Author : Keith Sharp
Bible Survey : Lesson Five (Genesis 6-9)
Many years went by after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden. As the earth became more populated, there were both good people and bad. But something terrible happened that resulted in all people becoming wicked. The sons of good people chose wives from the daughters of wicked people simply because of their beauty. People became so wicked that God decided to give mankind 120 years to repent, or he would destroy them.
At this time there were “well-known men of great stature, physical force, and violent will, who were enabled by these qualities to claim and secure the supremacy over their fellow-men” (Albert Barnes). All mankind had become wicked, and they only thought about evil things, and that continually. It was such a terrible situation God was sorry He had even made man. So the holy God in all justice decided to destroy all people from the earth along with all the air breathing animals.
Two words describe the way men lived then: “corrupt” and “violent.” No one was safe. That’s the way all people became before the Flood, and that’s the reason the righteous Lord God destroyed them.
But Noah was the one man in all the earth who found favor (grace) with God. Despite living in such a wicked generation, Noah was “perfect,” he had the complete character the Lord desires of us, and he “walked with God,” that is, he lived his life in fellowship with God. Noah preached to these wicked people for 120 years, but only his wife, their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives listened.
God told Noah He was going to destroy all the people and animals on the earth. He said He would make it rain forty days and forty nights and cause a great Flood over the whole earth.
The Lord God made a covenant with Noah and his family. He commanded him to build an ark 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. Noah believed God and built the ark exactly the way God commanded. This was the biggest boat ever built before the twentieth century. It had over 1,500,000 cubic feet of cargo space, the size of 500 single deck cattle cars.
God caused a pair, male and female, of every kind of unclean animal and seven, males and females and one extra, of every kind of clean animal to come to Noah. He directed Noah to gather food for his family and all these animals.
Noah did everything exactly the way God commanded. Thus, he was righteous before God.
God Himself closed up Noah and his family in the ark. The Lord both caused it to rain forty days and nights and broke up all the sources of water beneath the earth. This miracle of God was the greatest calamity ever to occur. It changed all the geology of the earth. Creation and the Flood rather than billions of years of evolution account for the geological record.
The inspired writer Moses makes it very clear that this Flood covered the entire world. Rain fell continuously for forty days and nights. All the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The water rose over 20 feet above the tops of the highest mountains. The waters continued at this depth over the whole earth for six months. Then the waters began to subside, and 17 days later the ark rested on the top of Mt. Ararat, which is over 16,000 feet high. After ten months Noah and his family could see the tops of the mountains.
Noah first sent out a raven then a dove to test if the water had subsided. After one year and ten days the earth was dried, and God told Noah and his family to leave the ark with all the animals.
The first thing Noah and his family did after leaving the ark was to build an altar and offer sacrifices of each clean animal to the Lord. This pleased the Lord, and He decided never again to destroy the world by water. As long as the earth lasts, the seasons will continue as they are.
At this time God blessed Noah and his sons. He told them to multiply and fill the earth, just as He had told Adam and Eve in the beginning. For the first time the Lord allowed people to eat meat. But the Lord God wanted them to remember that life belongs to God. So he told them not to eat blood. He also commanded that anyone who murders another person is to be put to death.
Then the Lord God established a beautiful covenant with all people and land animals. He promised never again to destroy the world by water. As a sign of this covenant He placed the rainbow in the cloud. Every time we see a rainbow, the faithful Lord God is showing us He will never again destroy the world by water.
Some time afterward, Noah sinned by getting drunk and laying naked in his tent. Ham saw his father and told his brothers. Shem and Japheth showed proper respect for their father by walking in backward so they would not see Noah and covering him. When Noah awoke, he blessed Shem and Japheth and placed a curse on Canaan, the son of Ham, to be their servant.
All people who live on the earth are descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
