Noah
5Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually only evil. 6Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart. 7Yahweh said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground—man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky—for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8But Noah found favor in Yahweh’s eyes. 9This is the history of the generations of Noah: Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. Noah walked with God. 10Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12God saw the earth, and saw that it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. 13God said to Noah, “I will bring an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them and the earth. 14Make a ship of gopher wood. You shall make rooms in the ship, and shall seal it inside and outside with pitch.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The world he made is a masterpiece, beautiful and lacking nothing. He made it so flawlessly that even advanced science cannot uncover its secrets, and a world so made tells us how boundless God’s power is. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that has been made. No one, however gifted, could imitate such a perfect work; by his word he created the whole universe.
Human beings, bearing the image of God, were created as precious beings who would share in his glory. But when Adam failed to grasp how deeply God loved him, he was deceived by Satan’s scheme, the idea that he could be like God, and fell into the sin of pride. Adam was meant to live with God at the center; once he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he came to believe and follow Satan’s word, and he began to live with himself at the center.
When the world God had made by his word lost its light, Satan came to rule it with darkness, and sin brought a curse on people and nature alike. The world is now racing toward its end like a car whose brakes have failed. Because the day draws near when Babylon the great will be judged for its sin, the only way to survive is to enter the ark.
The ark Noah built is the one and only way to preserve life. The ark does not mean a church building, nor does it mean going to church. Just as the ark built according to God’s word was a refuge, to enter the ark is to believe in Jesus Christ and to live a life in keeping with his word. Those who follow Christ can live only if they are separated from the world and from Satan and remain in Jesus Christ. The world works to keep people off the ark. It says worldly power will keep them safe; God has said that any power apart from Jesus Christ is worthless. This world will surely come under the judgment of Jesus Christ, and for that reason God has told us to leave it behind.
Genesis 6:8-13
8But Noah found favor in Yahweh’s eyes. 9This is the history of the generations of Noah: Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. Noah walked with God. 10Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12God saw the earth, and saw that it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. 13God said to Noah, “I will bring an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them and the earth.
The world had become so corrupt that it was past all restoring, which left God no choice but to bring judgment. Yet before the flood came, God had already planned the salvation of those he had made in his image; that is why he called Noah. Through Adam, Enoch, and Methuselah, Noah had learned that God alone is worthy of praise and worship. Having heard God’s plan from his forefathers in the faith, he also had a clear grasp of heaven and judgment.
Ever since Adam fell into Satan’s trap, there had not been a single righteous person in the world. No one understood, no one sought God; all had become unprofitable, and there was no one who did good, not even one. In a world so full of evil, God called Noah and commanded him to build an ark, for judgment was coming soon. Noah had heard from Methuselah how fearsome God is, yet when the command actually came to him, his heart must have sunk.
Even so, once he had received the command, Noah gave up his own life to build the ark. He knew that when God resolves to judge the world, that judgment will surely come, so he would have thought long and hard about how people might be saved. Those who chased after the world went on enjoying their daily lives, unaware how great a judgment their sin had called down upon them. Watching them, Noah labored at the ark, thinking that perhaps, once it was finished, they might yet come in. Later Noah saved his whole family, and from that we may suppose he began building the moment God gave the command, without a moment’s hesitation.
The sun beat down as Noah built his ark, and people laughed and jeered at him, but he worked all the harder for a day of judgment whose hour he did not know. Among those who mocked him were close friends and brothers, and there were likely some who pitied Noah as he pleaded that only those who went into the ark would live. Had rain fallen from the sky just then, his words would have carried weight. But for all Noah’s longing, God sent no rain, so that nothing would hinder the building of the ark. Here we see how far God’s thoughts are from ours.
The nearer the ark came to completion, the more sorrow outweighed joy for Noah. How could he get them onto the ark? Even the animals would come aboard; how could he save those lives, too precious to lose? One can only imagine the anguish of wrestling with such questions. But they were hard-hearted and would not listen. God is spirit, so they could not see him; and since they did not believe in God, they would not have believed that judgment was coming either. This is how hard it is to make people believe in a God they cannot see.
Whether people mocked him or persecuted him, whether they went on marrying and giving in marriage as though there were no judgment, the ark rose day by day, and the hour drew near when the world would be swallowed by the waters. What is unseen is not therefore absent. Judgment does not vanish because someone will not believe it. What the hand cannot grasp is not therefore unreal. The judgment God has appointed will come, whether people believe it or not, and those who have stood firm in faith will see that promise with their own eyes.
You know, as Noah did, that judgment is coming on the world. The world stands under judgment because its sin has grown great, and ours today is corrupt enough already; God’s judgment is close at hand. If so, then like Noah, who gave his life to building the ark, we must tell others, even under persecution, that only those who enter the ark of Jesus Christ will live. If we believe that the history of the world is unfolding just as the Bible records it, we ought to take pity on the souls of those who persecute us and preach the word boldly.
Genesis 7:15-17
15Pairs from all flesh with the breath of life in them went into the ship to Noah. 16Those who went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God commanded him; then Yahweh shut him in. 17The flood was forty days on the earth. The waters increased, and lifted up the ship, and it was lifted up above the earth.
