Genesis #6: The Beginning - Salvation

We have arrived in our study of Genesis at one of the most famous stories in scripture. what we think of as Noah and his ark. There’s a lot in here but I’ll try to work quick.

Often we think of it as a children’s story. I remember our kids had these little with all these little wooden animals all packed inside that they played with.

I remember one plastic one that had all these cute fat little animals and an old man with a grey beard .... that was Noah. He had a bird on his shoulder, strangely like a pirate, but a nice pirate.

Anyway, the point is that when we think of Noah’s ark, many images come into our mind along with many questions. I am going to address some of those today real quick before I get to what I believe God wants us to hear today.

Noah’s ark is a wonderful… a wonderfully horrific story of death and destruction. A story of judgement that the world has never seen and won’t see until Jesus returns.

Let me say right up front, I believe the story of Noah is a historical event. It’s not an allegory, or a metaphor. I say this because I believe Jesus. And Jesus referred to Noah and the flood as historical events.

Look in Matthew 24

Matthew 24:37–39 NIV

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Jesus is talking to his disciples about when he will come back to earth and he says it’ll be then just like it was with Noah.

People will be living life, doing as they please, and then it’ll be too late for them just like it was too late for the people of Noah’s time when they found themselves locked out.

That’s the part of the story that gives so many people trouble. Historians say that because people lived longer… we read in chapter 4 and 5 of how long people lived at that time; this resulted in there being at least 1 billion people on the earth at the time of the flood.

1 billion. Gone forever.

Noah’s ark is no fairy tale. Its a story of God’s judgement and God’s salvation.

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I don’t understand everything… and frankly God didn’t want us to or he would have made sure more details were available in the story… I have some questions, that I’ll have to wait until I can ask him … bu tI have a feeling when I get the chance to ask my questions to God in Heaven, my questions won’t matter much.

But some of those I have now are:

Was the flood a world wide phenomenon or a local event?

I’ll say this, because this isn’t the point of today’s message, I do believe it was a worldwide event, further I would say that there is a very good chance the world was a bit different then… but you may say it was just in the Middle East… i’m OK with that too… at least so far.

Another question people have is where did the water come from? There’s no way it could rain that much.

I agree it couldn’t rain that much, but again this is a supernatural event. An act of judgement by God, so our understanding of natural rain and floods don’t really apply here.

This is where my understanding that the world looked a bit different back then comes in. And scripture helps with this saying that water came up from the ground. Remember Genesis isn’t trying to tell us how it flooded … but who caused the flood … not what God did ... but why.

Still, we have questions because it is such a fantastic story.

How did Noah have room for all the animals?

There are millions of different kinds of animals on the earth, how did Noah do it.

First, as we will see shortly, Noah didn’t do it; God did.

But to answer this, I did a little research. Just looking at Dogs… they are one of my favorites.

But looking at dogs, geneticists say that 2000 years ago, there were only 4 breeds fo dogs… and look at it today. AKC recognizes almost 200 breeds. There were 4, 2000 years later 200. Now think about this isn’t it pretty reasonable to say that 6000 years ago there was only 1…

Now if you are able to think along these lines, how many different species of mammals are there? Scientists say around 7,000. So If Noah has 2 of each species on board, that’s 14,000 mammals. Add in the smaller reptiles and birds and you have another 30-40,000 animals.

Certainly a zoo to care for. But not unthinkable.

There is much we don’t know about the flood and if you are one of those who are looking for scientific proof of the flood, I would challenge you to provide scientific proof for anything in history… you can’t because science is about observation… and the only ones who observed the flood… are dead now.

And remember Genesis isn’t a science book, it’s purpose is to tell the history of the nation of Israel. It’s their family tree; a record of their ancestors, letting them know who God is and their connection to him.

The flood is a big part of the story.

All our questions.... can get to be too much though.

When there are so many questions, it might be easier to accept it as a children’s story. A fable told by generations of Israelites to explain god’s wrath… and why everyone should fear offending God… right?

Jesus saw the events of Noah and the flood as a preview of what was happening in his own life. A preview of his ultimate victory over sin and death.

Where the NT describes Jesus’s victory coming by fire, the OT described God’s destruction of sin by water.

We think of the boat filled with all the cute animals, and a fat grey haired man with a bird on his shoulder looking at a rainbow.

But look below the waterline....In the Flood, God is undoing creation.

Creation that had been declared good, very good, had become corrupted.

Genesis 6:12–13 NIV

God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

The world was evil… all evil all the time.

People were consumed with sex, corruption, violence.

Wonder what that was like?

I can’t imagine it was much different than we have it today.

I read this week that sociologists today say 70% of television programming involves images, depictions, or discussion of sex.

Think of the last TV show or movie you saw that didn’t include those -

Corruption and violence.

