In our evening service, we are looking at the early chapters of the book of Genesis. We come this evening to Genesis chapter seven, and now we shall read the whole of this seventh chapter. Genesis chapter seven. Let us hear the holy word of God. Beginning to read at verse one. The Lord then said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. Seven days from now, I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. And I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made. And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him. Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came on the earth, and Noah and his sons and his wife and his son's wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark as God had commanded Noah. And after the seven days, the floodwaters came on the earth. In the 600th year of Noah's life, on the 17th 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, and rain fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. 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. 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. 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 commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in. For 40 days, the flood kept coming on the earth. And as the waters increased, they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly in the earth and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly in the earth and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than 20 feet. Every living thing that moved on the earth perished. Birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out. Men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left and those with him in the ark. The waters flooded the earth. for 150 days. Amen. May God bless the reading and the preaching of his word to us all. Let us bring to God in worship our evening offering. In our evening service we are looking together at some of the early chapters of Genesis, from Genesis 4 to chapter 11. We come this evening to chapter 7, our subject, the coming of the flood. The coming of the flood. The moment has arrived at last. Surely we have to say that apart from the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ on the hill of Calvary, this is the most solemn moment in the history of the world so far. There is another more solemn moment still to come. But here, the creator is coming to judge his corrupt, sinful creation. This account of the flood in Genesis chapter 7 is very unsensational. There are no exclamation marks. There is no purple prose. There is no overstatement. It's very quiet and undramatic. And yet in its deliberateness, it is somehow more awful. and more terrifying in the understated language which is used. Let's try to remember as we look at this that as we've seen in previous studies we have here in the account of the flood a picture of the judgment day which is still to come which all of us here will have to experience and pass through. So this story of this event long ago in history is compellingly and utterly relevant for us all, for it teaches us about an event which is going to happen in the life of each one of us. There are many different ways in which we could study this chapter together. And what I'd like to do is to look at the scene from four different angles. To imagine, if you like, four different cameras looking at the account, each from their own perspective. To look at the activities in turn of Noah, of the Lord, of the forces of nature, and of unbelievers. So first of all we have Noah entering the ark. Noah entering the ark. This is not Noah's own idea. This is not an initiative that he has taken or a scheme or plan or an escape that he has dreamed up. Noah is acting as the result of a gracious command from God. Verse one, the Lord said to Noah, go into the ark, you and your whole family. This is God's command to his servant and Noah's activity is in obedience to the command and to the gracious, kindly invitation of God. God has provided a place of safety. And he now calls on Noah and his family to enter that place of safety. It's like a father who looks out into the garden and sees a storm of hail approaching and calls out to his children, children come into the house. that they may be sheltered and safe in the security of home when the storm comes. And it is mercy and love God calls to these people and commands and urges and invites them to enter the only place in the whole universe where they will be completely and perfectly safe. My friends, God is still issuing that command and that gracious invitation, and he's doing it to you and to me this evening. He has provided an ark of salvation in his Son, Jesus Christ. He has warned us of the judgment, and he calls us to come into the ark, to come to Christ, to believe in him, to enter him, that we may be safe. God invites you now, as he invited Noah. He commands you now. Will you obey him or will you disobey? And as well as commanding Noah, God gives him additional encouragements to enter the ark. He provides him with a full explanation of what he's going to do. Verse four, seven days from now, I will send rain on the earth. There are good reasons for Noah to enter the ark. He knows what's going to happen. And surely the amazing account of all the animals and the other living creatures who seem voluntarily as it were to come to Noah There's no idea that Noah had to go out and hunt these animals, or trap them, or catch them, or drag them by ropes. We're told the animals came to Noah, and they entered the ark. The Creator was moving them. He was impelling them to come. Two of each kind. seven or seven pairs as we have in our margin of every kind of clean animal, perhaps extra animals for sacrifice. So God gave Noah encouragements to come into the ark. And yet surely we'd have to say it was an act of supreme faith. As yet, there was no sign of the flood. As far as we know, the sun shone down serenely out of a blue, hot, cloudless sky. They were a little minority of eight people among millions on the face of the earth. No one else agreed with them. No one else believed