Let us now picture the scene. The door of the ark stands between them, Noah inside, and facing him, the people outside. These were people Noah had loved, people who had loved Noah, yet they would not believe him when he said that only those who entered the ark would live.
They had watched the enormous ark being built, and some had even lent a hand, but unable to believe that rain would bring judgment on the world, they had no intention of going in. Because the claim that rain would drown the world defied common sense, they trusted their own judgment and stayed outside. What do you think Noah felt at the moment the door closed? Until it shut, he kept calling them by name, urging them to come in, and as he watched them refuse, I imagine he wept until his heart ached. Knowing that the people waving and laughing outside would soon all be dead, he must have cried out to them desperately to come into the ark.
Even now people do not believe that Jesus Christ will return, and they refuse to accept that God created the whole universe by his word in six days and formed living human beings from the dust. The world tries to hold back this truth with the theory of evolution, but the truth can never be buried. Preaching the gospel to someone who does not believe Genesis 1:1, that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, is an uphill task. I have seen some burst out laughing at the idea that dinosaurs lived alongside people. All of this is true, and anyone who takes a little interest and looks into it can easily find that out. What is frightening is that, whatever they believe, the judgment of the world will surely come to pass.
Those who follow the Lord do not rejoice in their own salvation as they watch others being judged. Since refusing to believe in judgment is, in the end, refusing to believe in God, Noah would have mourned as he looked at them. You will remember that when Jesus entered Jerusalem to bear the cross, he looked at the city and wept.
Knowing the terrible persecution that lay ahead for the Jews, Jesus warned them, but they did not believe. His words came true when they suffered greatly at the hands of Rome. If we stray from God’s word and lack the spiritual eyes to see the world, if we have no ears to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying, then we hear the truth without hearing it at all. That is why we need God’s guidance and grace; yet you also need a faith of your own, one that strives to live by the word you have heard, learned, and come to know. While the door of the ark is still open, while Noah is still shouting himself hoarse for people to come in, we need to go inside if we are to live. With the opportunity remaining until the Lord returns, we must live by faith and proclaim Jesus Christ.
Noah built the ark with everything he had. He gave his children time and care so that going into the ark would seem only natural to them, and he would have lived as an honest father to win their trust. Do you think Noah had a life of his own? If he had resented that everyone else was living their own lives while he alone had to struggle, the ark would never have been built. Noah did not complain, because he believed in the end of the world as though he could already see it. The God Noah saw is eternal and infinitely perfect, and therefore able to judge the world he created. The people of the world indulge in pleasure and call themselves happy. But Noah knew that the ark floating above the world was life itself, and this knowledge made it possible for him to bear the charge God had laid on him.
When the time God had set arrived, the door of the ark slowly closed, and the faces of those standing opposite Noah began, little by little, to disappear from view. When the door shut with a heavy thud, Noah, I imagine, wailed aloud, blaming himself for failing to save those souls. Outside, while Noah wept within, the people would have waited, expecting that if no rain came, Noah would open the door himself and walk out.
At this hour I want to ask you sincerely: are you inside the ark? Or are you outside it, looking on? God knows the answer, and so, I think, do you.
Those who were mocking Noah would have had a little time to think while the rain was falling, and time to pound on the door of the ark. But Jesus Christ will return like a thief. At the sound of the trumpet he will catch his people up into the air, and those left on the earth will have neither time to think nor a chance to turn back. Now, while God is making us hear the news of his return and giving us time to repent, we must turn back.
Genesis 7:11-12
11In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the sky’s windows opened. 12It rained on the earth forty days and forty nights.
The rain from the sky alone would not have drowned the world. In all likelihood the fountains of the great deep beneath the earth burst open, sending vast floods surging up over the land, while torrents of rain poured down from above. The laughter of those who had expected Noah to come out stopped. The sounds of marrying and giving in marriage and making merry, the voices boasting of land bought and wealth grown, the voices bragging that their sons were the Nephilim, the strongest and greatest warriors in the world: all of it fell silent. Boasting lasts only as long as the world lasts; power and possessions are needed only while there is a world to use them in. Even as the waters rose, some would have plunged into the flood to grab their gold, silver, and treasure.
In the ark, where nothing could be heard but screams, what do you suppose Noah did? Would he have rejoiced that his family of eight alone had survived while people were dying? More likely he reproached himself for his helplessness in failing to rescue the dying and offered God prayers of repentance with tears. While building the ark he may have thought, ‘Could this world really be flooded? Could it really be that only my family will go into the ark?’ But when the whole world actually went under the water and only eight people survived, he must have realized at last how fearsome God is.
I hope you too will never forget how awesome and fearsome God is. He is not a God we may worship when we feel like it and ignore when we do not. If the God who can judge in a single moment this world you think is everything is the same God who says that only those who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved, then we should obey that word as Noah did.
At last the ark rose from the ground, and as it floated on the water for a hundred and fifty days, the vessel carrying his wife, his sons, his sons’ wives, and the animals became Noah’s whole world. Nowhere were the brothers, friends, and relatives who had once warmly called his name.
