The Flood Pt 1

The Flood—Part 1_Genesis 6:9-7:24

I believe that I have mentioned this story before, but I will say it again…

Several years ago, I was at the Dentist office, and in the waiting-room was an area for kids to play. There were books and toys and even a TV. And on this particular day, there was a young mom there with her daughter and she was playing with the toys… and one of the toys was an ark, with a bunch of little wooden figurines of animals and even Noah…

And the mom said, “why don’t you play with Noah’s Ark?” And the little girl answered and said, “what is Noah’s Ark?” To which the mom—not really knowing how to answer her daughter—simply said, “Oh, sweet heart, maybe we should start taking you to church.”

My first thought was—mom, answer your daughter’s question! Tell her the story of Noah’s Ark and how it relates to the story of Jesus! But that didn’t happen… I hope that mom did take her daughter to church…

I often think of that day because it reminds me of the importance of teaching the Bible to my children (if I don’t someone else will) and equipping others to do the same. So that when moments like that happen, we are ready to give an answer for those that ask.

But God forbid we let this powerful story to be reduced to simply a wooden toy, devoid of any real meaning… Or worse, that the story would become something else, a work of fantasy and superstition… but in fact, we as Christians believe that the story of Noah is an historical event, told in such a way that it is intended to teach us something… something about God, about ourselves, and about salvation.

We are going to study this story over the next several weeks. I encourage you to read it on your own at home.

In thinking about that day at the Dentist office with the mom and her daughter… The approach I want to take is not simply to retell this story, or mine out every little detail… but instead, I want us to think about its bigger meaning… Many of you know the story, but do you know what the story means? What does it teach us? What was it meant to do to us? How does this ancient story change us and transform our lives?

Every story (every good story, at least) teaches a lesson, and this story is no exception.

This story teaches us a lot of things… it teaches us how to walk with God by faith. It teaches us about the negative effects of sin and the consequences of unrepentance. It teaches us about God’s power over all creation. It teaches us about God’s love, his justice, his holiness, his patience, and his faithfulness…

But if we want to boil this story down to one big idea, really it comes down to the topic of salvation… This story sets the tone and builds the categories we need to think about the rest of the Bible’s story of redemption and salvation.

This story addresses questions like: How can I be saved? What are we being saved from? What are we being saved to? And Why does God choose to save and show grace those who don’t deserve it?

This story is not simply about God’s judgment (which people often think of when thinking of this story); instead, this is a story about God’s great and miraculous salvation.

And it does this by focusing on three main characters or objects (Noah, The Ark, The Water). Together, these three serve as the three-legged stool that the main point of salvation rests on.

And before begin, let me start with a disclaimer…

Along with other Biblical stories, The flood is perhaps the most debated and dismissed historical event in the Bible. Scientists, archeologist, and paleontologists have for years tried to discredit the biblical claims of a global flood, saying that such an event is impossible.

Unfortunately, we don’t have time to address all the skeptics; therefore, let me just say that I am taking the position that the flood was a historically true event. That the way the Bible presents the story of the flood is exactly the way it happened. That it was a global event, not a localized disaster… it covered the entire earth… This event actually happened… And God wants to teach us something from it.

If you have questions, you can talk to me afterward… if you arguments or complaints, you can email me at [e-mail]. HAHA

I can believe this is true because I believe in … If I believe that God made everything from nothing, why can’t I believe that he can flood the earth? But again, if you have questions about this story, you can see me afterward and I will try my best to answer them…

With that said, let’s look at our main Character—Noah…

We were introduced to Noah the Last couple of weeks… Noah was the 9th descendant of Adam… Noah’s name means REST… Noah was 500 years old when he became the Father of his 3 sons and was 600 years old when the flood waters came upon the earth.

Noah is without question one of the most unique people in all of the Bible… We saw last week that during Noah’s life, everyone on the earth was wicked and corrupt… humanity was consumed with sexual perversion and spiritual corruption. It was a violent society, filled with demonic possession and activity.

For these reasons, God chose to judge the world and to save the human race through one man, and that man was Noah…

Noah, according to the biblical story line, is a prefigure to Jesus, whom God ultimately used to save the human race from sin… verse 8 (as we studied last week) tells us that “Noah found favor in the eyes of God.” A similar statement is made concerning Jesus in , “And a voice came out of the heavens: “You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased.” Noah gives us a glimpse into the story of redemption that would ultimately lead us to the story of Christ!

We pick up our story again in verse 9 of …

9 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth—.

