Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #12 of Genesis, chapter 7 and we are going to read Genesis 7:9-10:

There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

I will stop reading there. We have been reading and considering the flood account. The day of the flood had come and God brought Noah and the animals into the ark. We find that it says in Genesis 7:9:

There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

A similar statement is made in Genesis 7:15-16:

And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and JEHOVAH shut him in.

It needs to be pointed out because of the time we are now living in it has become common and acceptable for men to marry men and women to marry women. I am mentioning this because God points out that they went into the ark “two and two.” There were pairs or couples. We know that Noah went in with his wife. They had three sons and each son had a wife. It was the same with the animals – they went in “two and two” or male and female. None of the people went in “male and male” or “female and female.” It was unheard of because the whole point was to keep seed alive and preserve life. The way God has ordered the creation and the way He designed things was to create creatures, including man, that would procreate. For example, a man and woman would marry and have children. Likewise, the male and female animals also had offspring. That was the design. There is certainly nothing in the Bible and there is nothing in nature that would teach any other kind of idea.

The creatures also had to be of the same kind. An elephant did not board the ark with a rabbit and a male monkey did not board the ark with a female tiger. They were of the same kind and they went in two and two, male and female. This is about as basic as anything could be and, yet, in our time we see the vivid and living demonstration of the spiritual blindness of man that can only be explained by the fact that he is a sinner and a rebel. There is no natural explanation other than man’s insistence and strong desire to rebel against God that man would dare to say that it is a “natural thing” and a good and moral thing for two men to come together or for two women to come together. Look what God says of man in Romans 1:25-26:

Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

When women pair with women and men pair with men they are changing the “natural use” and they are going against nature. All we have to do to prove that is to look at nature where we see male and female. Of course, man is so obstinate and perverted in his sin that he has searched the animal kingdom from top to bottom for a rare case wherein two male animals get together. We have to remember there is a curse upon creation, so it is possible that perversion can appear in the animal kingdom, but, overwhelmingly, when we look at these creatures, they are male and female. That is the order that God has established and it is the only order that the Bible recognizes.

So that is exactly what God did in preserving the lives of the creatures He had created. He desired to destroy the first earth with a flood to provide a dramatic and grand illustration of Judgment Day and, yet, they would come off the ark and repopulate the world. Therefore, God was very systematically bringing in two animals, male and female, of every kind and it really emphasizes the natural way God designed. That is the only order that God recognizes in a marriage – it is only a man with a woman that become one flesh. A man and a man cannot become “one flesh” and a woman and a woman cannot become “one flesh.” It does not matter what some governments say or what the majority of people say because we have to take into account that these are governments and people that are living at the end of time when the Holy Spirit has taken His restraining hand off the hearts of man, to a large degree. People are living in “darkness” in this world under the wrath of God and they are the ones that are expressing these opinions; they are the majority and they are saying, “This is okay. We accept this and it is a good thing.” Of course, it is a “good thing” to people that are unregenerate sinners and spiritually dead in sin. They are spiritually dead and they cannot discern between right and wrong or good and evil, so their opinion is of no significance to the children of God. We look to the Bible and the Bible has not changed. The Bible is the same yesterday, today and forever. God established the order for things.

Again, it says in Genesis 7:9: “There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.” Then it goes on to say in Genesis 7:10:

And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

Again, this reference to seven days goes back to verse 4 when the Lord told Noah, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” That was seven days prior to this point, but now the seven days have passed. The time was given and the time elapsed. That is the way it always is with this world, whether it was the actual seven-day period, historically, or whether it relates to seven thousand years. Just as Noah had seven days to warning to get into the ark, people had seven thousand years to get into the “ark,” the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we are today, living on the earth after the seven thousand-year period has elapsed. That is why the world is so vain and empty. It lacks purpose when you build things or develop things or build families; whatever we put into this world will pass. The time will fly by and the time of our lives will expire and be gone. In Noah’s case, he received the warning and that seven-day period flew by and then came “the seventeenth day of the second month” and the rain began according to the Word of God. You would think that seven thousand years is an incredibly long period of time. Man can do everything he can to live to be 100 years old and, yet, it was seven thousand years from the point when God spoke these words to Noah until 2011. Now we have gone several years past 2011 and time keeps moving. The time that we think we have goes quickly by.

God gave time. The Bible says, “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found.” The word “while” is a time reference to the “day of salvation.” The “day” was a figurative reference that was actually a long period of time. The church age was almost two thousand years when God was pouring out the early rain. Then came the grievous 2,300 days that began the Great Tribulation during which time virtually no one was being saved, but God had not forgotten His people. For the sake of the elect, He cut short the famine outside the churches and He brought the Latter Rain and saved the great multitude. He saved tens of millions of people during the “little season” of the Great Tribulation and then He completed the “day of salvation.”

