Foundations of Our Faith: The Story of Genesis
10/26/2003 - The Story of Noah
A few years ago author Robert Fulghum wrote a best selling book entitled, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It contained things like share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Don't take things that aren't yours. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. And take a nap every afternoon. Not bad advice!
Well, this week I found a similar piece called All I Really Need to Know I Learned From Noah's Ark. It said things like plan ahead, it wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. Stay fit. When you're 500 years old, someone might ask you to do something really big. Don't listen to your critics, do what has to be done. For safety's sake, travel in pairs. Take care of your animals as if they were the last ones on earth. Stay below deck during the storm. Don't miss the boat. And no matter how bleak it looks, there's always a rainbow on the other side. Not bad advice either.
I don't know if everything we need to know comes from Noah's ark. But I do know it does have a lot to say us. And this morning we want to look at this amazing story of Noah as we continue our series through the book of Genesis called Foundations of our Faith. Turn in your Bible to Genesis 6.
Noah is one of the most incredible people in the Bible. He's not a perfect person, as we'll see today, but he's one of the greatest examples of faith we can find anywhere. Think about. What would motivate a guy to build an ark to survive a rainstorm at a time when people didn't even know what an ark was and had never, ever seen a drop of rain? What would cause a guy to invest 100 years of his life into one single project? Talk about a survivor on a reality show. This guy survived the greatest natural disaster of his or any other generation ... a worldwide, catastrophic, universal flood. It's an amazing, true story.
The story actually begins in Genesis 4. Right away, in the very next chapter after Adam and Eve are escorted out of the garden a murder is committed. The very first human child, Cain, kills his little brother, Abel. It didn't ten generations for sin to get to that point. It happened right away and it broke God's heart.
Later on in chapter 4 a man named Lamech violates God's command for marriage by marrying two wives. Then he commits murder. And God's ideal world starts to crumble. And when we get to Genesis 6:5 we read, The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil all the time. 6The LORD was grieved that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7So the LORD said, "I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created - and with them the animals, the creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air-for I am grieved that I have made them."
God's worst nightmare had become a reality. Pain filled God's heart. God was hurting. God knows pain. His perfect planet had become a world full of villains, a place where every person's thought was only evil all the time. It was a lot worse than our world today. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. And the story could have ended right here, six chapters into the Bible. But it didn't because on to the scene comes one person who literally saves the world because of his walk with God.
One person can make a huge difference. Sometimes that's all that God has to work with in a family, in a neighborhood, in a school, at the shop, in the office, at the yard, on the team, one person and that person could be you. Noah was the one person that God was able to use to save the human race. Noah shows us the power of one when God is on our side.
God asked Noah to do things that were so absurd they're almost laughable. In fact, Bill Cosby got famous making us laugh at Noah. Noah had never seen an ark before. He had never seen rain before. Yet he was willing to step out in faith and believe God for things he had never ever seen.
So let's look at his life around a very simple outline. Noah builds the ark. Noah enters the ark. Noah floats in the ark. And Noah comes out of the ark. It's a simple outline that will help us discover some important things about our own walk with God.
First, Noah builds the ark based on pure obedience to God. He didn't have a clue what God was about to do. Hebrews 11:7 says, By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
Noah's faith in God in the midst of a totally perverse world is what made him a righteous man. He believed in God when no else around him did. And because of that Genesis 6:8 says, But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. The word favor is the Hebrew word for "grace." It literally means getting what we don't deserve. It's one of the most beautiful words in God's vocabulary and here it's used for the very first time in the Bible of God's grace to Noah.
Genesis 6:9 tells us three things about him. This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.
Noah was a righteous man. That doesn't mean he was perfect. It does mean he had a right relationship with God because of his faith. Just like our faith in Christ makes us right with God today.
He was blameless among the people of his time. The word blameless literally means "whole." He was a whole person in a broken world. That's what God wants us to be in the broken world we live in. He wants us to be whole, complete people.
And he walked with God. He and God were tight. They were friends. It's interesting that Noah had no one else to walk with. The whole world was evil and perverse, even his family of origin.
Some of you may be feeling that way right now in your walk with God. You're all alone. Your mom and dad don't share it. Your brothers and sisters don't share it. Your spouse doesn't share it. You're the only one in your family that walks with God. Let me encourage you by saying that is God's grace to you. The slate starts clean in every one of our lives. We don't have to be like our parents. That doesn't mean we don't have problems and issues to deal with. But it does mean God's grace is greater than any of them. Noah grew up in a generation where everyone around him was a bad apple, but God was still able to do a great work in his life.
So God comes to Noah and asks him to build an ark. What's an ark? It's a boat that will save his family from destruction and the dimensions are given in verse 15, This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.
Noah builds the ark out of cypress wood and it's one and a half football fields long. It's a huge project! Noah must have had a big backyard. I wonder what the neighbors thought? It has a length to width ratio of 6:1. It's six times longer than it is wide and shipbuilders to this day say that a boat with a 6:1 ratio is virtually unsinkable. It has three decks and a roof over it and rooms all around. It has one door and is covered with pitch to seal it from the rain.
