Shut In – Day 40: What God Says… He Does

For context, first see the other posts in this series:
Part I: The Lord Shut Him In
Part II: Day 10: The Animals
Part III: Day 20: The Man Noah
Part IV: Day 30: The Walls

Forty-seven days ago, God told Noah, “I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” (Genesis 7:4)

A week later, God shut Noah and his family into the ark with all the animals to be saved.

And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. (7:12)
The flood continued forty days on the earth. (7:17)

Today marks the 40^th day since the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month… the day when the flood began.

Now something exciting has happened: the seemingly endless rain has stopped!

The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained (8:2)

What a relief that must be! But don't think that it is silent now. The wind has picked up.

And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. (8:1)

Yet there is another silence that must be felt by each one on the ark: the complete absence of any other human life on the face of the earth.

Not only did God live up to His word of the rain lasting ”forty days and forty nights.” He also had to follow through on His words:
- “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (6:7)
- “I have determined…” (6:13)
- “I will…” (6:17)

What God Says… He Does.

And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died… Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. (7:21-23)

Sin has consequences.

But so does faith-filled obedience, as we will see later on in Noah’s history.

We won’t be checking in with him so often now. Even though it has already felt like a long journey, the time of being shut in the ark has hardly begun.

We don’t have any clue that Noah knew anything more about the timing after the 40 days of rain were complete. Judging from our own lives, it is probably best if he didn’t know how many months he had left shut in there with his small family and a crowd of animals, working and… waiting.

But as Jim Elliot once wrote in a season of very difficult waiting for him and the woman he loved but didn’t know if they would ever marry:

“Waiting on Him for Whom
it is no vain thing to wait,
Jim”

Can we, like Noah, sign our names along with Jim?

Next Post in Series:
Part VI: Day 70: After the Crisis

Sky photo by Chris Nguyen on Unsplash