Scripture: Genesis 7 and Luke 17:26-27
Structure:
- Introduction – be prepared
- Fact or fiction
- Global or regional
- Random or intentional
- Conclusion – be prepared for Jesus’ return
Introduction:
Good morning everyone.
When I was about 9 or 10 years old I was a cub scout. One of the things they taught us at cubs was to be prepared. Be prepared for anything. And to help us be prepared they sometimes did spot checks when we turned up for our weekly den meeting.
There were three things a cub scout needed to have on them to be prepared and these included a handkerchief, a pencil and three 2 cent pieces. The value of a handkerchief and a pencil need no explanation. They are helpful in all sorts of situations. But some of you may be wondering why we always needed to carry three 2 cent pieces. Well, that was the cost of a phone call from a public phone booth in those days. If you couldn’t fix the problem with a pencil and a handkerchief, then you could at least phone a friend for help.
I don’t know what Cubs and Brownies are supposed to carry with them these days. At a guess I imagine a handkerchief, a smart phone and unlimited data.
Today we continue our series on Noah. A couple of weeks ago we heard how God told Noah to build an ark because the Lord was sending a great flood on the earth. And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
This morning we hear what happens when the flood comes. At the beginning of Genesis chapter 7 God tells Noah to be prepared because the flood will start in seven days’ time. During that seven days, pairs of animals and birds come to Noah and board the ark. We pick up the story from verse 11 of Genesis 7…
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 twenty feet. 21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all humankind. 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.
May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.
The core message of today’s sermon is, be prepared. Alongside this core message to be prepared, Genesis 7 also raises a number of questions for us modern readers. For example, is the flood account in Genesis fact or fiction? What was the extent of the flood? What creatures were on the ark? How did all the animals fit? And how did Noah keep the lions from eating the zebras?
Some of our questions find an answer in the Biblical text but not all of them. The Bible was written thousands of years ago in a different culture from ours, by people who had a different way of thinking to us and a different knowledge base.
The writer of Genesis was primarily interested in telling us why the flood happened and what the flood reveals about God. The sorts of scientific and technical questions we might raise today were probably not even on the author’s radar. So we need to be careful not to try and make the text say things that it was never designed to say.
We can, however, use our reason and look at other evidence based sources to address some of the concerns of modern readers. I do this in the interests of helping you to be prepared. Who knows, one day you may find yourself in a conversation with someone who wants to know whether there were any dinosaurs on the ark.
Fact or fiction:
One question people sometimes ask is whether the flood story is fact or fiction. Is it describing a real historical event or is it a fairy tale?
If you are sitting in a movie theatre and you see the words on the screen: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” you know you are about to watch a Star Wars movie. Star Wars is not real; it is science fiction. You are not there to learn information about the past. You are there to be entertained.
And if you hear someone begin a story with: “Once upon a time…” you know you are about to hear a fairy tale. Although the story itself is not true you know it probably contains some moral lesson, some eternal truth.
But when someone begins by saying: “On the 3rd February 1868 a violent storm swept across much of the country…” you know this is not a made up story; this is non-fiction, and you are about to hear the historical account of a disaster. In actual fact there was a great storm in 1868 which swept across New Zealand causing flash floods and taking the lives of more than 40 people. [1]
Likewise, when the news reader on TV says: “Breaking news… we cross now live to our reporter…” you know what you are hearing and seeing is real. This is not entertainment, nor are you likely to learn some great pearl of wisdom. You are simply being informed of current events; history in the making.
Our reading this morning, from Genesis 7, begins with the words: “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.”
This style of writing, with a very precise date and a description of facts, tells us that whoever wrote Genesis wants us to know the great flood is something that actually happened. It is not a made up story. What you are about to hear describes a historical event. [2]
The gospel of Luke describes the birth of Jesus in a similar way. Although Luke doesn’t give a precise year or date, he does name the emperor of Rome and the governor of Syria when Jesus was born, so we know it happened in history.
Now we don’t know exactly what year B.C. the great flood happened. Our records aren’t that good. But we do know, from the way the flood account is written, the human author wants us to think of it as fact, not fiction. He wants us to take our relationship with God and the world seriously. We need to learn from the great flood. Human actions have real consequences.
Of course, the way the human authors of the Bible did history is not exactly the same as the way modern historians operate. They don’t follow the same rules. Events recorded in the Bible have a theological meaning. The Bible isn’t merely trying to inform the reader of certain facts. The Bible is using historical events to reveal some truths about God and humankind. What’s more, Biblical accounts of historical events are often communicated in an artistic way, using poetic license. These days, historians are more scientific, more precisely measured, in their approach.
Returning to the question of whether the flood in Genesis is fact or fiction; when we look outside the Bible we find that many ancient cultures have a flood story as part of their collective memory.[3] The various versions of the flood story are different but the fact they are commonly found around the world may indicate there was a significant natural disaster in the early stages of human history. This event was then passed on, in story form, from one generation to the next, as a way of remembering and making sense of what happened.