And Genesis 6:22 says, Noah did everything just as God commanded him. What a compliment! One hundred percent compliance! Wouldn't it be nice to have that chiseled on your tombstone! Noah was completely obedient to God even though he wasn't sure what he was doing. Noah builds the ark. Noah's enters the ark.
Look at Genesis 7:6-7,15-16, Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Look at verses 15-16, Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.
This must have been a frightening day for Noah. After working for years on this ark the day finally comes for him to set sail. He enters the boat with the eight members of his family and all these animals and the Lord shuts him in. Bang. It sounds so final. We don't like shut doors do we? I don't. We like to keep our options open. But Noah was out of options. And so he waits to see what will happen next. Will this thing float or not?
Look at Genesis 7:10, And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. The door was shut and then it took seven days before the rain started to fall. I wonder what Noah was thinking during that long week. "God, what's going on? What am I doing in here? Nothing's happening. Where's the rain?" I don't know why God waited seven days. Maybe he was giving the world one more chance to repent or maybe he was doing something in Noah's heart. I don't know, but I do know there are times in my life and your life when we're out of options, shut in, and can do nothing but wait on God. And it's hard. And we wonder why? And we can feel foolish. I'm sure Noah felt that way, but he kept coming back to what God had promised.
And compared with what was about to happen seven days would turn out to be just a blip on the screen. Then the flood came. And we all wonder how the whole world could be covered with water. Did this really happen? Is this really true? What about getting these animals on a boat? Is that possible? Let me say three things about the Genesis flood.
First, the flood was real. It's described as real in the book of Genesis and by Jesus when he refers to Noah and the flood in Matthew 24. He uses it as a picture to illustrate his second coming.
Matthew 24:37-39 says, As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39and 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. I don't think Jesus would use an imaginary story to picture something real.
It's interesting that most cultures have a worldwide flood in their history. Cultures all the way from Africa, to the Far East, to Europe, Asia, the Mayan Indians in South America all have flood legends in their folklore. About 88% of them talk about a favored family who survived the flood. Seventy percent say that they made it in a boat. Ninety-five percent say that it was a universal flood. Sixty-seven percent talk about animals being saved as well and 57% say that the survivors ended up on the top of a mountain. Why are these flood stories all over the world? Because the flood was real. It really happened.
Second, the flood was global. It wasn't a local flood. A local flood wouldn't cover mountain tops like the Genesis flood did.
Genesis 7 says the water came down from the sky and up from the ground. Genesis 7:11-12, In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month-on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Before the flood the world was a different place. It had never rained before. The earth was watered by a built in sprinkler system. Genesis 2:6 says that a mist came up from the ground and watered the earth, kind of like a big greenhouse. There were also great caverns of water underneath the ground. Many believe that the earth was also enveloped in a canopy of water that popped like a giant water balloon.
This was a universal flood. Marine fossils have been found on the tops of every major mountain range in the world today. How do fish climb up mountains? Why is the earth covered with 73% water? A global flood explains it.
Third, the animals did fit in the ark. That's always a question when we talk about the flood. How did the animals fit on the ark? The ark was 450 feet long with a displacement of 43,300 tons and a storage volume equal to 522 railroad cars. That's a lot of storage space!
Could all the animals fit into that? Let's see. Scientists tell us that there are about 17,500 species in the world today. Two of each would mean about 35,000 different creatures. Because of the extinction rate, let's assume that in the days of Noah the number of species was double that. That would mean that 70,000 animals went into the ark. Of course, they could have been babies and not full grown.
Now God also told Noah to take seven pairs of what he called clean animals. These were animals that would be used for sacrifices after they landed. So let's bump that number up to 75,000. Could 75,000 animals fit on the ark?
The average size of an animal is about the size of a sheep. And we know that 240 sheep can fit into one railroad car. So if you divide 240 into 75,000 you get 312 railroad cars full of animals. Which leaves 210 boxcars for Noah, his family and their food.
There's room. There's plenty of room. My question is how did they put up with the stink! I mean one day in the zoo does me in! At least, the ark had windows all around the top.
God was all over this. He brought the animals to the ark. He caused them to migrate there and perhaps even hibernate during the year they were on the boat. The word for "rooms" in Genesis 6:14 can also be translated as "nests" or "resting places." The animals may have rested by God's grace the whole time this zoo was afloat!
The Genesis flood reveals some very powerful principles of God's judgment. It shows us that God has limits that only he knows. He knew when it was time to start over. And that was when every person in the world, except Noah, had become evil and would never turn back to him.
It shows us that God's judgment is never arbitrary. The entire world was indicted. It shows us that God always warns of his judgment. He always gives people advance warning and the chance to repent. He gave Noah's generation 120 years. It shows us that God always keeps his word. He will fulfill his promises both to judge and to save.
