Noah & The Ark

Genesis 5 - 9 Man Screwed it up Again...

So we start off the story here with the Geneology that gets us from Adam the whole way down to Noah.

I’ll save you the trouble and the math...

Noah is Adam’s great great great great great great great grandson.

From Adam’s son Seth, down to Noah is 1056 years

Adam died at the ripe old age of 930, so he died 126 years before the birth of Noah

HOWEVER! Noahs father (Lamech) would have been 56 years old when Adam died

So in the 1056 years that has happened between the story of Adam and Eve and now, what have people been doing? What were they supposed to be doing?

“be fruitful and multiply”

“have dominion over the earth”

Essentially be stewards of all that God had created

But what have they actually been doing?? Genesis 6:5

Wickedness of man was great in the earth

every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually

THE LORD REGRETTED IT?!

“But...” Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord

Genesis 6:9-7:24 God says, “I will fix this”

Who has heard the story of Noah before? Lets dig in to some of the specifics of this story that I bet your sunday school teacher never told you!

So Noah is over 500 years old, just chillin in this evil world and God says “Hey Noah, I’m about to destroy the entire earth.” Like what??!!

How would you respond? How did Noah respond?

Who has seen/heard of the movie Evan Almighty? Check this out...

I get it, there were some creative liberties taken here but imagine! God comes up to you and says, “You’re going to build an ark!”

So Noah and his family begin building this ark.

How long did it take? Genesis 7:6

What were the dimensions of this thing? Genesis 6:14

300 Cubits = 550 feet (1.5 football fields)

50 Cubits = 95 feet

30 Cubits = 55 feet (as tall as a five story building)

It had 3 stories

made from gopher wood (go 4 wood) and pitch (tar)

No tools (Derek what tools would you use to build a boat?), no pile of lumber dropped off at the front yard, no boat building experience, probably no idea what a boat even was because up to this point it haden’t even rained! These dudes didn’t even have metal yet for nails, hammers etc. Can you imagine?!

Now you gotta get all these animals on this thing…

Check this out…

ALL the animals… how often do we skip over that and not really try and wrap our heads around it

animals need food...

animals need to go to the bathroom...

God Unleashes the floods!

Now before we get into this part, tell me what you remember about the timeline of the rain/flood

February 17th (17th day of the 2nd month) (just for the sake of illustration)

The floods burst forth

It rains for 40 days and forty nights

the waters covered the mountains by 15 Cubits (almost 30 feet)

Mt. Everest???

Everything dies...

but think through that for a bit… what do you think that looked like??

The waters prevail for 150 days, then the Ark lands on the mountain of Ararat

February 27th of the following year! The earth had dried out and Noah and his family exited the ark

Genesis 9 God fixed it, and Humans Screwed it up AGAIN!

On the entire earth, there was only 1 man who God found good enough to keep. This dude is it! This won’t be like Adam and Eve, or what about the story that we now know about King Saul (i know this is in a different order…), this story isn’t like King David being the chosen one for God’s people and then screwing things up…

There’s way more to the story that you read in Chapter 9, and I would encourage you to look into that with your families sometime, but for the sake of time and the point that I want to make, Noah was the dude. He was the one that was (and sort of did) save all of humanity. He was going to be the one that stopped the cycle of humans just sucking. But HE SCREWED UP TOO!!

But God has already destroyed the earth once and promised not to do it again so as we get past Noah and his screw up, we eventually make it to Abraham (who’s heard of Abrahahm?), Isaac (who’s heard of Isaac?), Esau & Jacob (who’s heard of them?)Heck, Jacob eventually gets renamed to Israel!, then there’s Joseph (who’s heard of joseph ((the one with the coat)), and then Moses (who’s heard of Moses) and so on and so on and so on!

Guys here is the point...

The entire old testament is filled with stories of people who God chose to be “the one.” Time and time again they screwed up, and time and time again, God gave humanity another chance!

Imagine your siblings… they do something that just really ticks you off

or your football team, you’ve got a kid that for some reason just can’t seem to figure out the difference between a post route and a slant…

Or in band at school… that freaking piccolo player just cant seem to stay in tune!

Guys this theme has gone straight through the bible and is still us every single day! The difference??

Jesus Christ!

God eventually got tired of humans screwing things up and having to come down and fix them so He sent the once and for all “fix.” When Jesus died on the cross, he became that blood sacrifice that forgives us, time and time and time again from all the times that we have just royall screwed things up or done things that we knew weren’t according to God’s will

So as we wrap up this series of looking at these stories, looking at these characters that we’ve all heard of before, as we have seen the overarching theme of God creating something perfectly, humans screwing it up, and God fixing it… Have you allowed God to come in and “fix it.” Have you put your faith in Him? Do you believe that Jesus was the end all, be all “fix” for our screw ups? Do you know that yes even though he is the be all end all we still strive daily to not fall into sin, but inevitably its going to happen! And guess what guys… God will be there to pick up the pieces every single time and forvgive us.

If you haven’t yet, and thats something that you want to do today, then please please please don’t leave here tonight without talking to me, or your small group leader. We would love to make a big deal out of it and celebrate this huge decision with you, but if you prefer that it remain private, then we will do that as well. Small group leaders, just hang out in your small group spaces for a few minutes to give that opportunity.

Guys, we love you and so does Jesus. We want you to be able to live in that freedom that he provides. Let’s pray