I have thought long and deeply about this, trying to understand Noah’s loneliness. He could not mix with people who would not acknowledge his faith; he had to keep building the ark when he longed to rest, at war with himself. When I considered what that must have cost him, my heart went out to him. For nothing is as hard and lonely as giving up ordinary human freedom and having to decide, discern, and labor alone before God. He found himself always speaking of things that seemed remote to people who cared nothing for the word, and he would have feared that he was cutting himself off. Though he urged them until he was hoarse to come into the ark, they closed their ears; watching them, he would have felt not so much frustration as dread, because he knew their end. To Noah, those who called him mad and rejected the word must already have looked like the dead. Now any hope of meeting people again was truly gone.
Friends, if you believe in God sincerely, you may find yourself isolated from the world like this, and you may feel deeply alone. Keeping the faith does not mean sinning a little less than the world. The faith of the saved stays inside the ark and does not listen to the voice of the world.
In a world that races ahead by fair means or foul, those who belong to God not only keep themselves apart from it but also build an ark. And while they labor at that, they are also charged with preaching the gospel so that even one more life may be brought into the ark. This is the life of God’s people.
Genesis 9:19-21
19These three were the sons of Noah, and from these, the whole earth was populated. 20Noah began to be a farmer, and planted a vineyard. 21He drank of the wine and got drunk. He was uncovered within his tent.
The rain stopped, and the ark floated on the water for a hundred and fifty days; only after another hundred and fifty days, once the waters had begun to dry up, did the land appear. When Noah heard God tell him to open the closed door and come out, he could not bring himself to open it at once. Only after two months had passed did he leave the ark.
When Noah was in danger, God shut the door of the ark with his own hand; but once it was safe outside, he told Noah to open the door himself and come out. When we entrust our lives to God, he steps in himself whenever we face a crisis, but in what we can do ourselves, he waits for us, as he did here. Noah would have needed time to prepare his heart to face a new world. When he opened the door, what lay before him was not a beautiful place like the Garden of Eden where Adam had lived, but a filthy world that had been under water.
He looked around again and again, hoping against hope, but there were only the eight of them. What a shock it must have been to find the world more desolate than anything he had known! Had Noah failed to grasp God’s will and lived for the things of this world, he would probably have lost his mind. But Noah had always lived as one dead to the world and stood unshaken in faith, and that is how he could endure it. Worship had been the pattern of his everyday life, so the first thing he did on coming out into the world was to build an altar to God and offer burnt offerings.
Noah had escaped judgment by faith, but he was human, and he could not help feeling emptiness and desolation, longing and loneliness. Of all the people he had been so close to, not one remained; there was only himself. Since in spiritual matters you cannot walk the same road as others, however good the relationships you build in this world, you need a faith that sets you on the rock, so that you are not wounded. Noah survived in a world that had been judged, but he could not simply rejoice. There is no need to fear, though: the wedding feast that awaits us one day will be so full of joy that we will not notice that others are no longer at our side.
Noah planted a vineyard to offer sacrifices to God, and because the drinking water was poor, he used wine as a drink; perhaps he drank a little too much, for he became drunk and fell asleep. Like Noah, we too have times when, quite apart from our faith, we lose heart for a while. Hardships in life shake us, and we weep in discouragement. You too, as you strive to keep the faith, may collapse as Noah did when you lose your health, suffer financial hardship, or run into troubles in life too heavy to bear. Noah had been running by faith and had only fallen for a moment, so it is all right. If it hurts, it is all right to cry that it hurts; if it is hard, it is all right to cry that it is hard. Rather than rebuke Noah, God waited quietly, not waking him until he had recovered and could rise again. When you weep that running by faith is too hard and too lonely, God is the one who comforts you, and who holds you by the wrist so that you will not fall headlong.
But just as Noah’s son Ham mocked his exhausted father, the world may mock the faithful in their suffering. God himself did not rebuke Noah, who had stopped for a while out of weariness, yet Ham exposed his father’s shame. When someone who has been living by faith stops for a while to rest, God does not forgive the one who mocks them. Ham did not cover his father, who had lived by nothing but God’s word and was now hurting from a human pain too great to bear, and so Ham was cursed; even his son Canaan, not yet born, came under the curse.
When those who live by faith fall for a moment, God himself embraces and forgives them; but whoever presumes to mock a child of God by the world’s standards is rebuked by our Father. You do not need to strive for worldly power to cover your shame. It is Jesus Christ who helps you, so that you will not be put to shame.
It cannot have been easy for Noah to build the ark of salvation. But when the whole world perished, the ark preserved Noah’s life and saved his family. Jesus died on the cross to become the ark of salvation. The love of Jesus, who was pierced by nails and a spear and poured out all his water and blood, is love freely given. If we simply give thanks for that love, we can enter the ark of salvation, share in God’s glory, and receive eternal life.
Noah’s obedience to the word saved his family and made him a forefather of faith. Like him, may you obey the word and bring many lives aboard the ark of Jesus Christ. You believe that Jesus Christ alone is our ark in this harsh world. I hope you will proclaim the gospel still more loudly, as Noah did, and become treasured saints who receive God’s special favor.