what they believed. No one else thought there was going to be a judgment. No one else thought there was any need to go into the ark for safety. A tiny, insignificant minority believing something that the rest of the world laughed at. And God was asking them to separate themselves from the world, to leave behind their property and their business and their activities and their friends and their pleasures and the very light of day and to bury themselves, as it were, in a coffin, in a narrow, restricted place, so that they would be safe. Here was an exercise of great faith. They didn't do it because of what they saw. They didn't do it because of what they felt. They did it because of what they believed. They were certain in the language of Hebrews of what they did not see. And furthermore, it was faith expressing itself in action. Verse seven tells us that Noah and his sons and his wife and his son's wives entered the ark. They had built the ark and that was good. But it wouldn't have been enough when the waters of judgment came. It wouldn't have been enough to stand beside the ark. It wouldn't have been enough to have the architectural plan of the ark, or to know all about the ark, or to have walked round the ark, or to be looking at the ark. They had to enter the ark. They had to go into it by themselves. They had to make a commitment. Each one of them, each one of them had to exercise faith. Although God had promised blessing to Noah for his family, each member of his family had to enter the ark for themselves. They had to share Noah's faith. They had to believe as he believed. Noah didn't drag them in. He didn't compel them to go in. They went because they believed what their father believed. Here was the only place in the whole world where safety was to be found. And the key to the whole incident, and it's stressed in the passage, is the obedience of faith. It's stressed no fewer than four times in the whole passage. In chapter 6 verse 22. And in chapter 7 verses 5, 9, and 16. Look how the theme is stressed. Noah did everything just as God commanded him. Noah did all that the Lord commanded him. He entered the ark as God had commanded Noah, as God had commanded Noah, four times, as God had commanded Noah. And I ask you, my friends, this evening, do you, are you obeying what God commands you to do? Here is the evidence of saving faith. Not what you say, not what you sing, not what you profess, but what you do, your behavior, your actions. Noah did as God commanded him. And this was the proof that he believed because he did something about it. Do you believe that there is a coming judgment? Do you believe that there is a place of safety? Do you believe that there's only one place of safety in Christ? Do you believe that you need that place of safety? Have you entered that place of safety? Have you come to Christ? Have you trusted in him and committed yourself to him? Have you done what the Lord commands you? here was the activity of Noah. And I'm only speculating, and I can't help but thinking that as the Lord shut them in, Noah would look at Mrs. Noah, whatever her name was, and he would say to her wife, they're all here. They're all here. Shem's here. Ham's here and Jaffa's here. Not one of our dear children is missing. What an agony it would have been for Noah and his wife if one of their sons had refused to come in. If one of their sons had disbelieved. If they'd had to leave one of their children outside to face the judgment. But God was very gracious. Surely those of us who are parents, that's what we pray for and long for our families. That they'll all come in. That there'll be not one missing. Noah entering the ark. Let's look secondly at the Lord shutting the door. The Lord shutting the door. Some weeks ago we were thinking about a very ancient heathen epic poem called the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Babylonian poem that tells the story of the flood from very ancient times. And the hero of that poem, perhaps you remember, was Utnapishtim. Noah, you probably don't remember. A silly thing to say. His name was Utnapishtim. And he was the heathen equivalent of Noah. And he's the hero of the story. And in that poem, he closes the door. He takes the initiative. Utnapishtim, the man, the human being, he closes the door and makes everyone safe. But in God's account, it's not Noah who closes the door. It's God's doing. It's all of grace. It's the outworking of the covenant. And there's a significant change in the way God's described in verses 15 and 16. We read that they went in as God commanded Noah and the Lord shut him in. Jehovah, the covenant, gracious, merciful savior shut him in. Here's the gospel. He shut them in for safety. The doors into the ark must have been fairly sizable. I presume there were elephants in those days and other large animals. It was a very big gap to close. Would the ark be secure? Would the water be kept out? The Lord shut the door. There was something supernatural here. He shut the door and kept them safe from all the assaults of the flood. Surely it's pointing to us that it is the Lord who shuts his people into Christ. We don't keep ourselves in Christ. It's the Lord who keeps us. When we enter Christ by his grace and power, he shuts the door. There is no possibility of any external force getting into our ark. There's not going to be any leak. The waters of sin and judgment aren't going to invade our ark and cause it to sink. There is no possibility of anyone inside the ark falling out or the door suddenly opening. Jesus says they shall never perish. When we enter the ark, the Lord shuts us in and closes us in and we are secure. We are secure and kept by the power of God. And there's mercy also in this activity of the Lord in shutting the door. how kind it was that he didn't ask Noah to close the door. Could Noah have closed the door? Could you have closed the door? Could Noah have closed the door against the other members of his family, against his friends, against his neighbors? And if he had closed the door, when he heard their despairing cries outside. Noah, Noah, let