Noah
Genesis 6:9-9:29
Remember where we left off last week following Adam and Eve, and then Cain and Abel…
- Adam and Eve had perfection in the Garden of Eden, but CHOSE against what God had asked and introduced the world to sin.
- Cain then bears an attitude with God over a rejected sacrifice, not because of what was on the altar, but the attitude it was presented with.
- Cain then, through sinful choices, escalates the situation and murders his brother. This example of the escalation of sin is a consistent theme not only throughout Scripture, but in the story of Humanity.
The Escalation of Sin Continues… but God has a plan
Gen. 6:11-13
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 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.
- The world of man falls headfirst deep into sin to the point that there is only one righteous man, leading his family in the Lord.
- Ham
- Shem
- Japheth
- Noah and his 3 sons
- God provides Noah, as a righteous man, an opportunity to be saved from the wrath that he will lay on the world
- To this point, there had never been rain in the world, so just understanding what this was a huge step of faith
- Building of the ark was also an exhaustive undertaking that would’ve required tons of hard work and sacrifice.
- God promises he will make a covenant with Noah’s family and spare them.
The Flood
- Noah is instructed to get a pair of all living animals, and seven pairs of all clean animals and birds
- Noah was 600 years old when the rains began and here is the timeline:
- Rain fell continuously for 40 days and nights
- The water flooded the earth for 150 days after the rain ended.
- On the 17th day of the seventh month, the ark landed at the top of Mt Ararat.
- First day of the tenth month, the waters receded enough to see the tops of the mountains
- Forty days later, (second week, eleventh month), Noah sends a raven out but it has nowhere to land.
- After the raven, he sends a dove, but it comes back as well.
- Seven days later, he sends a dove again, and it returns with a freshly plucked olive leaf
- Seven days after that he sends the dove back out, and it does not return, this would’ve been the start of the 12th month.
- By the start of the first month of his 601st year, so they spent an entire year on the ark.
- Then on the 27th day of the second month, the earth was completely dry and Noah and his family were able to come out of the ark.
The Covenant with Noah
After Noah and his family leave the ark, the immediately build an altar and make a sacrifice to the Lord.
Genesis 9:1-17
“Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.3 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. 5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. 6 “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind. 7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.” 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.” 17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”
- The Covenant with Noah
- Noah
- Abraham
- Moses
- David
- New Covenant
- The first of 5 major covenants with Noah
- A covenant is an relational contract that binds the two parties together, the we see this everyday in a biblical marriage relationship
- God not only makes the covenant with Noah, he provides a symbol of the rainbow to be a reminder of that binding contract.
- This will set the stage for the completion of the Old Testament covenants in Jesus and the establishment of the New Covenant in Him.
