God’s Power in Judgment
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2019 · 12 May 2019
Now, in these verses is a direct, straightforward and simple account of this worldwide flood. This was not a local flood in the Mesopotamia in the Middle East. And there is a phenomenon in the world that agrees with the Genesis account of a worldwide flood. And there is knowledge of a worldwide flood that is really widespread. And the proof is the tradition of diverse people and diverse cultures about the flood.
There are over 270 different nations, races, and tribes that have in their tradition a flood story. Flood traditions exist in the history of India and China and Egypt. Eighty-eight percent of the flood narratives say that there was a favored family that was spared. Seventy percent say survival was by means of a boat. Ninety-five percent say the sole cause of this great catastrophe that came on the whole world was a flood.
Sixty-six percent of these traditions say that it came because of man's wickedness. Sixty-seven percent say that animals also were saved. Fifty-seven percent of the stories say the survivors ended up on a mountain. Many of them use some form of Noah's name, like the Hawaiian about Nu'u. Many of them speak about birds being sent out. Many of them speak about a rainbow. And many of them say that eight people were saved.
The flood did create a story that was passed down from that first family and has woven its way through all of human history. The flood was the second massive catastrophic event in the history of the world. The first was creation in six days. And the universe was created mature, full-grown, with no process. The second great catastrophe was the flood. Creation gave us the first earth. The flood gave us the second earth.
The true understanding of the flood, as well as the true understanding of Creation, is to be gained by understanding the Bible. There's only one way to understand the Bible, and that is to approach it with the proper hermeneutic, a way to interpret it. And that is called the literal, historical, grammatical method of interpretation. So we take literal meaning with literal understanding of the grammar and real historical account.
With a few exceptions, all New Testament books refer to Genesis 1 to 11. Also, every chapter of Genesis 1 to 11, is referred to somewhere in the New Testament. So the New Testament writers perceived Genesis 1 to 11 as real history. And the Lord Jesus Christ referred personally in what He said to the first seven chapters of Genesis. The New Testament writers took it for what it said. And that's the way we have to take it.
Jesus said, "Have you not read?" Don't you know what the Bible says?" And He said to them in Matthew 22:29, "You're mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, of the power of God." That's the real problem. So when we come to Genesis, we approach Genesis the same way we would approach any part of the Bible, and we're accountable to God to interpret it rightly.
And as you approach the text of Genesis 6 to 9, you find that God sent a flood and drowned the entire world. This flood was a judgment of God against the sin of man who had become so sinful that only eight people were spared. The rest of the entire human race, as well as all the other animals, except the fish, were also destroyed. God preserved eight and an ark full of pairs who would repopulate the earth.
The flood teaches us several essential lessons. One, that God has absolute freedom and power over His creation. He made it in six days, and He can destroy it in 40. Secondly, we learned from the flood that God hates sin. God judges it with a fatal anger. We also learned that God's judgment spares no guilty soul. And God's grace and salvation have profound meaning in light of God's judgment.
Here are some reasons why the flood was worldwide. First one is the extensive language in Genesis 6, 7, 8, and 9. It repeatedly says that the whole world was covered, that the mountains were covered, and that all under heaven perished. Secondly because the construction and populating of the ark was an absurdity if the flood was just local. Why build a big box and spend 120 years building it for a local flood?
And why would you collect all the animals if the only ones that were going to drown were in the Mesopotamian Valley? Another reason is that God promised in Genesis 8:21, “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.”
We know the flood was worldwide because Genesis traces all the people in the world back to Noah and his family. We'll see that in Genesis 9 and 10 when the Lord starts to lay out the genealogy, starting in Genesis 9:18, they all come out of Noah's family. And when you look at other Biblical references to the flood, they affirm but never deny its universality. Now let us go back to the text:
“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. 20 The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered.”
You have the word prevailed five times. It prevailed, and then it prevailed, and then it prevailed, and it just keeps rising. The word water is used six times. The word prevailed is used five times. The word increased is used two times. The word greatly is used three times. So the flood prevailed. This is the flow of the text. The Lord's Word does tell us why God did this. The reason is sin.
“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.”
Scripture doesn't spend any time on the how of the flood. It is much more concerned with the why of the flood. And rather than have you becoming occupied in trying to figure out the geology of the flood or the hydrology of the flood or the geophysical effects of the flood, the Lord would have you much more concerned about the impact that sin has on human life. That's the message.
“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 8:1, “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.”
