Part 10
Genesis 8:1-4 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
Finally, the rain and flooding stopped and the ark came to rest. It took almost an entire year for the earth to dry out and all the waters to recede and return to the oceans, lakes, seas, and rivers. Cataclysmic changes took place during the flood and even after the waters stopped.
Genesis 8:14-19 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out.
Then God said to Noah, "Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth." So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.
Noah waited for God to tell him when he could leave the ark. Noah must have been anxious to get out, ready to get out, and thought it was time to get out. But, obediently he waited for God to tell him it was time to get out. Too often, we become impatient with waiting for God. The Bible has many examples of the problems men face because they did not want to work on God’s timetable, which always seem later than we would have chosen.
Genesis 8:20-22 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."
Worship is the only real response to God that is appropriate at times like these. We seldom take time to actually thank God for His deliverance, His mercy, and His protection. Noah did the right thing and God was pleased.
This chapter ends with a promise from God. Even though mankind will remain lost in sin, God promised never again to kill everyone and everything. The flood punished sin, but it did not eradicate sin. More in Part 11.