Let’s recap our story so far… God created a beautiful earth — a utopia — for man and woman and they screwed it up by giving in to temptation. So, God cursed everybody including Satan. There were 8 generations between Adam and Noah, but there was one guy, Enoch, Noah’s great, grandfather, who found favor with God, as did Noah because of their righteousness.
Along came these fallen angels, who were spirits, and they had an eye for the pretty women on earth. They seduced them and had supernatural children, the Nephilim, who were giants. They were also evil. Enoch wrote all about them. If you’re interested in learning the historical account of the days of Noah before the flood, check out the Book of Enoch here.
Knowing this history is important because Jesus brings it up when He predicts what will happen in the future…
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
Matthew 24:37 NLT
I’m picking through the choice parts of Genesis 6-10. But, I do recommend reading it all for yourself. Let’s dig in…
Genesis 6: The Calling of Noah
9 This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
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 wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
Genesis 6:9-14 NLT
God then gives Noah the exact dimension of the ark he is to build. I’ll spare you those details. Next He explains what His plan is.
7 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. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
Genesis 6:7-22 NLT
- Noah is our first Bible hero. He walked with God. He had faith. He had to have faith.
- It took Noah over 100 years to build the ark.
- Imagine the people making fun of him. It had never rained before. Remember that in Eden, water sprung from the earth to water the plants and trees.
- I’m sure Noah and his family tried to evangelize and warn the people just like in today’s world.
- Jesus said, “As in the days of Noah“!
Genesis 7: The Great Flood
The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
5 And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 7:1-12 NLT
17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. 21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
Genesis 7:17-24 NLT
That’s a lot of water. I visited the Grand Canyon last year and after seeing that massive hole in the ground, there’s no way the tiny Colorado River carved that out over billions of years. No, the flood did it. If you don’t believe me, check out this documentary from “Is Genesis History?”…
Is Genesis History?
Genesis 8: The Rain Stops
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. 2 Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. 3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 4 and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.
Genesis 8:1-5 NLT
Almost a year later…
Then Noah sent out a dove, but it had nowhere to land. A week later, he sent it out again and it returned with an olive leaf in its beak. He waited another week and sent the dove out again, but it didn’t return.
15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”
18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
Genesis 8:15-19 NLT
Noah then built an altar and God promised that He’d never curse the ground again. He worshiped God in gratitude for saving him and his family. Noah trusted and obeyed God even when what God was telling him to do didn’t make any sense. God works that way. See, God has a plan for each and every one of us. It’s up to us to seek His will for our lives and to trust Him no matter what storms life throws at us.
Genesis 9: The Covenant
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
Genesis 9:8-16 NLT
God promises to never destroy the world with a flood. However, in Revelation, the world is destroyed by fire, earthquakes, war, and disease, but no flood. (Learn about the other Covenants between God and Man.)
The bow in the sky was meant to be seen as a warrior’s bow. But if the arch of a rainbow formed the arch of a bow, the arrow would fly right into heaven. That is the point God is making. A time will come when punishment won’t come down on the earth but will fall upon God himself in a supreme act of mercy.
From “Jesus in all of Genesis – a video devotional” from the YouVersion Bible app
That supreme act of mercy is Jesus’ death on the cross and His ascension.
It’s also a shame that God’s rainbow has been bastardized. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
Noah Gets Drunk
18 The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth.
20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s naked body. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father naked.
24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,
“Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers.”26 He also said,
“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem.
27 May God extend Japheth’s territory;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth.”28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.
Genesis 9:18-28 NLT
Rather than showing respect and discretion, Ham thought seeing his father naked was a joke, revealing his true character and setting up a pattern of bad behavior that continued through his descendants. (Ham’s descendants, Canaanites, Ninevites and Amorites, were all enemies of God’s people.) Shem and Japheth acted respectfully by walking backward to avoid seeing their father and covered him with a robe. Their descendants reflected the benefits of respectful behavior and attitude.
From the @YouVersion plan ‘Jesus In Genesis’
Genesis 10: The Descendants of Noah’s Sons
Chapter 10 goes through the names of Noah’s grandchildren — it’s a study in anthropology. Many of these names became places. You’ll see some familiar ones: Gomer (Germany), Magog (Russia), Tarshish (Spain and Portugal), Cush (Ethiopia), Egypt, Put (Libya), Canaan (The Promised Land, now Israel and Jordan), Sheba (Somalia) and Dedan (Arabia). The sons of Shem were called “Semites” and Jesus is a descendant of Shem.
8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” 10 The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar. 11 From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah 12 and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city.
Genesis 10:8 NLT
So, God wiped out all evil, all people and all the living creatures on the earth except for Noah, his wife, his 3 sons and their wives. In the ark were male and female of each kind of animal so they could reproduce and repopulate the world.
God made a promise, a covenant, with humankind. There will later be another covenant via Moses and then the final New Covenant through Jesus. It’s the covenant that He makes with each and every one of His born again believers.
Are You Part of the New Covenant?
If you’re not sure if you’re saved or not, if you truly want to be born again and have the assurance of salvation, receive the Holy Spirit, feel His Shalom — a peace that surpasses all understanding, and get a 1-way, non-stop ticket to Heaven after you die, or that you won’t be left behind at the Rapture, which can happen at any moment, this is what you have to do…
