Heb 11:6-7 Walk Like Noah
Notes
Transcript
4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. 5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
What you believe shapes how you live. There are many that believe that they are unworthy and therefore waste their lives. Others believe that a baby is not a baby, so they kill them. While others believe that an unborn baby is a baby, so we fight and pray and do what we can to rescue and restore life.
Also, what we believe about God and His word will shape how we live. We are continuing our study through the examples of faith in Hebrews. If you don’t remember anything else, I hope you will remember this: what you believe shape how you live.
Last time we looked at the faith of Abel and Enoch and how their faith shaped their lives. Abel and Enoch received God’s commendation because of their faith and how they walked with God. They are an example of those that seek God and God drew near to them. Then we briefly studied v6, but let’s take a deeper look at v6.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him
According to this verse, faith is the necessary means to walk with God. There are two things that faith entails. It entails believing that God exists. First, it seems like a simple belief, one of the most basic beliefs. However, it is greater than the acknowledgment that there is a God.
A belief in the existence of the God of the Bible entails knowing that God is beyond all creation and that He is personal. It means that you are aware that God sees everything, and that you cannot hide anything from God, not even your own thoughts. It means that you know that you will be accountable for all your actions to your creator.
This apparent simple belief in the existence of God should cause one to live very differently. We know this is a belief that will greatly affect the life of an unbeliever, but when you dig deeper you see that it has great effects on the life of a follower of Christ as well. Believing in God should cause one to know that there is right and wrong. Furthermore, it should cause one to know that there is a personal God whom we can run to anytime and every time we need. We are created and loved, it is not an accident that we exist and live in the time we are living. Furthermore, life has a purpose and meaning beyond ourselves!
Second, v6 says that faith entails a belief that God rewards those who seek Him. If I would ask a stranger, why do you work? likely someone will say because they have to, because it pays the bills. In a sense we are saying the same as Prov 16:26 which says “A worker’s appetite works for him; his mouth urges him on” In a sense we work for the reward.
I enjoy gardening, but it is a lot of work. Why do we work hard to have a garden? It is because of the reward, even if we would get just a few moments of seeing our kids eating fresh tomatoes like apples that would pay off the hard work. The rewards of working in a garden are all the vegetables, and all the fresh food that you get that is not the same as from the grocery store. Leanna and I also started canning a few things, and I’m finding joy in that, even though is hard work when you are done you can see and even taste the results, the reward.
So, we easily understand this idea of working and receiving a reward. However, when it comes to God’s reward, it doesn’t seem to work in the same way. It seems to me that we don’t often see the immediate reward. However, when we look back over the years we see the amazing, immeasurable rewards of His presence and blessings that were there all along, but in the moment we didn’t see.
Another thing we often fail is to recognize all the rewards that God gives and give thanks to God for the little things and the big things. But we might ask, why does it seem that God’s reward operates differently than the rewards of working for something else?
I’m not sure if there is a specific answer to this question, I believe that the difference is that when it comes to God we are not dealing with pickling cucumbers. We are dealing with a person. With the creator of the Universe who answers not according to our desires, but according to His perfect will.
Furthermore, God not only knows all the possible outcomes of future decisions, He is working to ultimately change us, to change our hearts, to make us more and more like Jesus. We also need to come to a place of understanding that the greatest gift, blessing, and reward that God could possibly give us is Himself.
Notice how much of the blessing in Numbers 6 is about God and his presence. “The Lord bless you And keep you; The Lord make his face shine upon you; And be gracious to you; The Lord turn his face toward you; And give you peace.
Therefore, in a sense the greatest reward of seeking God is God… In this life, we receive the Holy Spirit as the guarantor of the future blessing and complete redemption. In the future, we will receive the complete transformation of our bodies so that we can have full fellowship with the Creator. But now, in this life, we can be encouraged by the example of others who like us, who even though were fallible human beings, trusted in God and lived by faith like Noah.
7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
We all know the story of Noah and the flood in Genesis 7. I was pondering about how long it took Noah to build the ark. I had assumed that Noah took 100 years to build the ark, but when I researched more about this I found some resources from Answer in Genesis that made me look more closely at the Genesis account and agree with their conclusion that it is more likely that it probably took Noah about 75 years to build the ark.