Global or regional:
If we say the flood happened in history then the next thing people today often ask is: what was the extent of the flood? Was it global or was it regional; perhaps the known world at that time? Most experts I’ve read are reluctant to commit to an answer on the extent of the flood, so we shouldn’t be too dogmatic on the position we take.
The Biblical text says, in verse 19, ‘The waters rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.’
Then in verse 23 we read, ‘Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out…’
When we hear that we think, the flood must have been global then. But there are problems with that option.
The first problem is that the human author of Genesis did not necessarily think of the earth in the same way we do. John Walton says that people in the ancient Mesopotamian world thought of the earth as a single continent surrounded by mountains. [4] And beyond the mountains was the celestial sea, whatever that is. That means the human author of Genesis would not have known about Australia or New Zealand or America or China or Russia or any of those sorts of places.
Given that the human author of Genesis probably had a much smaller understanding of the earth than we do, it could be the flood he had in mind covered the known world at that time, which is still a relatively large area.
As we learned when we did the series on the creation account in Genesis 1, God does not deem it necessary to correct our understanding of science. He accepts our limited perception and accommodates our understanding.
So far geologists have found no physical evidence for a global flood that dissipated as quickly as the flood described in Genesis. Although they have found physical evidence for significant flood events in the Middle East. That’s not to say a global flood could not have happened. It’s just that we haven’t yet been able to find physical evidence for it. Maybe in 20 years’ time we will find data that supports a global flood?
A scientist by the name of Glenn Morton found geological data which shows that five and half million years ago the Mediterranean Sea was not there. It was in fact dry land. The water was naturally dammed up at Gibraltar. This natural dam feature suddenly collapsed causing a break more than 3,000 feet deep and 15 miles wide, filling the Mediterranean basin in less than 9 months. [5]
The water that flowed into the Mediterranean basin covered an area of 964,000 square miles. That’s over nine times the size of New Zealand. That volume of water, rising quickly, would have easily precipitated torrential rain for at least 40 days, if not longer.
We don’t really know when Noah lived. The flooding of the Mediterranean basin was probably before Noah’s time. In any case, this scientific data demonstrates that a flood of massive proportions did happen in the ancient world. But that wasn’t the only flood. In his commentary on Genesis, John Walton, who provides very solid scholarship, says this:
In the mid-1990’s geologists and oceanographers began investigating a huge catastrophic flood in the region of the Black Sea. Their findings indicate that in about 5500 B.C. there was a sudden rise in water level in the Mediterranean, which brought a thunderous waterfall through the Bosporous and into the Black Sea. Over the course of a year it flooded out 60,000 square miles of land… [6]
(To put that in context the South Island of New Zealand is 58,000 square miles.)
Prior to this time fossil evidence shows the Black Sea was a fresh water sea. The salt water flooding in from the Mediterranean turned the Black Sea salty.
Could this be the flood that was described in Genesis 7? Maybe, but we can’t be sure. Humility requires us to admit the limits of our knowledge.
A couple of weeks ago we heard about the dimensions of the ark. Although the ark was an enormous vessel, even by today’s standards, it probably wasn’t big enough to accommodate pairs of every animal and bird on the planet, plus all the food and water they would need for a whole year.
The question of which animals were on the ark logically depends on the extent of the flood. If the flood wasn’t global then only those animals in the vicinity of the flood waters needed to board the ark. In other words, if the flood covered the known world at the time then kangaroos living in Australia and Moa living in NZ didn’t need to be on the ark.
And as for the question of whether dinosaurs were involved the answer is no. Scientists tell us that dinosaurs became extinct millions of years before human beings came along. Contrary to what you learned by watching the Flintstones, dinosaurs and humans never co-existed.
The good news is you don’t have to commit to a particular point of view on these sorts of issues. Your salvation depends on what you believe about Jesus, not on whether you think the flood was global or regional. It’s not worth arguing about.
Random or intentional:
I said earlier the human author of Genesis was really more interested in answering the question of why the great flood happened. And the answer he gives, repeatedly, is that it was God’s judgement on humanity’s corrupt and violent ways. It wasn’t so much that God wanted to destroy his creation. I believe God works with the choices we make, but sometimes our choices leave God with limited options.
So the great flood in Genesis was intentional. It was not random. It was controlled by God to achieve his purpose; cleansing the earth of evil and bringing renewal to his creation. This then begs the question of whether other natural disasters are also examples of God executing his judgement on people.
Well, the short answer is ‘no’.
While God did intentionally use the flood waters to cleanse the earth in Genesis 7, it does not automatically follow that he always works through natural disasters. Most natural disasters, whether it is a flood or an earthquake or a volcanic eruption or a storm, or whatever, are not intentional acts of judgement. The great flood in Genesis seems to be an exception to the rule.
