Salvation from God's Wrath | Genesis 7
Read Genesis 7:1-17
The Point: God is Faithful. God saves His people from their sin. Those who don’t follow God will be judged with God’s wrath because of their unrepentant hearts.
- Noah is righteous before God; Noah is in relationship with God which is why God saves Noah and his family.
God explains that He is grieved, that he will flood the world to clean the world of sin’s corruption and wickedness.
“The LORD said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them…Then God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.”
--Genesis 6:6,13
God speaks to Noah with love, with mercy, telling Noah the plan that God has for the world—to judge the world with a flood of water.
“But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.” --Genesis 6:18
God will save Noah and His family; Noah will become the caretaker for God’s creation as God will save the animal kingdom through Noah’s care for them. Noah’s ministry becomes these animals and His family. Noah spent the years before the flood in active obedience. He not only believed God would send the flood; he obeyed what God told him to do in preparation for it.
Genesis 7:1-6
Noah did all that God commanded him. Noah listened to God, trusted in God, he obeyed God’s instructions on how to build a giant boat. God commanded Noah to build an ark using gopher wood with a specific size of 300 cubits long, it’s breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits (Genesis 6:14-15).
God commands Noah to put two sets of animals on the ark, “every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female.” --Gen. 7:2
“Recent studies estimate the total number of living and extinct kinds of land animals and flying creatures to be 1,398. With our “worst-case” scenario approach to calculating the number of animals on the Ark, this would mean that Noah cared for 6,744 animals.” –Answers in Genesis
God cares about His people, His family and His creation (even the animals!). God wants the world to continue after the flood—he wants humanity to repopulate the world, this is the great reset for humanity.
- God is faithful. God promised that He would flood the earth. God promised that He would save Noah.
What God says, goes. God is all knowing, all powerful, and he is everywhere all of the time. This means that when God speaks it is our ultimate authority because He knows more than us, He is above us. God can be trusted and the Christian gets peace in their life knowing that God is faithful.
“…on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.” –Genesis 7:12
God’s promise is fulfilled here: God promised Noah that He would flood the world—God is fulfilling that promise here in Genesis 7:12. Water is coming from the sky, the water firmament from Genesis 1:6-7, is wrapping around the earth, this firmament now opens up. Water also comes from under the earth as well, this points to this flood not just being a flood, but it is a catastrophic, global event that will change the shape of the continents for the rest of the world’s time.
The number forty is used here to establish a repeating pattern of how God interacts with his creation throughout the rest of biblical history: God tests and judges through a 40 day cycle that provides purification for His creation.
Genesis 7:17-24
Moses time on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:18, Deuteronomy ( 9 :25)
The spies’ trip to Canaan (Numbers 13:25)
Israel’s time in the wilderness (Numbers 14:33, 32:13)
Elijah’s miraculous journey to Sinai (1 Kings 19:8)
Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (Mark 1:13, Matthew 4:1-11)
The water in the great flood is purifying the earth, how is this accomplished? It washes out the filth, the dirt, the unrepentant hearts of humanity that love themselves, that love their corruption and who worship their false gods—this leads them to sexual immortality and violence. Throughout his entire word, God tells humanity, tells His followers that unrepentant hearts, lovers of sin, lovers of the world will be met with God’s wrath, discipline and judgement.
Isaiah 26:20-21
“The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”—John 3:36
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”
—Romans 5:8-9 + 1 Peter 3:18-22
Noah’s hope was found His faith in God. His faith in God motivating him to obey God. God loved Noah, and Noah responded by building relationship. The same goes for us. The Christian’s hope is found in their faith in God. Our faith in God will motivate us to obey God; to be a shining city on a hill, to be a beacon of Christ’s love and hope in a hopeless, chaotic world.
“Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the Lord closed it behind him. Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days,”
--Genesis 7:16-17
Noah chose God when everyone else on earth chose their sin and God saved him and his family from the flood wrath.
“Obedience isn’t legalism, it’s a symptom of salvation.” –C.S. Lewis
The Point: God is Faithful. God saves His people from their sin. Those who don’t follow God will be judged with God’s wrath because of their unrepentant hearts.