us in when the water began to fall. How could Noah have kept himself from opening it? How could we? But he wasn't asked to make that fearful decision. No. It was taken into the hands of Almighty Wisdom. The Lord closed the door. We are not required, thank God, to pronounce final judgment on any other human being. We are not required to give up on them. We never have to say that they are beyond God's mercy. We're not asked to condemn them. We're not asked to decide when will be the last time they will hear the gospel. We are not responsible for their fate. That is God's prerogative and God's privilege. And we have to remember that lest we are crushed by grief at the fate of the wicked. The Lord shut them in. It was the Lord made the final separation. It was the Lord that cut off the unbelievers to their fate. Noah had no share in that. He was mercifully spared. And this activity of God marks also the ending of opportunity for the unbelievers. They had heard Noah's preaching. They had seen his life. They had watched him building the ark for many years and they hadn't responded and they hadn't believed. And now it was too late. The Lord had closed the door. The Lord had made an everlasting separation between his people and the ungodly. No one else would ever be admitted to that ark. The opportunity had gone. And that moment comes for every believer. I'm sorry, for every unbeliever. For every unbeliever. That moment comes. They cross a certain line. And when they have crossed that line, they're lost. They're lost. The door of opportunity is closed. They're not going to believe. They're not going to come to Christ. They're destined for hell. We don't know when that line is crossed. We don't know for any human being, but it is crossed. Friend, you could cross that line at any moment. If you continue on in your belief, there'll be a day when you cross the line. And from that day onwards, God will have no more dealings with you. Your conscience won't trouble you. You'll have no feelings of anxiety. You'll have no desire after Christ. Your fate will be sealed. Don't presume on the mercy of God. Don't presume that he'll never close the door. Don't assume that you've time and time and time. Time ran out for these people. And it was the Lord who brought the opportunity to an end. Noah entering the ark, the Lord shutting the door. Thirdly, we have the forces of nature flooding the earth. Flooding the earth, it's described in verses 11 and 12. All the springs of the great deep burst forth And the floodgates of the heaven were opened, and the rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights. The huge underground subterranean reservoirs erupt as splits appear in the earth's crust and the ocean basins divide and millions and millions of gallons come spilling out onto the earth's surface. And at the same moment And that great envelope of water and water vapor, which was in the atmosphere of the earth before the flood, affecting the climate and atmosphere of that pre-flood world, that envelope of vapor bursts on the surface of the ground. And from above and below come mighty floods of water. There are two different words used for rain in this chapter. In verse four, God says, I will send rain. In verse 12, we're told that rain fell on the earth, but the second word is a much stronger word. It refers to a violent, pouring deluge. And this term I've used is misleading. The forces of nature, We better describe them as the servants of God. There is no nature. There is God. All these are under his control, at his command. I will send rain, he says. I will send rain. It wasn't the case that there was a depression or a wave of low pressure over Mesopotamia, bringing in a cold front and heavy rain and storms. I will send rain. That's what the weather forecasters don't tell you. God controls the elements. God is Lord of the winds and the rain and the storm and the tempest and the earthquake. The picture here is utterly terrifying. In verses 17 to 20, we see, as it were, four stages in the flood. The waters lifted the ark above the earth. It's the first stage. Then the ark floated on the surface of the water. And then all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. And then the waters covered the mountains to a depth of more than 20 feet. And the writer shows us the remorseless, inexorable advance of the floodwaters in these verses. The verb to rise occurs again and again. With metronomic, horrifying regularity, the waters rose. The waters rose greatly. The waters rose and covered the mountains. They rose, and they rose, and they rose. He says in verse 20, literally, the waters triumphed. It's a verb that's used for victory in battle. When Israel defeated the Amalekites in Exodus 17, this verb is used, the waters triumphed. They won the victory. This is, says one commentator, an act of de-creation. It's reversing the creation. In Genesis 1-9, God said, let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let the dry ground appear. And now God reverses that and says let the water spread and let the dry ground vanish. The forces of nature, the servants of God, flooding the earth. A couple of weeks ago we were thinking about uniformitarianism. It's not a new sect. It's a philosophy believing that the forces of nature are never interrupted by the power of God. And in many ways, we can be practical uniformitarians. We can forget that our God is the God of nature, that God is the God of the earthquake and the wind and the rain and the storm. And even now in our own world, there is enough to remind us that God rules the earth. In the earthquakes and floods and storms, God shows his power. God can use his creation to rise up and destroy his enemies. He can send a bird into the engine of a plane and send that plane crashing to the ground. He can bring a tree suddenly down across the road. He can put a piece of black ice on the bend of a road. God can use his creation. He does use his creation. On the last day, everything that seems solid and secure and under our control will take on an angry aspect and turn against its