Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #21 of Genesis, chapter 7 and we are going to read Genesis 7:18-24:

And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

Last time we were looking at the significance of God telling us that the waters prevailed and rose 15 cubits above the highest mountains. All the “high hills” were covered and that is the same Hebrew word that is translated as “mountains.”

We saw that in the Bible mountains spiritually represent “kingdoms” and Satan’s period of rule as king over the wicked people of the earth was won by right of conquest back in the Garden of Eden and his periods of rule were likened to “seven mountains” in Revelation, chapter 7, so when we get to Judgment Day the judgment upon the kingdom of Satan is pictured by the “waters,” which represent the Word of God, rising above the highest mountain. Remember when Satan tempted Jesus he showed Him all the kingdoms of this earth from a mountain and Satan said he would give them to Christ if Christ would worship him. But in Judgment Day all the kingdoms (mountains) under the dominion of Satan come under the wrath of God and the Word of God rises above them to show that the Word of God is victorious and the kingdoms of the world and the inhabitants of the earth are all in submission to the wrath of God that the Word of God is bringing upon them. We saw in Isaiah 54 where God refers to the “waters of Noah” and relates it to mountains being removed.

In Psalm 46 the mountains were removed into the sea, but God is in the midst of Zion and the Bible speaks of Mount Zion to represent the mountain of God or kingdom of God. So Zion and its inhabitants, the elect of God, are not removed because we have a kingdom that cannot be moved, according to Hebrews, chapter 12 and it will remain and endure. It stands up to the storm that comes against it in the Day of Judgment and that is why the Bible says, “But he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” God’s people will endure and we will abide the fires, which is another figure of Judgment Day. The “day shall declare” who is a true believer and who is not a true believer. The wicked will be burned as stubble and the elect will be purified as gold and silver is purified as we go through the fire. These are all various pictures teaching that the people of God will remain on the earth to go through the final judgment and they will come out the other side and endure to the end. We will not be destroyed, but like Daniel we will endure through the “night.” The king came to the den of lions very early the next morning and he cried, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?” Daniel responded and then the king lifted him up and that is what will happen to the believers after this prolonged period of judgment. God will lift up His people from the place of His wrath and from the “hell” of this earth because the earth has become a place of death for the wicked of the earth. God will lift up His people into heaven to be with Him for evermore.

We were looking at Genesis 7:19-20:

And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

We saw that Babylon (Satan and his kingdom of this world) come under the judgment of God. We saw in Jeremiah 51:25:

Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith JEHOVAH, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.

This is referring to the kingdom of Satan as it comes under the wrath of God and in this figure it becomes a “burnt mountain.”

Then it says in Jeremiah 51:42:

The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

Then at the end of the chapter, it says in Jeremiah 51:60-64:

So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words; Then shalt thou say, O JEHOVAH, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates: And thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

This is interesting as God commands Jeremiah to tie the Book (the Word of God) to a stone and cast it into the Euphrates, which is the river of Babylon. As the Word of God and that stone go into the water, God says, “Thus shall Babylon sink” into the waters. And that is described in the New Testament in Revelation 18:20-21:

Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

So the stone represents Babylon, just like a “mountain” that is made of stone represents the kingdom of Satan or Babylon. The stone being cast into the sea is like the mountains being carried into the sea. It is a similar figure. God associates it in Jeremiah, chapter 51 with the Word of God as the Book of Jeremiah (part of the Bible) is tied to the “stone” and it is as if the Word of God is plunging the kingdom of Babylon or the kingdom of this world into the depths. It is just like in Genesis where the waters rise above the highest mountain, plunging the mountains into the sea and this is the fulfillment of what Christ said His disciples would do in Matthew, chapter 21. We were looking at this at the close of our last study in Matthew 21:21:

Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

What in the world does that mean? We have seen that Christ cursed the fig tree and that represented the judgment of God upon Old Testament Israel. Jesus is saying that His people will do what He had done to the fig tree. In our day the New Testament church was cursed when the church age ended and the true believers declared it to the world. Thus we cursed the fig tree, but more than that, Jesus said that in addition to cursing the fig tree, the elect believers will “say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.” It so happens that God brought spiritual judgment upon the churches and congregations and this truth was revealed to the people of God and that fulfilled the elect’s role in cursing the fig tree, but God also brought spiritual judgment upon the world or the kingdom of Satan (Babylon) and the Lord revealed this information to His people and we declared it and believed it, so “by faith” or by belief in the Word of God the kingdom of this world which had been Satan’s domain has come under the judgment of God and the Word of God. Again, the “waters” typify the Word of God and the “waters” began to rise on the seventeenth day of the second month in Noah’s 600th year and exactly 7,000 years later on May 21, 2011 the “waters” or wrath of God began to be poured out upon the earth and to rise continually.

