Christ and Noah's Ark

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Christ in the Old Testament – Part 2

Christ and Noah’s Ark

Reference: Genesis 6–9; 2 Peter 3:3–7

Tony Keating

Well, apparently my last sermon wasn’t too controversial, and I have been invited back!

I am continuing my series Christ in the Old Testament.

Last time I spoke on Christ in the Garden of Eden—Allow me to recap.

I talked about the adventure I went through when challenged years ago by my friend Kyle in Virginia. He believes that Christ is found in every verse in the Bible. Kyle opened my eyes to see Christ in many places where one might not suspect.

Since then, I have been paying attention, reading the Old Testament, and looking for Christ.

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Furthermore, Jesus Himself, on the Emmaus Road, after His resurrection explains to some disciples who did not even recognize Him—at least not until their eyes were opened that the Old Testament is all about Him.

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Let’s review Luke 24:27.

Luke 24:27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

Do you see the comparison that Luke makes when he retells the events on the Emmaus road? They didn’t recognize Jesus on the Emmaus Road just like they didn’t recognize Jesus in the Old Testament. However, in both places, the Emmaus Road, and the Old Testament, Jesus had been there, unrecognized all along.

Last time, I explained that Jesus was present with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

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In Genesis 3:8, we read:

8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

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I explained that when you see God in human form—such as walking—that is Jesus!

Jesus is also seen in the curse on the talking snake.

Remember this picture?

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Looking at Genesis 3:15;

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15 “And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her Seed;

He shall bruise your head,

And you shall bruise His heel.”

Adam and Eve distrusted God and were no longer eligible to live in paradise.

However, God prophesied that a Savior, the Seed of the Woman would fix that problem.

The Seed of the woman is the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, Old Testament saints were saved the same way that New Testament Saints are saved.

They were saved by grace through faith in the coming Messiah.

The only difference is they were looking ahead and we are looking back to the cross.

We are saved by grace through faith in the Messiah who already came.

Finally, Jesus is depicted in the animal skins that God made for Adam and Eve.

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Read Genesis 3:21;

21 Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.

This is another element of salvation. There must be an atoning death.

By making tunics of skin, it is implied that an animal had to die—and that death represents the death of Jesus on the cross. Remember what God said would happen when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—that’s right, they would die—and they did die spiritually. Now all humanity needs a substitutionary death to pay for our sins.

Putting this all together, we have the Old Testament version of the Gospel.

Old Testament saints needed to trust in the coming Messiah, the Seed of the woman who would die in their place, being the perfect substitute for their sins. That Messiah would be victorious, ultimately defeating all His foes, including sin, death, and that crafty talking snake.

Are you a sinner not yet saved from your sins? Do you want the substitutionary death of Jesus to be applied to you? A little later I will explain how you can go to Paradise when you die.

Well, Adam and Eve were fruitful and multiplied. By Genesis chapter 6, there were millions of people in the world. Sadly though, sin multiplied as well and that was a huge problem.

Today’s Sermon is Entitled, “Christ and Noah’s Ark.”

Turn to Genesis Chapter 6.

Looking at Verse 5,

5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

You see? This is why we can’t have nice things!

Looking at Verse 7,

7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

That first part is very sad. God put so much thought and care into creating a nice world to live in but people ruined it.

But there was a silver lining to the primordial cloud.

Let’s see Verse 8 again,

8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

A keyword in the Noah narrative is grace. While the Hebrew word behind this word doesn’t always mean grace, I agree with the New King James Version here.

The New Bible Dictionary from InterVarsity Press says that this Hebrew word, ḥēn, here translated as grace, “speaks of undeserved favour.”

The New Bible Dictionary goes on to say,

“…No-one can show ḥēn to God…for no-one can do him a favour.”

J. H. Stringer, “Grace, Favour,” ed. D. R. W. Wood et al., New Bible Dictionary(Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 433.

So yes, I am saying that Noah didn’t get saved from the flood because he was better than everybody else. Noah got saved from the flood because of God’s grace.

Some of you are already thinking of the New Testament implication here…

I am here today to tell you that if you are a sinner, like Adam and Eve, and like all the people in the pre-flood world, you too can find grace in the eyes of God—Just like Noah!

Noah had a working faith.

Hebrews 11:6–7 says:

6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

7 By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

Noah had faith in God and in His promises and he found Grace—this is Grace through faith.