Three important details are said about Noah in verse 9… First, it says that Noah was a righteous man… This is the first time in the Bible that someone is called righteous, simply put, Noah was in right standing with God, unlike those who were, at this time, living in active rebellion against God.

Now, don’t misunderstand, this doesn’t mean that Noah was perfect… far from it… as we will see later in the story.

Paul affirms this in when he writes that there are “none righteous, no not one…” states that our own righteousness is as filthy rags… No, Noah wasn’t righteous on his own account or good morals… Instead, it was by faith that Noah was considered righteous by God…

sums this point up well…

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—.

Noah’s life teaches us how to attain to become righteous before God… A question that haunted that Great church Reformer, Martin Luther! The answer is this: the only way to be made right with God is to believe in Him; to place your faith in him as your God and Savior. As the verse prior to the one I just read says in …

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—.

If you have never put your faith and trust in Jesus, but you desire a relationship with God, then this is your first step, to confess him as Lord and Savior of your life…

But there are two sides to this coin of salvation… this righteousness that comes by faith is not simply an inner disposition. It is not some secret, mysterious spirituality that isn’t seen. In fact, the kind of righteousness that Noah had, the kind that all people who put their faith in God have, is a public righteousness… it demonstrates itself in good works!

To mention Martin Luther again, who famously said that, “We are saved by faith alone; however, our faith is never alone; meaning, it will always be accompanied by good works.”

Again, in verse 9 it says, first, that Noah was righteous, but, secondly, that he was also blameless in His generation… People knew that Noah was a man of God by the way he lived his life… His faith was not a secret… The man was visibly different… His faith changed him, and people noticed! Do people see this kind of faith in you?

In fact, Peter writes in that Noah was “a preacher of righteousness.” His words and lifestyle together told people what it meant to walk with God and have faith in Him!

Now, this is a strange statement Peter makes here because we never read of any sermon preached by Noah… Yet, we are told that he was a preacher of righteousness… Which can only mean that Noah, while he was building the ark and after God told him of the coming judgment on the earth, that He must have been warning people and calling them to believe in God and turn from their sin!

It took Noah more than 100 years to build the Ark… without modern technology, this was an amazing accomplishment. The Ark was a massive work and certainly people were curious as to what Noah was doing… And as they questioned him, he probably used this as an opportunity to share the truth with them.

Is this something that you do? Do you take advantage of the opportunities that God gives to you in your everyday life to share the truth of God’s word with people? These people must have thought Noah was crazy… There is no doubt that Noah was mocked, persecuted, and marginalized… And we as Christians are promised nothing more than the same treatment for our faith… People think we are crazy for living for God and believing in Jesus! However, we know the truth! We know of God’s salvation and soon coming judgment. Our job is to keep sharing, just as Noah did! He was obedient in every way! His faith and obedience to God’s word is what ultimately saved him and his family!

Repeatedly we are told “[that] Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did… and 5 verses later—7:5 says that “Noah did according to all that the Lord had commanded him.”

Friends, it isn’t enough to simply say we believe in God, as strange as that sounds… Belief must change behavior, resulting in obedience, if it is true belief… If you knew that the light fixture above you was going to fall, you would move… which is a simple example of how belief impacts behavior… if you believe that God exists, that Jesus is the only way to heaven, then that belief will change your life in every way, and people around you will notice!

When Jesus gave the Great Commission in to go and make disciples… He didn’t say to go and get people to pray a prayer and then live as if nothing happened…. Nope, instead he called them to make disciples that are marked by obedience. If salvation is a symbiotic relationship of faith and obedience to God’s Word… This balance is perfectly modeled in the life of Noah, he believed in God (which made him right with God) and he was obedient to God (which ultimately saved him and his entire family).

Faith and obedience is how we receive the benefits of God’s salvation… But now we need to think about how God actually saves… Which brings us to the second leg of the stool in our story… the Ark!

God tells Noah, starting in verse 14, to build an Ark of gopher wood. The Ark was a massive vessel! It was 1 ½ football fields in length. [show picture] And God gave Noah specific instructions on how to build the ark, what materials to use… how many levels, where to put the windows and doors and what supplies to use… God was very specific…

It is interesting to remember that it was Moses who was writing this account. And certainly Moses, as God informed him of this story, couldn’t help but see the parallels with how God gave him strict instructions when building the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle in the book of Exodus and Leviticus…

And the thing I want you to see in this is that God is the one who establishes the means of His salvation… No one is saved on their own terms… But by the means that God supplies… And for us as Christians, it isn’t an Ark that saves us, or a tabernacle or temple or religious ritualism… instead, we are saved by Christ and his atoning death on the cross… Jesus said, concerning himself, in , “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” He is the means of our salvation and faith is the way we access it.

