Sermon notes September 7th, 2025

GENESIS 7

Genesis 7                                                        New King James Version

1   Then the Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. 

• This word “come” you will find in all parts of the Bible; but this is the first time it occurs. One hundred and twenty years before this invitation was given, Noah had received the most awful news that ever came from Heaven to earth. No news like that have ever come to this earth. God told Noah he was going to destroy man on account of his wickedness. Some skeptics will say: “I wonder why men believe there ever was a worldwide flood”. I thought we in this age of the world had got beyond that.” A great many people say: “I don’t believe there ever was a flood upon the earth. Some people say: There are things in the Bible I believe, and some things I do not believe.” Some people say: “I believe the New Testament, but not the Old Testament. There are a great many things in the Old Testament which I can not believe.” Well, if you throw out some things you must throw out the whole. Take the narrative of the flood out of the Old Testament, and you must cut the New Testament to pieces; because the Son of God said: “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man.” He put his divine seal upon it. If you can make it appear, that God did tell a lie and misrepresent one thing, then all his teaching goes for naught. I believe there was a flood, just as much as I believe I exist. I do not see how any man can read the Bible and doubt it. Some scientific men try to get over it or around it; but they have become believers in it. Heathen nations tell us they found the skeleton of whales in Asian desert; and there are many other indications of a flood having at one time covered the earth. 
• Skeptics try to make out these things that were not caused by the flood recorded in Scripture. 
• They do it because they know if the Bible is true it condemns them. Now, good men could not have written the Bible unless it is true; and what would be the object of bad men writing such a book, condemning themselves?

Genesis 7:2-6

2   You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; 

• Seven of every kind of clean animal (7:2). This is the only hint that the category of “clean” animals existed prior to the Law given to Moses. Here it is not a designation pertaining to diet since eating meat was apparently not permitted until after the flood. No distinction between clean and unclean animals is made anywhere else in the ancient writings (particularly as it refers to diet). Nevertheless, the designation “clean” could refer to the acceptability of the animal for sacrifice (one could infer that this is how Noah used them). After the flood, some clean animals were needed for making sacrifices and for food. To ensure their survival, it was necessary to have more than one pair of each kind in the ark

3   also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth. 

4   For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.” 

5   And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. 

6   Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth.

Genesis 7:7-12

7   So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood. 

8   Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth, 

9   two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. 

10   And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. 

11   In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 

• Between v. 6 and 11 it has been apx. 47 days.

12   And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.

Genesis 7:13-16

13   On the very same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark— 

14   they and every beast after its kind, all cattle after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort. 

15   And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life. 

16   So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.

Genesis 7:17-19

17   Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 

18   The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. 

19   And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. 

• Was this a local flood, as some allege? Consider the following: All the high hills under the whole heaven were covered (v. 19). 
• God need not have told Noah to build an ark equivalent to 1 1/2 football fields in length and 800 railroad cars in volume to escape a local flood. He could easily have moved eight people and the animals to a different location. Traditions of a universal flood have come from all parts of the world. The mountains of Ararat range up to 17,000 feet. The flood was fifteen cubits higher (vv. 19, 20). By what sort of miracle was this water kept in a localized area? In Genesis 9:15 God promised that the water would never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. There have been many local floods since then, but never a universal flood. 
• If the flood was local, then God’s promise has been broken—an impossible conclusion. Peter uses the destruction of the world by water as a symbol of the future destruction of the earth by fire (2 Pet. 3:6).
• The ark is a picture of Christ. The waters depict God’s judgment. The Lord Jesus went under the waters of divine wrath at Calvary. Those who are in Christ are saved. Those who are outside are doomed. 
• (see 1 Pet. 3:21).

Genesis 7:20-24

20   The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. 

21   And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. 

22   All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. 

23   So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive. 

24   And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.

GENESIS 8                                                   NEW KING JAMES VERSON

The chron-ol-ogy of the flood is as follows:

1. 7 days—from the time Noah entered the ark until the flood began (7:10).
2. 40 days and nights—duration of the rain (7:12).
3. 150 days—from the time the rain began until the waters decreased (8:3) and the ark rested on Mount Ararat (compare 7:11 and 8:4).
4. 224 days—from the beginning of the flood until the mountaintops reappeared (compare 7:11 and 8:5).

Genesis 7 and 8 establishes a timeline.

7:11   In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

8:5   And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

5. 40 days—from the time the mountaintops were seen until Noah sent out a raven (8:7).
6. 7 days—from the sending of the raven to the first sending forth of a dove (8:6–10; v. 10, “yet another seven days”).
7. 7 more days—until the dove was sent forth a second time (8:10).
8. 7 more days—until the final sending forth of the dove.
9. 314 days—from the beginning of the flood until Noah removed the covering from the ark (compare 7:11 and 8:13).
10. 10.371 days—from the beginning of the flood until the earth was dried (compare 7:11 and 8:14). At this time, Noah was commanded to go out of the ark (v. 16).

Genesis 8:1-14

1   Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. 

2   The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. 

3   And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. 

4   Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. 

5   And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

6   So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 

7   Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. 

8   He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. 

9   But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself. 

• The unclean raven (v. 7) and the clean dove (v. 8) are good illustrations of the believer’s old and new natures. The old nature loves to feed on garbage and dead flesh whereas the new nature cannot find satisfaction in a scene of death and judgment. It finds no rest until it sets its feet on resurrection ground.

10   And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark. 

11   Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. 

12   So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.

13   And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry. 

14   And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.

Genesis 8:15-22

15   Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 

16   “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 

17   Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 

18   So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 

19   Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.

20   Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 

21   And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

22   “While the earth remains,

Seedtime and harvest,

Cold and heat,

Winter and summer,

And day and night

Shall not cease.”