Building the Ark didn’t please God. Noah was already justified by grace through faith.

Building the Ark was the evidence that Noah’s faith was genuine—oh and his neighbors must have laughed and laughed.

Anyway, Baptism is one of the ways we show evidence of our faith—hmm, and in both cases, it has to do with going through water—interesting!

If you haven’t yet placed your faith in Jesus, then you haven’t yet partaken of God’s grace—we shall talk more of that a bit later in this sermon.

Do you know that there are flood myths from all over the world?

Would you like me to read some to you?

Ok, first I’ll read the real story and we’ll compare.

OK, I am reading from Genesis Chapters 6 and 7 and then afterward I will read a Native American flood story.

Ok, here goes, Genesis Chapter 6, starting with verse 13.

Chapter 6

13 And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. 15 And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16 You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. 18 But 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. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. 21 And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them.” 22 Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.

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Then the Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. 2 You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; 3 also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth. 4 For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.” 5 And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. 6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth.

7 So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth, 9 two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 12 And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.

13 On the very same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark— 14 they and every beast after its kind, all cattle after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort. 15 And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life. 16 So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.

Let me pause there for a second—the Lord shut him in. If we are looking for Christ in the Old Testament, this could be Him. If you remember, I said that anywhere you see God in human form—that is Jesus. On the other hand, it could be God’s Spirit who shut the door so let’s just say this is a maybe—yet still significant.

Reading on…

17 Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered.

I’ll pause here again for a second—some people say it was just a local flood, that cannot be true because water seeks its level. If the waters were above the high mountains then the entire planet was covered with water.

OK, back to our story…

20 The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. 21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. 22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. 23 So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive. 24 And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.

Anyway, when the waters recede, Noah and his family land on Mount Ararat. They send out the raven and dove. When it is clear they depart from the Ark and have a sacrifice to God. God promises never to destroy the Earth that way again and the sign is the rainbow!

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This is a picture of the Ark replica in Kentucky when they lit it up in rainbow colors (I have never been there but that’s ok, I’m not bitter).

As you can see, the rainbow is an amazing biblical symbol of God’s promises!

When I was in school they used to say that Native Americans came here over a land bridge.

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My teachers described this as a land bridge and ice corridor where you would just walk across from Russia to Alaska, and then go down and grab beachfront property in San Diego before you get priced out of the market.

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In this one, you see the mastodons and rhinoceroses

Right, here there are the cavemen following big game right across the land bridge.

So the secularists can’t deny that mastodons and rhinoceroses once lived in the Americas

Why do they find flowers from subtropical plants inside the stomachs of mastodons? Yeah, those kinds of flowers can’t grow in the Arctic Tundra. So, the real truth is the ice came later—after the human settlements. Likewise, any proposed ice age must have come after the flood. Elephants, no matter how hairy, can’t survive in the tundra. They need to eat enormous amounts of food and that requires constant access to plants—no time to dig down through the snow. Not to mention that an elephant trunk loses too much heat to survive.

The Bible speaks of a water canopy. Before the flood Earth processes were different. The Bible says that a mist used to come up and water the Earth. So imagine this—the Earth was like a great big terrarium.

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This man’s name is David Latimer. He sealed up this terrarium in 1975. It’s the world's longest sealed terrarium and as you can see, it is still doing well. A closed terrarium is a complete ecosystem, kind of like the earth under that water canopy. Water condenses on the glass and drips back onto the leaves of the plant.

Put moss in a jar with a little water, seal the lid airtight, and you never have to water the moss [Terrarium Demonstration].

But during the flood, the Bible says that the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. I take this to mean that the water canopy which helped maintain a wet, warm climate burst. In addition to water just gushing everywhere, suddenly the Arctic and Antarctic temperatures dropped drastically. It is estimated that to freeze flowers in a hot mastodon stomach before decay would have required an immediate temperature drop to minus 150 degrees.

And why do they find frozen mastodons and rhinoceroses on top of hills in the Arctic—is it as if they were trying to escape an advancing flood?

So did Native Americans come over via the land bridge and ice corridor?