The water increased, lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth. The ark floated on the surface of the water, protected by God, not by engineering skill and not by navigational skill, because there was no way to navigate the ark. It was just a large box floating, being cared for by God. All humanity and all of the animal world was reduced to what's in that box bobbing on the top of the waters.
The mountains as we know them today were a product of the flood. The mountains prior to the flood were lower. When the Lord brought the flood, He raised those mountains. But at first the water covered those low mountains, which were characteristic of the tropical environment of the pre-flood world. Verse 20, "The water kept rising until it was at least fifteen cubits (22 1/2 feet) higher than the tops of the mountains.
Now we have mountains as high as nearly 30,000 feet. The flood wouldn't have enough water to cover those, but they rose out of the flood as God, during that time, was reshaping the planet. Volcanic explosions are devastating. Just imagine that going on all over the planet. And when God broke up the planet and reshaped it, it would be that multiplied almost an infinite number of times.
The face of the land was changed by eruptions, steam blasts, landslides, water waves, hot pumice ash and mud flows. Six hundred feet of strata was formed in a handful of minutes. Strata is created by a force moving as it piles up and it piles up. Then it rolls over and rolls over and keeps piling up, so that you may have the latest life on the bottom, rather than on the top of the strata.
The Bible doesn't give us any idea of the tremendous disturbance that occurred in verse 24 when this water kept rising and rising as the fountains of the deep were broken up, and as the great upper canopy began to deluge the earth for one hundred and fifty days. And, as God begins to dissipate the flood, He pushed up the mountains and drops down the great ocean basins to become oceans.
Psalm 104:6-9 tells us, “You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At Your rebuke they fled; at the voice of Your thunder they hastened away. 8 They went up over the mountains; they went down into the valleys, to the place which You founded for them. 9 You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth.” So the first point is the flood prevailed.
The second point, and this is what the Lord wants you to know. He's not interested in the geology. But He is interested in the theology. Verse 21, "All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms on the earth, and all mankind." Verse 22, “All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died.” Death by drowning.
The meaning of all of this is to teach us that the future of sinners is devastating. They all died. There is no comment on the terror of the doomed. There's no note of sympathy. The decision is without regret on the part of God and without remedy. Sinners and their corrupted environment must be destroyed. The wicked then will be destroyed by fire that will incinerate the entire universe.
Verse 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.” God is not at all reluctant to take the responsibility. He takes full responsibility for all the destruction. This is not a natural disaster. This is a supernatural judgment.
Was Noah a perfect man? Was he a sinless man? Not at all. He was a believer in the true God, who had repented of his sin and sought to obey God. Hebrews 11:7 says, "By faith, Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his house." And he was saved by God, like Lot in Genesis 19, was saved from the fire and the brimstone that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
Genesis 8:1, “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.” There hadn't been wind in the past with a whole different hydrology with a new different earth environment. God created wind which would begin to move the waters, which then moved the canopy since the sun was fully exposed.
Verse 2-3, “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.” All of this was powerful and full of creativity. God created mountain ranges up to 30,000 feet. He created ocean depths where some parts of the sea are as deep as 35,000 feet in depth.
Verse 4-5, “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.” The seventh month was mentioned so that we know this is history. Precision is here to tell us this is history that really happened.
A lot of people have tried to find the ark. Is that important? No. It's enough that the Bible says it, right? It's the same with the Shroud of Turin. Who cares? You might be able to prove it was a dead person who was crucified. But we know that Jesus died and rose again, from Scripture. The Bible is our only authority, not an old piece of cloth or some wood found on a mountain called Ararat.
Now we live in a new world. The valleys and the mountains and the lakes and the streams are here, and the seeds are here, and they began to grow again, and the animals went off, and they began to make more animals. And they moved around the whole planet and spread around and, man did the same. Seventy percent of our new world is now covered with water from the flood containing 330 million cubic miles of water.
2 Peter 3:10, “But the day of the Lord will come, and it will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” You say, "Oh, 4,000 years have gone by, and it hasn't happened." Remember: With the Lord, a thousand years is as a day. This flood is the greatest warning God has ever given.
But there is the ark of safety, Christ. For those who believe in Him, they will be taken out to escape that judgment, and God will remember them, as He remembered Noah. Many believers have died and are with the Lord now. But those believers who are alive when the judgment comes will be delivered from that judgment like Noah was. Because God knows who belongs to Him. Let us pray.