Moses obeyed God’s instructions for the Ark exactly because he knew that it was the only way that He was going to be saved from the coming judgment on the earth, any mistake could be fatal.

Noah knew that once inside the Ark, that he was safe from the judgment outside…

And the same is true from us as Christians, that when our lives are hidden in Christ through faith, that we are saved from God’s judgment on sin.

We see this same thing patterned in the gospel of Jesus Christ! Just as God chose Noah to save mankind with, and He used the Ark to do it… So in the gospel, God chose Christ to be the Savior of the world, and the means he used was not a wooden vessel, but a wooden cross.

You see, Noah was saved by being inside that Ark, preserved from the judgment outside… But we are saved because Jesus was placed outside, nailed to the cross! He absorbed the wrath of God, which resulted in our being preserved inside Him.

Put yourself inside that ark for a moment, the creeks and cracks, the sound of nails turning and water splashing… Now imagine similar sounds and vibrations that were heard and felt that day when Jesus was nailed to a wooden cross, where he was pierced in his side and water and blood poured out… and all this to save us from judgment.

Which brings me to the third leg of the stool in the story, which is the water…

It is believed by some that up to this point, it had never rained on the earth… But even if it had, it had never rained LIKE THIS before… Being from southern California, and having about 2 days of rain every year… this kind of rain was a bit more difficult to image… However, when I moved up here to the Willamette Valley, I started to get a better sense of what Noah was feeling…

Nevertheless, Noah had never seen rain like this before. And in chapter 7, after Noah had put every kind of animal on the ark in pairs of 2, male and female, so as to repopulate the earth after the flood… along with 7 of every kind of clean animal to serve as a sacrifice after the flood, God told Noah to enter the Ark with his family, declaring that in seven days he was going to send rain on the earth… and after Noah entered, he sealed the door behind him… securing Noah and his family and symbolizing that God was going to protect Noah from the coming judgment of water… and that same day, the flood waters came upon the earth…

It says in 7:12 that it rained for 40 days and nights… and that the fountains of the deep burst open (which means that the water stored in the surface of the earth came out). And within days the earth was immersed in water. And in verse 24 of chapter 7 it says that the water prevailed on the earth for 150 days… Everything was destroyed!

Water is a powerful symbol in the Bible. Water is a symbol of life and renewal… it is a symbol of cleansing and purification… of refreshment and satisfaction… And here, water is a symbol of judgment and devastation!

Think about this in relation to baptism… Peter actually does this as well in …

He talks about how “in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…

Notice how Peter takes the story of Noah and the flood waters and relates it to our baptism as believers. The word in the Greek is the word baptizo, which translated literally means immerse… And in the flood, the entire earth was immersed in water, and everything was washed away by the water… Well, in a similar way, when someone is baptized and immersed in the water, our former lives are put to death, and as we are raised out of the water, this demonstrates the new life we have in Christ through faith in him.

Please understand, Peter isn’t saying that baptism itself saves you, but what it symbolizes: a faith in Christ that causes your old life to die and your new life to begin.

Baptism isn’t necessary for salvation, but it is a part of your salvation story… Jesus commanded his disciples to be baptized, not as babies, but as consenting individuals who personally have believed in Jesus. It is only through faith in him that we are washed and made clean! Baptism is simply a public demonstration of that spiritual reality.

If you consider yourself a Christian, but you have never been baptized by your own choice, I strongly encourage you to do that. talk to me or write on a connection card if you want information about being baptized.

But let me close with some summary thoughts…

First, When you think of the Life of Noah, Noah is an example for us of what it means to walk with God by faith… to believe in him, to obey his word, to walk blamelessly among outsiders… To live for God is to go against the grain of culture. They won’t understand us… they will mock and persecute us… They did it to Noah… they did it to Jesus, they will do it to us as well. Nevertheless, we are to be preachers of righteousness, just like Noah.

And we are to look to Jesus, who is the true savior, the one whom God used to save all mankind from their sin!

Second, we are to walk under the shadow of the cross every day… Noah was saved when he hid inside that ark, we too are to find our refuge and shelter in the God who saves.

Third, let the water of the word of Christ cleanse you every day… Let His word and your soul be refreshed as you study God’s Word and rest in the one who is able to give living waters, the kind that results in eternal life!

In two Sundays from now, we will study the second part of the story and I am excited to see all that God is going to reveal about his great salvation for all who come to him by faith! Until then, let’s pray!