“Many Christians assume Noah had either 100 or 120 years to build the Ark, because of Genesis 5:32 and 6:3. But these passages do not inform us that Noah began building the Ark at this time. A closer look at the biblical text reveals that he probably had less time than most people suspect.
Noah was 500 years old at the birth of his oldest son, Japheth, and he was in his 600th year when the Flood began. When the Lord instructed Noah to build the Ark, He stated, “I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you” (Genesis 6:18). Of course, the omniscient Creator may have prophesied that Noah would have sons and daughters-in-law, but this message seems to have been delivered after his three sons were grown and married.
We can deduce that Noah’s wife bore Shem a few years after Japheth’s birth (Genesis 11:10). We also know that Ham was Noah’s youngest son (Genesis 9:24), but we are not told how many years passed after Shem’s birth before Ham was born. If he were two years younger than Shem, then he would have been born around Noah’s 505th year. Allowing 20 years for the boys to grow up and marry would put Noah around 525, meaning that he would have had a maximum of 75 years to build the Ark.”
Clearly, in Genesis, it doesn’t give us a specific year that God told Noah to start building the ark, but we know it was about a lifetime for us, that being 75 or 100 years. We can easily say it was a lot of work just to build. But, if you have never been to the Ark of Encounter in Kentucky, I encourage you to go and see it, it is worth the trip. Going and seeing the Ark of Encounter really helps you to understand and see that building the Ark was a significant and major achievement by Noah.
Besides building this massive ship Noah and his family were in charge of a significant number of animals. He had to store food, collect supplies and then feed all the animals for a year while the whole earth was covered in water. I was reading some articles in Answer in Genesis about the estimated number of animals. There are several considerations and variables but one of the estimates says that Noah had about 7000 animals in the ark. For reference, Columbus Zoo has 10.000 animals. Therefore, being in the ark during the flood must have been like being in a zoo.
I can’t encourage you enough to read the articles that Answer in Genesis has, they certainly do an amazing job of considering several practical things that Noah had to deal with such as how to water all the animals and how to deal with the manure. Things that if you spent any time on a farm know there is a lot of work and details when you care for animals.
It is enough to say that building the ark and taking care of the animals was an enormous task. It not only took a long time, but it must have been exhausting for Noah to walk by faith during this time as well.
Furthermore, Noah and his family did all of this work because Noah was warned by God concerning events as yet unseen. When we read about the global flood we can look back at the records of it. We can see the evidence of a global flood everywhere, and we can see the sign of the covenant in the sky. However, for Noah when God told him what was going to happen, it was all new, he had to take by faith that what God said was truly going to happen.
We don’t know for sure, but it is possible that until the flood happen it had never rained before. Gen 2:5-6 says “5 the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground.” Then the first-time rain is mentioned again is in Genesis 7 when God told Noah to get into the Ark God says “For in seven days I will send rain on the earth” Thus it is possible that when God warned Noah about the judgment to come, Noah had to have faith about this idea of water coming from the sky.
It is the same way for us today. Jesus said that He is coming back not as a suffering servant but as a conquering King. It is going to be something that in a sense is all-new. By faith, we take what God said as something that truly is going to happen. It means we must pay close attention to what Jesus said is going to happen before His return.
We could spend a whole year just studying the signs before Christ return that Jesus specifically said. However, let me just point out one of them the moral condition of society.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power”
Paul continues this description by saying that they also oppose the truth. In Genesis and Isaiah, there are also warning to those that call evil good and good evil.
I think it is hard to look at our society and not say that this is the description of the moral condition of our world. It seems to me that lawlessness is just increasing and the opposition to truth is rising. It is disheartening to see the decay, but we should remember that all of this just confirms what God said that was going to happen.
We don’t know what the signs were for Noah, maybe after years, decades of building the ark. The animals start showing up. And when this happened it must have been a sign for him to confirm his faith. Maybe it was a strange wind that started, maybe a little cloud in the shape of a hand just like Elijah saw, or the skies getting darker and darker. I’m confident that if we were in Noah’s shoes in those moments as the signs became stronger and stronger, we will be compelled to get in the ark.
In the same manner for us today, the more we see the signs pointing to Christ’s return the more we need to get closer and closer to Jesus, keeping our eyes fixed on Him. Jesus is our ark, our salvation. If we are not in Him, we will drown eternally. If we are in Him we are safe. We can have great confidence in Him, even if the whole world falls apart we have a refuge, a rock, a stronghold that no one and nothing will be able to take us apart.