In the normal course of events, earthquakes happen because that’s the way God has made the earth – he has designed it to move. The earth, with its tectonic plates, is one of God’s creatures; it is a living thing. When the earth moves it is simply being itself – it is doing what God created it to do. Without earthquakes we wouldn’t have dry land and mountains. From our perspective earthquakes can be frightening but they are not personally targeted at people or cities. Generally speaking, earthquakes are random. The most we can do is be prepared.
In December last year Whakaari / White Island erupted. There were 47 people on the island at the time. 21 people were killed and the other 26 suffered injuries. I don’t believe that was an intentional act of God against those people. I think it was a random event and the people on the island were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time – they were unlucky. White Island erupted because it is an active volcano and that’s what volcanoes do from time to time. If you are going to step onto an active volcano, then you have to be prepared to take the risk. We can’t blame God for that one.
You know many Christians are uncomfortable with the idea of randomness or luck. In fact, ‘luck’ is often a taboo word in churches. Some people have a tendency to think that God is tightly controlling every little detail of their lives. And it is understandable that we might think this way because the message of the Bible is that God is sovereign. God does have a plan and purpose for his creation which he is working out. Life is not totally random.
Furthermore, God does sometimes get involved in the details. We call that providence. In verse 16 of Genesis 7 we read that God got involved in the details by shutting Noah in the ark. Apparently Noah didn’t prepare a way to shut the door from the inside, so God did it for him.
But just because God gets involved in the details sometimes doesn’t mean he is micro-managing everything all the time. If we think God is tightly controlling every little detail of our lives, then we set our faith up for a fall. If something goes wrong, then we either blame God or we blame the government or we blame ourselves; when actually it was no one’s fault, it was just bad luck.
It is more helpful to think: that although God is ultimately in control, he allows his creatures (both human and non-human) a certain amount of freedom to be themselves. And when God does that; when he lets the earth quake, when he allows volcanoes to erupt, when he gives human beings freewill, there is (unfortunately) some collateral damage. [7]
With freedom comes mess. This world is not always safe. This life is not always fair. But ultimately, God is able to make things right.
This is not to absolve human beings of all responsibility. Our actions do have an effect on the environment. We are capable of making already naturally occurring events worse. For example, if we listen to the scientific community, then global warming is making weather patterns more extreme. Production of plastic is polluting the oceans and intensive farming methods are poisoning waterways.
So there are some things we can do to mitigate the risk of natural disasters. For example, we can design buildings that stand up in an earthquake, we can stop producing so much plastic and we can reduce our carbon foot print. We can prepare for a better outcome, in other words.
Conclusion:
Returning to Genesis 7. In verse 23, we read that: 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.
This is incredibly sad not to mention terrifying. No one wants to think God is capable of that kind of mass destruction, but he is.
Part of Jesus’ message is that judgement is coming on the earth for the people of this age. In Luke 17 Jesus says this: 26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah,so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
In the context of Luke 17, Jesus is talking about his second coming in glory. He is saying to his disciples, life will be carrying on as normal and then the end will come unexpectedly; so be prepared, be ready like Noah was, because I could return at any moment.
Jesus’ return is not fiction; it is future fact. He will return one day.
Jesus’ return is not regional; it will be global, to the ends of the earth.
And Jesus’ return is both intentional and random. It is intentional in the sense that God has planned for it to happen. But, from our point of view, it is random in the sense that it could happen at any time.
In Genesis 7 it was only Noah and his family who were saved but the good news is: through faith in Jesus anyone can be saved from the next judgement.
The ark Jesus is building has plenty of room for everyone.
We prepare for Jesus’ return by getting our lives right with God. By cultivating a living relationship of faith in Jesus, through prayer and action. By listening to Jesus’ teaching and obeying his call on our lives.
Questions for discussion or reflection:
What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
What sorts of question does the Genesis account of the flood raise for you? Can you find an answer for your questions in the Bible or do you need to look elsewhere?
How does the text of Genesis 7 indicate the flood account is fact and not fiction? What evidence do we find outside the Bible for a great flood in ancient times?
What claims does Genesis make about the extent of the flood? How might we best understand these claims, in light of reason and the scientific evidence available to us?
Why did the great flood (of Noah’s time) happen? Why do natural disasters happen today?
Do you believe God allows some degree of randomness or luck in this world? Why or why not? What is the risk of believing God tightly manages every little detail of life?
How do you feel reading Genesis 7:23?
How did Jesus interpret Noah’s flood, in Luke 17? What can we do to be prepared for Jesus’ second coming?
[1] https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/new-zealand-disasters/timeline
[2] Refer Bruce Waltke, Genesis, page 139.
[3] Flood stories are found in most ancient cultures, except Africa where they are rare.
[4] John Walton, NIVAC Genesis, page 327.
[5] Ibid, pages 329-330.
[6] Ibid, page 330.
[7] Refer Terence Fretheim’s book, ‘Creation Untamed’, page 73.
Tawa Baptist 