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Gen. 7:6- 8:22 - IT’S RAINING, IT’S POURING, ARE YOU SNORING?? – Part 3
In Genesis 8:6-17, Moses writes, “After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so, it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.
He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry. Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 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.”
We can almost hear the “Hallelujah Chorus” playing in the background! What a day of rejoicing that must have been! God had been faithful to see Noah through.
In 8:18-19, Moses writes, “So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 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.”
Verses 18 and 19 may seem like needless repetition to us, but they document Noah’s obedience to God’s words, which Moses stressed in the entire flood narrative.
Our section closes in 8:20-22 with these words: “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
What is the first thing that Noah does when he gets off the ark? Does he tend for food, find water, and create shelter? The first thing that Noah did when he left the ark was to build an altar and offer God a sacrifice. (What’s the first thing we do when we come out of a traumatic situation, a life altering, life changing event in our lives...?)
This demonstrates his dedication and gratitude to God. Noah’s “altar” is the first mentioned in the Bible. His “burnt offerings” were for worship. As the head of the new humanity, Noah’s sacrifice represented all mankind.
So, we have covered 7 chapters that log the events of the first age of man. 7 chapters covering a little more than 1,600 years.
The rest of scripture, the remainder of Genesis, 38 other books of the O.T. and 27 books in the N.T., all relate the sovereign care of a holy God bringing about reconciliation of the Godhead to man, and the constant message of the Good News.
We have only covered 7 chapters, yet so far, within the short pages we have covered, are written the very foundations of all that follows.
Only 7 chapters, but the Creator draws us back time and again through the rest of scripture, that, because He is the Creator, you and I have every reason and hope of redemption.
Only 7 chapters, but in them we can see reflected the awful end of sin let loose and the terrible impact of the lying and the murderous heart of the enemy: Satan.
Only 7 chapters, nevertheless the clarity of Satan’s strategy and the foolishness of Eve’s deception are laid bare for all to see.
Only 7 chapters, still rarely read and more rarely applied, in which the longsuffering of the Creator’s heart aches for His image to return willfully to His love, but finally only “Noah found grace in His sight.”
The first age ends. God’s longsuffering towards those who had everything placed in front of them is finished. The flood of destruction buries the world in a grave of mud and water. The age is over. Our age has begun.
“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” (2 Cor. 5:20).
Last Update: Sep 01, 2019 2:43 pm CDT
