone has to pay the price.
Genesis 6:11-14 NIV | 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress[a] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
Genesis 6:17 NIV | I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.
God called Noah to an essential role in the greatest judgement – and greatest salvation.
Genesis 6:22 NLT | So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.
Genesis 7:1 NKJV | Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.
Genesis 7:17 NKJV | Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.
Genesis 8:1 NKJV |Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.
The ark is a picture of Christ. The flood, God’s judgement. Those in Christ are saved and those outside are doom.
Genesis 8:6–11 NKJV| 6 So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 7 Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. 8 He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself. 10 And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark. 11 Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.
The unclean raven and clean dove are good illustrations of the believer’s old and new natures. The dove (new nature) finds no rest until it sets its feet on resurrection ground.
Genesis 8:15-16 NKJV | 15 Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 16 “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.
Genesis 8: 20-21 NKJV | 20 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. 21 And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
Noah’s first act after leaving the ark was to worship God through sacrifice. Costly sacrifice is pleasing to God. In the face of God’s holiness and grace, we too should take sin seriously, aiming to obey God in every area of our life.
