Noah's Ark And The Flood (MP 16)

It took Noah one hundred twenty years
To finish the ark, a giant floating craft;
He never slacked, despite the taunts and jeers
Of all from far and near, who thought him daft!
God sealed tight the door, so none could break in;
The floodgates of heaven poured out much rain;
Drowned were all beasts and birds, women and men;
Those in the ark lived, that life start again!
The ark came to rest on a high mount’s top;
All within came out when the ground grew dry;
Noah’s first act was to thank God for their lot,
That he and his were not allowed to die!
Across the sky God curved a rainbow,
As token never more to flood earth so!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 7:13-16 (NIV)
"On that very day Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. 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 kinds, and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut the ark.”

Commentary
How Noah was able to build the ark at all is a mystery. Built of cypress, it was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high; it had three decks and rooms enough to house Noah’s family of eight, pairs of every living type of creature, and food storage to last seven or eight months. Many ocean liners are not that large. The place where it was built was nowhere near the ocean, lake, or river, and it is doubtful if the people knew anything about boats. For 120 years Noah worked on it, enduring taunts and jeers of scoffers.

When the ark was ready, God caused the pairs of animals and birds to come to Noah and enter the ark. He, his wife, three sons, and their wives entered, and God shut and sealed the door, so that others could not break in. It had not rained on the earth, but now it poured rain for forty days; water also gushed up from beneath the ground. The ark rose upon the water until all the mountains were at least twenty feet under water. After 150 days God brought a great wind that helped dry the ground, and the ark landed high on Mount Ararat in modern-day Turkey. Several explorations have climbed the 16,000-foot mountain searching for the ark. Some have reported that they found it, lodged in ice and snow at a very high level.

Noah did not open the door and release the animals for about 40 days, when he was sure the water was gone from the surface of the land. The first thing he did after leaving the ark was to build an altar and offer a sacrifice to God in gratitude for their deliverance. There were no survivors, other than his family of eight persons and the animals and birds he released from the ark.

Had God planned before the beginning of time to destroy the human race and animal life after only ten generations? The answer is yes; God had foreknowledge of everything that was going to happen. But why did He cause the flood at this particular time? All these people, presumably with the exception of Noah (by God’s special “election”), were condemned already by the sin of Adam when he ate fruit of the forbidden tree; they were also spiritually dead by their own great sin. God had not yet come to earth as a man (Jesus) and announced the good news of redemption by faith through grace. From His perspective, these people were already physically dead as well.

I think there were two reasons why God brought the flood when He did: (1) To give the race a fresh start in a world uninfluenced by the great sin that had multiplied in the pre-flood culture; and (2) To cap man’s life span at 120 years rather than the near-millenium that existed in the first ten generations. We know the first reason failed to produce a race who sinned less than the one destroyed; the newborns, if anything, sinned more than those before the flood. The second reason did take effect; after the flood; men’s life-spans were decreased sharply in length. You may well ask, Okay, but why did God also wipe out all animal life? After all, they do not commit sin; their destruction was unwarranted. It may be a shock to your concept of God, but He is not a “save the poor whales” environmentalist; animal life exists to provide food for Man. They weren’t needed in large numbers to feed Noah’s family of eight; as the number of people increased, so did the animal life needed to feed them. Besides, how could God destroy Man by drowning and save the lives of the animals?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)