Genesis 6:17-22

I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh

The flood

I. The first fact that strikes us in the story of the flood is this: that God, on account of the wickedness to which the world had grown, had made up His mind to sweep it away, once and for all.

II. Out of the seed of Noah God had determined to people the earth once more with a race that would not be so wicked as the one He destroyed.

III. Noah was told to go into the ark because his life was to be saved from the flood. God has provided another ark for us; He tells us to go into it and be saved.

IV. Noah’s family was taken with him into the ark, showing the value God sets on family life.

V. God gave it as a reward to Noah for his righteousness that his children went with him into the ark. A holy and loving example preaches a sermon to those who watch it, and remains in the memory of the godless son and the godless daughter long after the parents have been laid in the grave. (Bp. Thorold.)

Lessons from the flood

A long period elapsed between the commencement of the building of the ark and the actual flood. During that period we notice--

1. The strength of Noah’s faith. God has told him of a deluge of which there is no appearance; He has commanded him to build a strange vessel for no apparent purpose; He has told him that one hundred and twenty years of toil must elapse before the vessel can be of any use to him. And yet, in the face of all these difficulties, Noah forms and keeps his resolution to obey God.

2. Notice the reception which Noah’s work and message probably met with. The first feeling excited would be one of derision and mirth, then would come wonder, then pity, then disappointment and disgust, and lastly, perhaps, a silent contempt.

I. THE FLOOD SHOWS US--

1. How absolute is God’s control over the natural world.

2. The evil of sin, and the light in which it appears to the eye of God.

3. It reminds us of another deluge, of which all unreconciled sinners stand in jeopardy.

II. Consider THE VARIOUS PURPOSES THAT WERE SERVED BY THE DELUGE.

1. It swept away an effete and evil generation, which had become of no use, except to commit sin and thus deprave and weaken the general stock of humanity.

2. The flood was calculated to overawe mankind, and to suggest the idea that other such interpositions might be expected when they were required.

3. The flood furnished an opportunity to God of coming more nearly and closely to men.

4. The flood brought the human family nearer to the promised land of Canaan. (G. Gilfillan.)

The history of the deluge

The history of the deluge is alleged in the New Testament as a type of the deep waters of sin, in which a lost world is perishing, and from which there is no escape but in that ark which God has prepared for us. The eight souls saved from the deluge are types of that little flock which rides safely and triumphantly, though the floods lift up their waves and the billows break over them. And their safety is assured to them, because they are in Christ.

I. At the root of all Christianity lies THAT DEEP MYSTERIOUS TRUTH, THE SPIRITUAL UNION OF THE REDEEMER WITH THOSE WHOM HE REDEEMED. To this truth most emphatically witnesses all the New Testament teaching about the ark as a symbol and a prophecy. For--

1. The ark is a figure of Christ. The ark floated over the waste of waters, as Christ dwelt and toiled and suffered in the wilderness of this world, and amid the waters of affliction.

2. The ark is a figure of the redeemed of Christ. The Church, which is Christ’s body, is also the ark of refuge from the wrath of God. This life is still to the Church a conflict, a trial, a pilgrimage, a voyage. The crown shall be at the resurrection of the just.

II. The practical thoughts to which this subject leads us differ but little from the doctrinal. Is not the substance and the end of all--safety in Christ, rest in Christ, and at last glory in Christ? Those only who have rested in the ark will rest upon Mount Ararat. The life of the Christian is begun on earth; it is perfected in heaven. When the voyage is over, the Saviour, who has been to us the ark upon the waters, shall be to us, in the eternal mountains of the Lord, rest and peace and light and glory. (Bp. Harold Browne.)

The record of the flood

I. Consider the record of THE FLOOD AS A HISTORY: a history having a two-fold aspect--an aspect of judgment, and an aspect of mercy.

1. “God,” St. Peter says, “spared not the old world,” He “brought in a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” He who made can destroy. Long trifled with, God is not mocked: and he who will not have Him for his Father must at last know Him as his Judge.

2. The record of judgment passes on into a record of mercy. Mercy was shown:

(1) in preservation;

(2) in reconstruction.

II. Consider THE FLOOD IN ITS USES: AS A TYPE, AS A PROPHECY, AND AS A WARNING.

1. The water through which Noah and his family passed into their ark was like the water of holy baptism, through which a Christian, penitent and believing, finds his way into the Church of the living God.

2. St. Peter exhibits the flood to us also as a prophecy. The flood of waters becomes in its turn the prediction of a last flood of fire. He who foretold the one--and notwithstanding long delay the word was fulfilled--may be believed when He threatens the other; and no pause or respite can defeat the certainty of the performance.

3. There is one special warning appended by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself to the Scriptural record of the great deluge: “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Dean Vaughan.)

Flood of waters

Mythology tells how Jupiter burned with anger at the wickedness of the iron age. Having summoned a council of the gods, he addressed them--setting forth the awful condition of the things upon the earth, and announcing his determination to destroy all its inhabitants. He took a thunderbolt, and was about to launch it upon the world, to destroy it by fire, when he bethought himself that it might enkindle the heavens also. He then resolved to drown it by making the clouds pour out torrents of rain:--

“With his clench’d fist

He squeezed the clouds:
Then, with his mace, the monarch struck the ground;
With inward trembling earth received the wound,
And rising streams a ready passage found.”

(W. Adamson.)

The impotence of floods

The Almighty is about to do here what some of us in our imperfect wisdom have often wished to see done: we have supposed that if all notoriously bad people could be removed at a stroke from the world the kingdom of heaven would be at once established on the earth. The idea may be put roughly thus: Bring together all prisoners, all idlers, drunkards, thieves, liars, and every known form of criminal; take them out into the middle of the Atlantic and sink them there, and at once society will be regenerated, and paradise will be regained. Now this is substantially the very course which the Almighty took in the days of Noah, with what results we know only too well. All our fine theories have been tested, and they come to nothing. The tree of manhood has been cut down to the very root, and it has been shown in every possible way that the root itself must be cured if the branches are to become strong and fruitful. If you were today to destroy all the world, with the single exception of one household, and that household the most pious and honourable that ever lived, in less than half a century we should see all the bad characteristics returning. Water cannot drown sin. Fire cannot burn out sin. Prisons cannot cure theft and cruelty. We must go deeper. In the meantime it was well to try some rough experiments, merely for the sake of showing that they were not worth trying. If the flood had not been tried there are some reformers amongst us who would have thought of that as a lucky idea, and wondered that it had never occurred to the Divine mind! After all, it is a very elementary idea. It is the very first idea that would occur to a healthy mind: the world is a failure, man is a criminal and a fool, sin is rampant in the land; very well; that being the case, drown the world. There are persons who seriously ask, Do you think the flood ever did occur? and there are others who find shells on hilltops, and show them in proof of a universal deluge. O fools and slow of heart! This flood is occurring every day; this judgment upon sin never ceases; this protection of a righteous seed is an eternal fact! How long shall we live in the mere letter, and have only a history instead of a revelation--a memorandum book instead of a living Father? That there was a flood exactly as is described in the Bible! have not so much as a shadow of a doubt; but even if I took it as an allegory, or a typical judgment given in parable, I should seize the account as one that is far more profoundly true than any mere fact could ever be. Look at it! God morally angry, righteousness asserted, sin judged, goodness preserved, evil destroyed; it is true, it must be true, every honest heart demands that it be taken as true. (J. Parker, D. D.)