The flood says to us that sin is serious. Sometimes we take it lightly, but God doesn't. It breaks his heart. But that's not the end of the story. There's an ark in the midst of the flood that says God is merciful. The flood says judgment. The ark says mercy. So Genesis 7:5 ends this section with Noah entering the ark, And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.
Noah builds the ark. Noah enters the ark. And now Noah floats on the ark.
How many days do you think Noah was on the ark? At first we might think forty, because that's how many days and nights it rained. But it was a lot longer than that. Noah was on the ark seven days before the rains started and if you add up all the days mentioned in this story you get a year and seventeen days. That's 382 days of trusting God through a very difficult situation.
Can you imagine feeding those animals, caring for those animals, cleaning up after all those animals for 382 days? Being a live in zookeeper listening to their noises, smelling their smells, 24/7 for over a year! That's faithfulness, that's perseverance, and Noah had it.
Sometimes being faithful to God is not a whole lot of fun. I'm sure it wasn't fun for Noah everyday. But there had to be a profound sense of gratitude as day after day Noah looked out over that endless expanse of water and thought, "God, why me? Why us? Why this?" If sixty years into the project Noah would've said, "Bag it!" he'd be underwater like everybody else.
There's something interesting about Genesis 8 & 9. They parallel the creation story in Genesis 1. Genesis 8:1 says, But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
Remember in Genesis 1, we saw that God's Spirit hovered over the waters and the waters were gathered into one place and dry land appeared. This is like a second creation. In Genesis 1, there was wind and water, then earth and birds and animals and man. And now we see the same sequence followed by the same command at the end of Genesis 8:17, be fruitful and increase in number upon the earth. God was literally starting over with eight people. He knows what it feels like to fail and to start over. Isn't that amazing!
Noah builds the ark. Noah enters the ark. Noah floats on the ark. And finally, Noah comes out of the ark.
What a great day that must have been! He had to be thinking, "When I finally get off this ark, the first thing I'm going to do is take a hot shower or get a triple bypass burger at McDonald's or a cold Coke!" That's what I feel like after I come back from Ghana or some strange place.
But instead, what's the first thing Noah does? He worships God! He builds and altar and offers sacrifices to God. Look at Genesis 8:20, 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. Noah worships God for sparing his life and the life of his family!
How often does God do something awesome in our lives and yet we forget to thank him? We take his grace for granted. Next time God gives you that new job, that new home, that new marriage, that new baby, that new start in life take time to worship him and thank him for it. That's what Noah did.
Noah still had a lot of unanswered questions. Like where was he going to live, what was he going eat, how was he going to take care of these animals and clean up the mess of global flood? There were lots of unknowns in his future. But all that could wait. The first thing he does is build an altar and worship God.
The next thing that God does is make a rainbow and a promise that he will never flood the earth again. Look at Genesis 9:12-16, And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."
This was a defining moment in Noah's life. Noah needed to know that the next time it rained he wasn't going to drown. The first rain that Noah had ever seen destroyed the world. That could spook you. So God makes a promise never to do that again and he's kept it ever since. Which is another reason I believe it was a global flood, because we've had plenty of local floods since then. Whenever we see a rainbow in the sky it should remind us that God can be trusted. He is faithful to his word.
There's a third thing that happens after Noah comes out of the ark. Noah builds an altar. God makes a rainbow. Then Noah gets drunk. Who can blame him after all he's been through?
Look at Genesis 9:20-29, Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. 23But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said, "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers." 26He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. 27May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave." 28After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29Altogether, Noah lived 950 years, and then he died.
What's up with that? The story doesn't have a happy ending does it? Instead of ending with a sunset and a beautiful rainbow in the sky, it ends with a drunken, naked, fallen hero. That's not Hollywood, is it? No. That's real life. That's one reason I believe the Bible is the Word of God. Because it tells it like it is. It doesn't pull any punches. It doesn't paint any fairy tales. It just gives us the raw truth and sometimes it isn't very pretty. Here's an incredible man of faith who made an incredible difference in world and now makes an incredible mistake. Can anybody relate to that?
Here are two final things to learn from Noah's experience. First, our mistakes don't erase our victories. Did Noah's mistake in getting drunk minimize all that he had done up to that point? No. He was still a great man of faith. Have you ever noticed that the evil one is always waiting on the other side of a spiritual high?
You come back from a retreat or a mission's experience or a Christian camp or from getting baptized and you're feeling so close to God and then pow! You get flattened. And you wonder, "How could I have done that?!" And evil one moves in and calls you a phony and a fake and a hypocrite and tries to blow your faith right out of the water.
When that happens, don't buy it. You're not a phony or a fake or a hypocrite. You're a person who loves God and made a mistake. Get back up again and keep on going. Our mistakes don't erase our victories.
And second, our victories don't erase our mistakes. The victories for Christ that we have in our lives don't guarantee future success. You can't rely on what happened last week or last month or last year to keep your relationship on track with the Lord. You build it day by day, one day at a time. Today is the only day you have to please God. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow isn't here, just today. Walk with God today. That's all any of us can do.