No—Native Americans were settled here by God after the Tower of Babel incident…

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The Bible says in Genesis 11:9,

9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

OK I’m finally getting to my promised Native American flood story. This folklore is from the O-jib-way people who are sometimes known as the Chippewa Indians. Most O-jib-way people come from such states and provinces as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ontario, Manitoba. and Saskatchewan.)

This story is about a combination god/Noah figure named Nanabozho. Nanabozho had just made the sun shine hot on a lake where a demonic serpent was hiding at the bottom.

Reading from the story of Nanabozho…

“Not long after, the lake became more troubled. Its water boiled from its very depths, and the hot waves dashed wildly against the rocks on its banks. Soon the Great Serpent came slowly to the surface of the water and moved toward the shore. His blood-red crest glowed. The reflection from his scales was blinding--as blinding as the glitter of a sleet-covered forest beneath the winter sun. He was followed by all the evil spirits. So great was their number that they soon covered the shores of the lake.

When they saw the broken stump of the withered tree, they suspected that it might be one of the disguises of Nanabozho. They knew his cunning. One of the serpents approached the stump, wound his tail around it, and tried to drag it down into the lake. Nanabozho could hardly keep from crying aloud, for the tail of the monster prickled his sides. But he stood firm and was silent.

The evil spirits moved on. The Great Serpent glided into the forest and wound his many coils around the trees. His companions also found shade--all but one. One remained near the shore to listen for the footsteps of Nanabozho.

From the stump, Nanabozho watched until all the serpents were asleep and the guard was intently looking in another direction. Then he silently drew an arrow from his quiver, placed it in his bow, and aimed it at the heart of the Great Serpent. It reached its mark. With a howl that shook the mountains and startled the wild beasts in their caves, the monster awoke. Followed by its terrified companions, which also were howling with rage and terror, the Great Serpent plunged into the water.

At the bottom of the lake there still lay the body of Nanabozho's cousin. In their fury the serpents tore it into a thousand pieces. His shredded lungs rose to the surface and covered the lake with whiteness.

The Great Serpent soon knew that he would die from his wound, but he and his companions were determined to destroy Nanabozho. They caused the water of the lake to swell upward and to pound against the shore with the sound of many thunders. Madly the flood rolled over the land, over the tracks of Nanabozho, carrying with it rocks and trees. High on the crest of the highest wave floated the wounded Great Serpent. His eyes glared around him, and his hot breath mingled with the hot breath of his many companions.

Nanabozho, fleeing before the angry waters, thought of his Indian children. He ran through their villages, shouting, "Run to the mountaintops! The Great Serpent is angry and is flooding the earth! Run! Run!"

The people caught up their children and found safety on the mountains. Nanabozho continued his flight along the base of the western hills and then up a high mountain beyond Lake Superior, far to the north. There he found many men and animals that had escaped from the flood that was already covering the valleys and plains and even the highest hills. Still the waters continued to rise. Soon all the mountains were under the flood, except the high one on which stood Nanabozho.

There he gathered together timber and made a raft. Upon it the men and women and animals with him placed themselves. Almost immediately the mountaintop disappeared from their view, and they floated along on the face of the waters. For many days they floated. At long last, the flood began to subside. Soon the people on the raft saw the trees on the tops of the mountains. Then they saw the mountains and hills, then the plains and the valleys.

When the water disappeared from the land, the people who survived learned that the Great Serpent was dead and that his companions had returned to the bottom of the lake of spirits. There they remain to this day. For fear of Nanabozho, they have never dared to come forth again.”

They say that settlers first came to Hawaii in rafts from other Polynesian Islands.

Here is a diagram of this theory.

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However, Polynesian traditions from many Islands including New Zealand say they came from Hawaii. The word Hawaiiki in many Polynesian languages means “home.” However, in the Hawaiian language, Hawaii just means land. This would seem that migration started in Hawaii. But obviously, that can’t be true. Or can it?

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Yes, once again in Genesis 11:9,

9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

There is a story from Hawaii of a Noah figure named Nu’u. In the story…

Nu‘u builds "a large vessel and a house on top of it" called Wa‘a-halau-ali‘i-o-ka-moku. In this he is saved from the flood and after its subsidence Kane, Ku, and Lono enter the house and send him outside, where he finds himself on the summit of Maunakea on the big Island of Hawaii at a place where there is a cave named after his wife Lili-noe. He worships the moon with offerings of awa, pig, and coconuts, thinking this is the god who has saved him. The creator god, Kane descends (some say on a rainbow) and explains his mistake and accepts his offerings.