It is easy to get frustrated and disappointed when our world turns again and again into more and more rebellion against God. We need to do our part and be confident that everything is in God’s hands, He is in charge and in control. Even all the decisions and directions that we see as against Scripture by churches are ultimately working together for the perfect setting for the Antichrist to come and have a global reign and lead many astray.
Our job is not trying to figure out everything, there are so many things that are outside of our control and influence. What we are called to do is to be faithful, to trust God, to put our faith in Jesus. We cannot put our trust in people or leaders, our hope cannot be in man. If we trust someone more than we trust what God says, then we are in trouble.
We need to remember who God is, Isaiah 46:9-11 says:
“for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.”
I don’t think Noah trusted in those around him. Noah and his family were alone in their obedience to God. Can you imagine how hard that must have been for him and his family? The whole world is following their own passions and desires and you are alone walking with God.
How could Noah have done it? Heb 11:7 says it was by faith. And then it says that Noah in reverend fear constructed the ark. This verse is saying that the reverent fear of God is what drove Noah to obedience… which was contrary to what the whole world was doing. And on top of that it was contrary to apparent logic. He was building a boat in the middle of the desert. That in itself would have been a reason for mocking and people must have just dismissed Noah as even more of a fool than “just” following God.
Just like today, the world considers anyone to be a fool for following God and living in obedience to God’s Word. Sadly, the American church is not that different from the world. There are more and more churches that are willing to compromise Scripture because of the pressures from the world.
How can we come to a place where the church is so similar to the world? I believe it is because the reverent fear of God and willingness to take God’s word as the highest authority has been replaced with something else.
I can tell you leaders who have gone astray are unwilling to have discussions and conversations about what the Bible says about any issue if in their minds they are already convinced that the Bible is wrong about something. It doesn’t matter the title or the authority if it goes contrary to what God says. Only then our job is not to be angry and treat others sinfully, but our job is to believe and obey God, to contend for the faith like Jude tells us.
What I’m saying is that God has to be feared more than man. If God says, that’s what matters, there is no need to fear man or the consequences for following what God says. I would rather be found faithful than gain the whole world. In the end, all that happens in this life is very temporary, I want to work for what is eternal. Jesus said heaven and earth will pass away, but his word will never pass away.
Therefore, if we stand strong in God’s word we will be like Noah, having a reverent fear of God and obeying Him above all. Furthermore, v 7 says that Noah in reverend fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
Noah’s household was saved, beyond this inside the ark were all the animals. Even though, the world was condemned and destroyed there was a remanent, 8 people that were saved by faith.
Through Noah’s life of obedience by faith, he condemned the world. It is possible to assume that Noah warned those outside his family of the coming judgment. 2 Peter 2 calls Noah the preacher of righteousness. We know that Noah truly believed that what God said was going to happen, if as such it is safe to assume that he warned others.
In the same manner, for us today, if we truly believe in Christ’s return and the coming judgment, it will shape how we live and we will be like Noah warning everyone of the coming judgment. I think often we are afraid to say anything about God’s judgment to others. Maybe we don’t want to give the impression that we are judging them. Maybe we don’t want to make someone accept Jesus by coercion by talking about hell. It is possible that because of these reasons that in the last century, the church has overemphasized God’s love to the point where people today will believe that they can’t go to hell because God is love.
This is when the tactics that we studied several months ago come in handy. The best way of talking about God’s judgment is by asking questions and learning what people believe and then questioning their reasons for their belief. If we want to be effective in talking about God’s judgment to unbelievers we need to ask questions and that will provide a better way to explain in a loving way what God says in Scripture.
Therefore, we have to open our mouths to speak, but our words have to match our actions. The way a godly person lives in strong and firm faith and faithfulness to God is a sharp rebuke to a godless generation.
We can live in righteousness only by faith. As we strive, we are not depending on our own strength and ability, but we are relying and seeking God’s help. As we seek His help, He will reward us with Himself and the ability to live in a manner that could be said of you, that you walked with God.
Abel walked with God, Enoch walked with God, Noah walked with God. Now, repeat after me (your name) walked with God.