Think of the last newspaper or magazine that didn’t include them -

Today we are fed and we feed on a constant diet of these. If people aren’t showing it to us, our enemy has trained us to seek it out.

These have become a normal, expected part of life, at least life here in america and in the western world.

To the point that we are seldom offended by them unless maybe our kids are in the room… maybe.

It makes me wonder about today.... but looking back at Noah and his ark reminds me of an important principal

God is patient, but His judgment is unavoidable.

The flood came 120 years after it was foretold as his judgement for sin

In fact it had been around 1600 years since Adam and Eve had eaten that forbidden fruit.

1600 years for creation to get to the point that God had to do something.

That’s the thing about God’s judgement, he seems willing to let sin go for a while… scripture says in order that some may be saved… but then judgement comes and it is unavoidable.

I was at a baseball game with my friend Denny Kendall just before he passed away and we were both complaining about the umpire. Denny had been an umpire here locally.

He told me a story about one player who told him he didn’t know what he was doing and he decided that day she would strike out. The player turned to argue with him and he reminded her that she may have thought it was a ball, but the only opinion that matters is that of the umpire.

Same is true for our judgement… God may seem precocious, but since God is the only Judge, his opinion is the only one that matters.

God is always on time. and His judgment is always true.

It may seem like we are getting away with sin...

Like when you were a kid and you did something at school only to get home and mom or dad already knew about it...

But as we have seen in Genesis so far, in the story of Adam and Eve, then with Cain and Able, and again we see in the story of the flood. God’s desire is to save. In fact while God’s nature leads him to act justice and judge and punish sin.

God also has a plan for salvation.

And in this account of God’s salvation, we see God working through a man named Noah.

Scripture says, as we looked at last week, Noah found favor with God… grace.

God extended his prevenient grace, and Noah responded.

Hebrews 11:7 tells us:

“By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.”

We are going to see this play out in our text today.

What made Noah so special?

Faith. He saw God at work in the world and he believed.

There wasn’t a dogma to believe, there wasn’t a law to follow. There wasn’t a creed to memorize.

But as Scripture says God’s is clearly seen in what has been made so all men are without excuse.

By God’s grace, Noah saw and believed.

His belief led him to walk with the lord, to live faithfully.

This faithful living is marked by Noah doing what God told him.

Not when it was convenient.

Like when you say come on down it’s time for dinner… hang on mom, I’m busy… get in the car I said we are going for pizza… lets go running down the stairs.

Not rebelliously.

Clean your room… I did… why are all your clothes under the bed then?

Noah walked with the Lord, leading to Godly obedience

No, Noah walked with the Lord, he showed Godly obedience. God told him to do something and out of respect he obeyed.

This set him apart from everyone else at the time… that is hard to believe, but that’s what the scriptures say.

Genesis 6:9 NIV

This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

That’s who we are talking about today, someone who walked with God

Michelle invites me to walk with her almost every night. Usually I have an excuse not to… not washing the dishes or something helpful like that either.

But the other night I said yes… granted out of guilt for all the times I had said no… thinking of the time I had missed with her.

Anyway I said yes, and you know what? I actually enjoyed it. WE talked about the day, our kids, the dog.

It got me to thinking, people walk by our house every day. You know what would happen if the next time I saw some one walking by, I ran out the front door… hey wait up… Wait for me! When I caught up with them and walked with them a mile or so. You know what they would think? they would think I was a freak… because they don’t know me and I don’t know them.

But it makes sense to walk with someone you know… who knows you.

Noah walked with God and as they walked, Noah grew to know and obey God’s will.

The first work of obedience we see from Noah is his preparation.

Noah prepared according to God’s design

Noah is living his life… and God comes along and tells him his plan

Genesis 6:11–18 NIV

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.

You hear that?

Everythign on earth will be destroyed, but I will establish my covenant with you.

It was God’s plan to save Noah. The ark you see was God’s idea.

Noah didn’t think of this, it is God alone who saves. Noah wasn’t thinking about judgement, eh wasn’t thinking about needing salvation. He was just walking with the Lord.

But God had a plan for salvation, a plan that included an ark.... it was more like a barge actually. When you see pictures of the ark and it has a big keel, that’s not how the bible describes it.

An ark that was safe with particular dimensions… dimensions that ship builders today say are ideal for the task… providing safety for the contents.

But also, the design of the ark was sufficient for Noah and his family to care for the animals and God to lead them. You notice that the description didn’t include a sail or a rudder. No steering needed because God was in control. This barge was ordained by God to preserve life and Noah built it just that way.

I know you are thinking… yea, God told him exactly what ot build and he built it, how hard is that? Remember he had only hand tools to work with… and he is building a huge boat… a boat that wouldn't be matched in size until the 1800’s.