This is something that some people just do not get (or they refuse to get it), that when God gives a time period it is absolute. When God said to Noah, “For yet seven days,” it was a very definite time period in which people had to get onboard the ark. Spiritually, it was also a statement where the Lord was saying, “For yet seven thousand years.” What happened after the historical seven-day period is also what happened after the seven-thousand years, spiritually. God shut the door of heaven like He shut the door of the ark. You tell people this and they say, “Oh, not so! God would never end His salvation plan while there are still people on the earth. God would never do such a thing!” Perhaps they have not read the account in Genesis, chapter 7. Did God not shut the door of the ark when there were still people outside the ark? And once He shut that door, could anyone else enter into the ark? Actually, God shut the door of the ark and, simultaneously, the rain began to fall. On day #1 not everyone died and, perhaps, very few people died the first couple of days. Some people may have managed to survive much longer than that, but the door never opened. God that is the same today, yesterday and forever.

God had told Noah 120 years earlier who would be onboard the ark and we discussed how that relates to His plan of election. But, again, when all that God had predetermined would come into the ark had entered safely inside, God acted on His decision to shut the door of the ark. There could have been people coming to the ark after that point and it is almost certain that some did so, after the rains kept falling. Where would you go if you lived within a few miles of the vicinity of the ark? You would go to the one place where you could find certain refuge, but when they got there the door was shut. Would people go up to the door? Well, I would, if I were locked out and I had my family with me and the rain kept coming down like never before. I would knock on the door and knock on the door and yell, “Noah! Noah! Noah!” Everyone knew about that “crazy old man” and the ship he was building. They would weary of begging to be let in and some may have even accused, “It is not fair of you to lock us out! It is not right. It is not just. We are outside and the waters are rising. We are in danger. You must open the door!” What they failed to realize is that God shut the door and the Bible is clear that what God shuts, no man can open. On the other hand, it was true that what God opened, no man could shut and this concerned the “day of salvation,” but when God shuts, no man can open. We read that JEHOVAH shut Noah in, so it was a decision made by God to shut the door, no matter what people thought about it outside the ark. They could make accusations and they could criticize. They could yell at God all they wanted and, yet, the door was shut. Remember what it said in Luke, chapter 13 concerning Judgment Day; we can see how God draws on the picture of the “shut door” during this time in which we are living, as it says in Luke 13:24-25:

Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:

Do you see how that parallels the situation with the flood and the account of God shutting Noah into the ark, along with his family? There were many that were shut out that would have found fault with God and, yet, God is just. God is righteous. God is always good, so when God shut the door of the ark it was not unjust. It was not an unrighteous act. It was not an evil thing – that is impossible. God is sovereign. God is the sovereign Lord and He will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy and He will save those that He will save. It is the sovereign will of God and it is His sovereign right to do.

God made the determination that He would save Noah, his wife and their three sons and their wives. He decreed to save eight souls and all the while the ark was being built over the course of 120 years, it would be akin to the period of the “day of salvation,” the time in which God could be found. Anyone living in the world of Noah’s day could have approached God and pleaded and sought to gain entrance into the ark for themselves and for their families. Yet, from all the Bible tells us, none did. They continued eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage and they completely ignored the gracious, merciful warning from God regarding the flood that was to come. It was as though God had a wide open door, a “great door and effectual” to all the inhabitants of Noah’s day all the way up to the seventeenth day of the second month of Noah’s 600th year. It would be in keeping with everything else we know from the Bible, anyone else in all the world could have sought the Lord and approached Noah to enter into the ark. None did.

After the time elapsed that had been given and, especially that last seven days, had come to a close there was no more time. It was as if God had been beseeching the people through Noah, the preacher of righteousness, to come into the ark because the world was going to be flooded. As ambassadors they sought the people on God’s behalf, but in return were mocked and ridiculed. They were ignored and dismissed.

Then came the time that God shut the door. When God shut the door, He did not reopen it. When someone comes “after the fact” and knocks on the door because they can see the truth with their eyes as they see the waters rising all around them, it is too late. Now it is their “natural” fear and it is not by faith that they see these things unfolding and now they come, but God has no obligation to them. He is perfectly just, right and good in keeping the door shut. He has no responsibility to the people that had not been desirous of seeking Him in any way. They had been contrary to His gracious kindness in forewarning them and keeping the door of the ark open until the point of the flood. Now it is all done. There was a time wherein the door was open, but now is the time it is shut and this all relates to what happened on May 21, 2011, which had the underlying Hebrew calendar date of “the seventeenth day of the second month,” which matches the day God shut the door of the ark seven thousand years earlier. God shut the door of heaven after His worldwide proclamation of Judgment Day and after beseeching all the people of the earth for years to seek the Lord because Judgment Day was coming. Then Judgment Day came.