Genesis 8
McGeeCHAPTER 8THEME: The rains cease; earth driesNoah leaves the ark; Noah builds an altar and offers sacrifice
Genesis 8:1
THE RAINS CEASEWe are given the record not only of the building up of the Flood but also of the prevailing and now the assuaging of the Flood. We are told that “God remembered Noah"how lovelyand that “God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged.” It did not happen just overnight. The buildup of the waters took over 150 days, and then there were 261 days in the assuaging. That looks to me like it is something more than just a local flood.
Genesis 8:5
We could say that this is the beginning of the end of the Flood. Notice what Noah does:
Genesis 8:7
Frankly, Noah becomes a bird-watcher. He sends out these two birds, the raven and the dove.
Genesis 8:9
I want you to see a great spiritual truth that we have here in the eighth chapter in this account of the raven and the dove. After Noah had spent over a year in the ark, he sent forth a raven, and the raven never came back. But the dove kept coming back and even brought in its beak a little bit of greenery, an olive leaf. I do not know why the dove and olive leaf have always been symbolic of peace, but they are. I cannot quite see that that is exactly the message of the dove’s second return. But when the dove did not return at all, that was the sign that the judgment was over and that peace had returned to the earth.
But, of course, man going out of the ark is the same type of man that all the sons of Adam were who had provoked the Flood as a judgment from God in the first place. You are going to see that there is not too much improvement in man after the Flood; in fact, there is none whatsoever. There is a great spiritual lesson here which I would not have you miss for anything in the world. Noah is engaged here in “bird-watching.” He sends out the raven, and the raven does not come back. Why didn’t that raven come back? You must recognize what that raven eatsit feeds on carrion. There was a whole lot of flesh of dead animals floating around after the Flood, and that was the kind of thing this old crow ate. He did not return to the ark because he was really going to a feast, and he was having a very wonderful time. The raven was classified as an unclean bird, by the way. The dove is a clean bird and is so listed later on in Scripture. Remember that Noah took into the ark both the clean and the unclean animals. The dove brought back information: it was a regular homing pigeon. With the dove’s second trip, Noah was now a confirmed bird-watcherand the dove brought back evidence that the dry land was appearing. The third time, the dove did not return, and Noah knew that the waters of judgment were gone. I have said before that all great truths of the Bible are germane in Genesis. The Bible teaches that the believer has two natures, an old and a new nature: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2Co_5:17). The clean and the unclean are together. You and I as believers have these two natures. Our Lord said: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Joh_3:6). And Paul writes: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom_7:18). Paul spoke of a struggle between the two natures. And there is a struggle today between the old nature and the new nature of a believer. The raven went out into a judged world, but he found a feast in the dead carcass because that is the thing he lived on. The bloated carcass of an elephant would have made him a banquet; I tell you, it would have been for him a bacchanalian orgy. Back and forth, he restlessly went up and down. May I say to you, that is the picture of the old nature; the old nature is like that raven. The old nature loves the things of the world and feasts on them. That is the reason so many people watch television on Sunday night and do not go to church. Don’t tell me that you have some good excuse for that. You do have an old nature, but that is no excuse because you ought not to be living in the old nature. The dove went out into a judged world, but she found no rest, no satisfaction, and she returned to the ark. The dove represents the believer in the world. The old raven went out into the world and loved it. When he found that old carcass, he probably thought the Millennium had arrived! You see, it is a matter of viewpoint. A professor said to me, “This matter of what’s right and wrong is relative.” He’s right; it is.
It is what God says is right, and it is what the professor says is wrongand he does not find very much that is wrong, by the way. What God says is wrong is wrong. The believer is told, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world …” (1Jn_2:15). You and I are living in a judged world today. We are in the world, but not of it. We are to use it, but not abuse it.
We are not to fall in love with it, but we are to attempt to win the lost in this world and get out the Word of God. Our Lord told us, “…Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mar_16:15). Let’s take care of our job down here and get out the Word of Godthat is the important thing. The dove recognized what kind of a world she was in, and she found no rest. She found rest only in the ark, and that ark sets forth Christ, if you please. Let me ask you this very personal question: What kind of bird are you? Are you a raven or a dove? If you are a child of God, you have both naturesbut which one are you living in today? Do you love the things of God, or don’t you?