Sadly, I can’t read all these stories. There are dozens of worldwide flood stories in many cultures.

Preparing for this sermon, I did a lot of reading. I found some common themes in these flood myths.

The thing is, the flood folklore in many nations is not simply limited to the flood. They very often connect creation stories together with flood stories—just like in Genesis.

Some themes I found in the flood folklore of nations include,

Speaking things into existence

People formed out of clay—and sometimes from the rib of another person

Naming of creation

Some kind of “fall from grace”

Two brothers battling

A snake or snakes, sometimes the snake is connected with a tree of life

A firmament in the sky

When the narrative gets to the flood part, often there is a rainbow and sacrifices on a mountain

Sometimes they send out a dove and/or raven

And kid you not, sometimes the story ends with a great tower, not unlike the Tower of Babel reaching up into the heavens

Friends, this cannot be a coincidence

So how do we explain this?

Here are a couple of possible ways to explain what I observed:

1) People instinctively have a “memory” of these events

2) Cultures passed these common stories down from generation to generation—although they changed slightly over time.

With regard to the first possibility: There is a lot that scientists don’t understand about instinct.

How does a spider know how to make the same kind of web that all spiders in that same species make? How does a duck instantly know how to walk and swim after hatching? What mechanism causes them to imprint on the parent (or whoever is around)?

There are butterflies in Canada that migrate to Mexico in the fall. They stay there for the winter. However, it takes three generations for the butterflies to get back to Canada. How did they know to do that?

So if we do not understand animal instinct, then there could also be human instincts that we do not understand. Perhaps God gave us an instinctive memory of the events that occurred between Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 11.

However, a better way to explain this phenomenon is that cultures passed down these stories from Generation to Generation. The only difference is, only the stories passed down to the Hebrews were divinely inspired and perfectly accurate.

But you might interject, but Moses wrote Genesis…

I’m not denying that, but this just pushes back the question. The question would be, what method did God use to give Moses the stories?

First, I must say that every verse in the Bible has at least two authors. God is one author and the divinely inspired human is the other author. We need to keep this in balance. If we stress God’s part too much, then we marginalize the distinctiveness of the human author. Worse still, if we stress the role of the human author then we might find we are marginalizing God—to be sure we do not want to do that.

You see sometimes God directly dictates information to a prophet. Many times, however, the biblical writer is simply pouring out their feelings—in the Psalms for example. The Holy Spirit guides the author’s words and assures God’s message is conveyed. At the same time, the human author’s personality also comes through—it’s an amazing thing.

Sometimes the human author compiles information. Luke is a good example of this. He seems to have interviewed eyewitnesses of the events in Jesus' life. The Holy Spirit guided this process to make sure God’s message was conveyed.

Genesis is a bit more mysterious. Or is it? Maybe the Native Americans didn’t instinctively know about the flood. Maybe Noah and his family passed the stories down through their descendants. And if some of those stories include corrupted yet vaguely familiar versions of The Garden of Eden, and Cain & Abel, then maybe those stories go back before the flood and were likewise passed along by Noah and his family.

Think about it too. What Bible did Abraham read? Well, if all these stories were passed down orally, then Abraham knew the Bible. The Bible that existed for Abraham was the stories of Creation, Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah & the worldwide flood, and the Tower of Babel.

In a moment, I am going to close my laptop and speak candidly with you about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I’ll get to the real reason why I include Noah’s Ark in a sermon about Christ in the Old Testament.

First just a little more background information—please look with me at 2 Peter Chapter 3

Reading from,

2 Peter 3:3–7

3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

The context of this verse surrounds false teachers that Peter needed to rebuke.

Look, however, how these words likewise apply to scoffers of today.

Do all things go on the same as they always have? —NO!

For thousands of years, Native Americans, Hawaiians, and cultures all around the world remembered that there was a worldwide flood, but yet today, everybody scoffs!

Go to the Grand Canyon and see the many layers of rock strata. An unbiased opinion would say that the layers must have been laid down quickly, and the canyon must have been washed out when the ground was still soft…

However, evolutionist signs predominate—telling you about the millions of years.

Allow me to read 2 Peter 3:5–7 again,

5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

Now let me tell you about my Savior…

Get on the boat!