Read Genesis 7
1 The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
5 And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
13 On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. 14 They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. 15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.
17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. 21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
Go Deeper
This chapter picks up where the previous chapter left off. The ark that Noah spent countless days working on has been constructed, and it’s time for he and his family to enter the ark. What happens next is incredibly heavy and sobering for us to read. The rains begin and all of creation (except for Noah and his family) are wiped out. All of the unchecked and unrepentant sin in the world has led God to the point where He decides that it’s time to start over and He’s going to use the one righteous man left to do so.
Verse 5 tells us everything we need to know about Noah: “And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.” Throughout the entire process, despite the ridicule from the people around him, Noah faithfully worked and built the ark because that was the task that God had given him. Have you ever been doing something you felt like God called you to do but as time went on, you started to second guess yourself? One could expect Noah had those same feelings as he waited and waited for the rains to come. But God did what He said He would and, because of Noah’s faithfulness, God preserved him and his entire family.
As we read about in Genesis 3, we’re still dealing with the ramifications of sin all around us. When we look around us, there’s an abundance of wickedness. Watch the evening news for fifteen minutes and you’ll see a world of people that indulge themselves with no regard for the God who created it all. The weight of this can leave us feeling a sense of despair. But there’s good news! The same God that preserved Noah and his family because of their faithfulness is the same God that’s on His throne today. If we, like Noah, do all that the Lord commands us to (even in spite of the resistance and opposition we face), we can live with the same confidence and boldness that Noah did, too.
Questions
Have you experienced ridicule or opposition when you were trying to be faithful to what God called you to? What was that experience like?
Have you second guessed yourself after God has called you to do something? How did God prove Himself faithful in those times?
What is it that God is asking you to do that you’ve been hesitant to do? What does faithfulness look like for you in this situation?
Did You Know?
The reason God commanded Noah to bring ceremonially “clean” animals was so that there would still be animals that would be fit for sacrifices to Him after the flood. Praise God that we no longer have to sacrifice animals in order to be made right with Him!