Building a boat 1000 miles from the ocean.

That took faith… faith developed by walking with God. As Gen 6:22 puts it

“Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”

Walking with the lord, our work reflects God’s design.

Do you see your work as holy work?

Your time in the office, your time volunteering, your time fixing things, your time making deliveries, helping clients, taking care of the kids, the grand-kids, teaching, managing people, getting things done.

Do you approach it as holy work… or is it just a job? A Requirement? Or is it a calling?

When we walk with the Lord at work, we are able to live into God's design.

Romans 12:1 The Message

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

That’s God’s desire for us… to approach our life as a calling.

Then as we see:

Noah performed according to God’s plan

Genesis 7:1–4 NIV

The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

Gen 7:5 “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”

We don’t know that Noah's sons helped with the construction, the preparations… It’s pretty safe to assume they did, but either way. The big take away here is that

When we walk with the Lord, we act according to God’s plan

Walking with the Lord, we act according to God’s plan

This may not seem like a big deal at first, but it is… look with me

Remember the situation of Noah. Everything had become corrupted, yet Noah found favor with God… and walked with him. Noah was righteous because of his faith. He prepared as God directed and now we see he performed according to God’s plan.

When we operate in step with God, it changes things.

They didn’t know it, but on Wednesday afternoon, I spent some time watching Linda Foote and Pat Lynerd as they were preparing for kids to come to youth group on Wednesday night. They got there early… like probably 2 or 3.

They had no idea how many kids to expect, but you would have thought they were expecting an army. They were so excited, it was fun to watch them buzz around the kitchen… doing as God led them.

Look at it again… remember what has happened; Adam and Eve sinned… then their son sinned… his children became corrupted by sin as well … and that led to the corruption of others, and others, until everything was corrupted

Noah, who’s name means relief or rest, breaks the pattern.

And what do we see happen as a result of his faithful walk with God?

His family and all the animals are saved from destruction.

Because of Noah’s faithfulness, his family was saved.

Everyone wasn’t saved… in fact I’m sure Noah seemed pretty strange to the people around him as he was moving into the ark… but he was faithful.

He didn't worry about how others saw him, but what God asked of him.

Are we willing to appear as fools to the world in order to be faithful to God’s way of living?

Are you willing to be Noah for someone? To break the pattern and provide a means for them to hear a word of hope, of salvation?

Everyone wasn’t saved… but some were.

That’s a good approach to our lives when we live according to God’s plan, good things happen to others. We aren’t the only beneficiaries. In fact it may cost us dearly, It cost Noah many years of hard labor… It cost Linda and Pat their afternoon as well as some money for the food, but it was worth the cost for those who were saved.

This leads us to the third thing that occured as a result of Noah walking with the Lord

Noah arrived with Godly perspective

When our kids got too big to sit in our laps for flights, we started driving to see relatives down home. It’s a long trip 16 hours or so of driving. We tried to start out at night so the kids would sleep through a big portion of the drive.

Of course that means when we get there the next day, I would be exhausted.

Seriously it would take me 2 days to recover from driving all night like that.

I was miserable because I was focused on pleasing two kids. We know how hard that is.

Noah didn’t work to please his kids though… even though they reaped the benefits of his work. No he worked to please God.

So after a year… it was time...

Genesis 8:15–22 NIV

Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.” So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

Noah had been obedient all the way through, After 9 months the ark had come to rest on Mt Ariat… and now a month later he was sending out birds, realizing that the water was gone.. yet he waits another 2 months before God calls him out of the ark

2 months of waiting...

And still the first thing he does when he gets out...

Worship God.

The first thing Noah does after over a year in the ark is to worship God.

The flood came as a result of

Creation had been reset. WE see this because the exact thing that got us into this problem was because 1… Adam and Eve decided not to obey God even though he told them that death resulted from disobedience… but Noah obeyed.

Second, Cain launched himself into a life of sin because he came to worship with a poor heart…

And here we see Noah’s first move to worship.

I can’ think of a more tempting occasion to do something for yourself than after spending a year in a barn locked up with a bunch of animals. I’d want to get out and just breathe...

But Noah doesn’t think of himself… he thinks of God. Why?

Because he was walking with the Lord.

Walking with the Lord, worship becomes our priority

I don’t want to say to you… what you should do is worship? That’s just adds guilt to you because you try to go through the motions and when you heart isn’t in it, it just becomes religion… what I want to encourage you today is to walk with the Lord.

Walking with the Lord, getting to know him, allowing him to direct your life… will lead you to worship.

Spend time with him, pray, sing, read his word, get alone… respond to his grace.

Walk with the lord and your whole life becomes an act of worship… even doing the hard things like trusting him with your future.

That’s how you can tell if you are walking with him… do you trust him… or are you trying to earn your way?