It is interesting when we look back to the five months after May 21, 2011 because we had thought there would be a five-month period from May 21 until October 21 which would include God closing the door of heaven to complete the spiritual judgment and then He would literally destroy the world on October 21. So there were many people watching closely and many could not “relax” until that date had passed. I am not saying that this is the fulfillment of the five months in Genesis, chapter 7, but it is interesting how it did work out.

Let us go back to Genesis 7:19-20:

… and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

The Hebrew word translated as “covered” is Strong’s #3680 and it is a word we have already seen in Jeremiah 51:42:

The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

This is an interesting word. This Hebrew word, #3680, is a word that is used to refer to the covering of sin. For instance, it says in Psalm 32:1:

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

You can see the relationship between having your transgression forgiven and your sin covered. This word is the same word used in referring to the waters rising above the highest mountain and covering them.

It is also found in Psalm 85:2:

Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah.

In these verses in Psalm 32 and Psalm 85 it is pointing to the covering through salvation that the Lord Jesus provided for His people. Our sins were covered by His blood and Christ’s life was payment that the Law of God demanded for sin. The wages of sin is death, so Jesus gave His life as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and His blood covered all sin that His people would ever commit. And because our sins were covered, they are forgiven and we are not found guilty. We are saved because our sins are covered. That was the reason for the sending forth of the Gospel, as it says in Isaiah 58:7:

Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

There are several statements in Isaiah 58 that relate to the sending forth of the Gospel. In the Bible, “nakedness” represents when one’s sin is exposed and open to the eyes of God. If God sees sin He will destroy that person in wrath and that is why there is a great need to have one’s sins covered. When nakedness is covered with garments it is a picture of the covering of Christ’s righteousness, which goes back to His atoning work on behalf of His people. So this word has everything to do with the forgiveness of sins and the forgiveness of sins has everything to do with the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Atoning for sin covers over sin. I have mentioned this before, but when God punishes the wicked it is the time for them to atone for their own sins. So when the “waters” of God’s wrath is judging the unsaved people of the earth and it rises 15 feet above the highest mountains and covers the mountains, it is as though the ugly multitude of sins that the world has committed against God are now atoned for and they are covered because the payment is being offered up, the death of the sinners. The sinners make the atonement on their own behalf and it results in their destruction because they cannot survive it.

It was only due to the fact that Christ was eternal God and all powerful that He was able to resurrect from His death at the foundation of the world after He paid for the sins of all His elect. He rose again to be declared the Son of God, the firstborn from the dead. Only because He was infinite eternal God was He able to do so, but man is certainly not infinite and is not all powerful. Man is a weak and limited creature that can only make the payment of death that the Law requires and satisfy the Law’s demand, but once that payment is made, he has no power in the day of death to rise from the dead and to come to life once again. Man cannot endure the “baptism of fire” required to purge away his sins and then to come through it. Only through Christ are the people of God able to endure and to survive the wrath of God and no others will be able to survive it.

We read in Exodus chapter 15 of the drowning of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Red Sea. Notice that Pharaoh drowned with them because when Judgment Day comes Satan (who Pharaoh typified) is under the wrath of God as well as the wicked people of His kingdom. It says in Exodus 15:3-5:

JEHOVAH is a man of war: the JEHOVAH is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea. The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone.

It was just like Babylon. The “stone” was cast into the sea because it is a similar picture. The king of Babylon and Pharaoh both represent Satan. The kingdom of Egypt and the kingdom of Babylon represent the kingdom of this world that Satan ruled over and when Judgment Day comes the “waters” cover them. That is what is said in verse 5: “The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone.” The Word of God is victorious. The Word of God carried Babylon into the sea. The Word of God rose above the highest mountains of the earth. God’s Word is victorious and wins in the end.

I just want to look at another verse where this verse “covered” is found. It is in Psalm 106:17:

The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram.

It says the same thing in Numbers, chapter 16. The earth closed upon them after the earthquake swallowed them up and the earth closed to cover them because sin must be “covered” and the only way that sin is covered is through the payment of death. Again, Jesus successfully made that payment on behalf of His people, but all the rest must be their own payment and there can be satisfaction as far as the Law of God is concerned. That is what is in view with the waters rising above the highest mountain.

There is another thing in view that we want to quickly look at and that is in Deuteronomy 12:2:

Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:

The mountains and the hills relate with idolatry and serving other gods. We can see why that would apply to mountains because Satan’s kingdoms tie in with mountains and Satan is the chief idol of unsaved mankind. No matter what idol man serves or what false gospel man follows, it all goes back to Satan because they are all deceitful things and Satan is the father of lies, so whenever a false gospel or idol is worshipped, it is Satan that is receiving that worship, ultimately. As God judges the kingdom of Satan the mountains come under the waters and so, too, do all the false religions, false gospels and all things that man worships other than the true God of the Bible. They all come under the judgment of God.