Genesis 8:13
EARTH DRIESNOAH LEAVES THE ARKThis brings us to 261 days, so that the total time of the Flood was 371 days, extending over a year. That also conforms to the statement of Scripture that the Flood was universal; it was not just the filling of a swimming poolit certainly was more than that! There have been other discoveries that have revealed something concerning the Flood, and I would like to pass on to you the words of Dr. J. E. Shelley who takes the position that the Flood was universal, that it covered the entire earth: “The most striking example of this is found in the case of the mammoths. These elephants are found buried in the frozen silt of the Tundra, Siberia, all over the length of the Continent of Asia, and in the North of Alaska and Canada. They are found in herds on the higher ground not bogged in marshes, hundreds of thousands in number.” He goes on to say that these elephants have been examined and found to have drowned. If they had just gotten bogged down, they would have died of starvation. “The farther north one goes, the more there are, till the soil of the islands of the White Sea inside the Arctic circle consists largely of their bones mingled with those of sabre-tooth tiger, giant elk, cave bear, musk ox, and with trunks of trees and trees rooted in the soil. There are now no trees in those regions, the nearest being hundreds almost thousands of miles away. The mammoth could not eat the stunted vegetation which now grows in this region for but three months in the year, a hundred square miles of which would not keep one of them alive for a month. The food in their stomachs is pine, hawthorn branches, etc. These mammoths were buried alive in the silt when that silt was soft. They and the silt were then suddenly frozen and have never been unfrozen.
For they show no signs of decomposition. Mammoth ivory has been sold on the London docks for more than a thousand years. The Natural History Museum purchased a mammoth’s head and tusks from the ivory store of the London Docks. This head was absolutely fresh and was covered with its original fur.” If you doubt the universality of the Flood, here is more than enough evidence to convince you.
Genesis 8:20
NOAH BUILDS AN ALTAR AND OFFERS SACRIFICEGod is now going to make a covenant with Noah. We will see this new beginning as we get into the next chapter. This covenant is a very important one. When God made it with Noah, He made it with the human family that is on the earth today. Now do you see why Noah took seven of the clean beasts and only two of the unclean? He is now offering the clean beasts as sacrifices. The first thing that Noah did when he came out of the ark was to build an altar to the Lord and offer a sacrifice, a burnt offering, to Him. That burnt offering speaks of the person of Jesus Christ. It was offered on the basis of acceptance before God and of praise to God in recognition of Him. Without doubt, this was one of the things that caused God to be pleased with Noah at this particular time.
Genesis 8:21
You can just write it down that that is true. What about your youth? Was your imagination evil or not? In our contemporary society we can see the rebellion of youth, and isn’t it interesting to note the direction they have gone? They have gone in the same direction. Every imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youthand it does not improve. I was visiting in a hospital the other night. The curtain was pulled between the beds, but you could hear the next patient talking with her husband. It seemed to be a contest between those two to see who could outcuss the other one! I have never heard such profanity on the part of two human beings. May I say to you, the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. That just happens to be an accurate statement that was made a long time ago.
Genesis 8:22
It has been suggested that the Flood was so extensive that it tilted the earth. As you know, the earth is not straight on its axis. We are off center, if you please. The magnetic center is different from the center on which we are revolving. Something happened somewhere along the line, and it is the belief of many that this is when it took place. Because the earth revolves like that, that gives us our seasons. It is sort of going around like a wobbly top. You remember that when you were young and would spin a top, the top would run down and get wobbly. That is the way the earth revolves today, and as a result we have the seasons. Prior to the Flood, man learned the three R’s: (1) Rebellion against God was realizedit came right out in the open. (2) Revelation from God was rejected by man. Noah’s witness did not reach them. (3) Repentance was absolutely repudiated; there was no return to God at all. Men refused the refuge that God provided, and for 120 years Noah had no converts. These are the three R’s. Men led in rebellion, they rejected the revelation, and there was no repentance on their part. Now as this man Noah comes forth from the ark, he stands in a most unique position. He stands in the position of being the head of the human race againthe same position Adam had. It is said that we are all related to Adam, but we are closer kin than that: we are all related in Noah. In one sense, Noah is the father of all of us today.