masters. Here's the creation being stirred up by God to destroy man, the Lord of creation. The forces of nature flooding the earth. And then lastly, we look at unbelievers perishing in the judgment. Unbelievers perishing in the judgment. We don't know how many people there were on the earth at this time. estimates seem to average at perhaps something between 700 and 1,000 million people. If we go by population growth statistics from the time of Adam, that's very speculated. But there were many, many hundred million people in the world. All the elites, all the intellects, all the culture and civilization, the technology, the arts that we saw in the early chapters of Genesis, all the great power structures of the day, and they all were unanimous that there would be no judgment. Against them, eight insignificant people, just like the elites of our own world, just like the great majority of people, and they were careless, They were preoccupied, they were wrapped up in their normal affairs. Our Lord tells us in Matthew 24, 38 what they were doing. Listen. In the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking. They were marrying and giving in marriage. Up to the day Noah entered the ark and they knew nothing about what would happen. until the flood came and took them away. There were people sitting, enjoying their meals, having a family supper together. There were young women putting on their bridal dresses on the day of their wedding, the happiest day of their lives, and suddenly judgment, judgment. They knew nothing about it, and suddenly the judgment came. Some of them had seen Noah building the ark, Some of them had heard him preaching, but they hadn't believed. They'd laughed, they'd mocked. Then the first big heavy drops of rain began to fall. And they would look at each other And a fleeting pang of anxiety would cross their face. Starting to rain. No, it's only a shower. We get showers at this time of the year. Put it to the back of our minds, forget about it. They woke up the next morning, still raining. It rained all day. And all the next day. And all the next day. And the jokes stopped. The laughter was silenced. The anxiety turned to fear, and then to terror. And the water started rising, and rising, and rising. And it came home to them that Noah was right. There is a God in heaven, and he judges sin. and he destroys those who are disobedient to him. Perhaps some of them would run to the ark. They would start pounding on the door and the walls shouting, Noah, Noah, let us in, let us in. But it was useless. The Lord had shut the door. They would start gathering their families of their property together and making for the higher ground and trying to escape. The waters would follow them. Many of them would cry out, oh God, we believe. Too late to believe. Oh God, we're sorry. Too late to be sorry. Oh God, have mercy on us. Too late to have mercy. Friends, can you imagine the horror, the horror of the last few days? screams of the drowning, watching your loved ones drowning in the water, people fighting for space on the highest mountains, killing each other to hold their little piece of dry ground and the water rising and rising and rising. You must have noticed as we were reading the chapter how graphically it's captured in the biblical narrative. From verse 21 onwards, every living thing that moved on the earth perished. Everything on dry land that had breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out. Men and animals and creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Every living thing perished. Can you imagine the horror and the fear and the terror of those days? Those millions of people, millions upon millions of people, so busy with their lives, their family lives, their business lives, their pleasure. They'd laughed at Noah, some of them, some of them had never heard of him. They had no awareness of judgment, but then the judgment came, and they realized to their heart that this was too late, and they were lost. My dear friend, that is a small picture of what is going to happen to you if you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're not doing what God commands you, do you realize? We're not playing games in the church. Do you realize that this is what's going to happen to you unless you repent? This is what's going to happen to you. If you continue preoccupied with this life and with its pleasures and with its relationships and with its activities, you can fool yourself for a while. But then you'll die, or Christ will return unto your horror. You will realize that you've left it too late, and the judgment has come. Let me just read a verse or two from Revelation 6, which tell us about the coming of Christ. There was a great earthquake, the sun turned black, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They call to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us. and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? It is an awful, awful, awful thing to disobey God. It is a terrible thing not to believe in Christ, not to enter the ark, not to trust in him. Read these verses. Think of these millions of people screaming desperately in the waters of judgment for a mercy that they had thrown away. And imagine yourself among them. My friends, supposing the Lord were to come to us tonight and say to us, I give it to you to save every person in this building from hell except one. You have to choose one person in this room now who's going to be lost. Who would you choose? Well, you couldn't choose anybody. You couldn't turn to someone and say, I choose you. But some of you may be choosing yourselves. You may be volunteering yourselves to be loved. But you wouldn't do for any other human being you're doing for yourself. by your unbelief and by your disobedience. And I say to you that for you tonight the ark is still open. The opportunity is still there. It may not come again. And God commands you to come to Christ and to trust him and to enter while there is room and opportunity before the door is shut. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Amen.