New Beginnings Part 11
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Intro:
Where we’ve been:
Creation
Fall
The evilness that followed
The grace that came
Pray
So today we talk about Noah and the Ark. A story of great popularity. Not just in our day but even in the days of when Genesis was written.
You see many religions back then had some sort of flood story
A lot of them had many similarities and all had their differences
And so like the creation story where the author of Genesis aims to depict exactly how Yahweh, the one true God, created and why he created, here he aims to show you why the flood and how the flood really happened
Today we debate whether something like this could have happened or did happen but it wasn’t really a question for them. They knew it happened and so now the truth is revealed once and for all.
The biggest difference between the story of the Bible and the story from other religions of this time was the sovereignty of God in it all.
Most stories went like this. There were these gods who got angry with the human race and so that wanted to scare them and so they would cast a spell of some sort and cause a small flood but at some point that flood got out of hand and it got so powerful that the gods could not control it and it ended up wiping the entire human race except for one man and his family
The account in Genesis is going to tell us something completely different. It’s going to share that God was in complete control of every detail and always was and always is.
There are many things to learn from Noah’s Ark
in 1989 a man by the name of Robert Fulghum wrote an essay called “All i really need to know I learned in kindergarten.”
It became so popular that there have spin-offs of it of different kinds
This week I ran across one called “All I really need to know I learned from Noah’s Ark.”
Now I’m not saying it’s 100% accurate but I did find it amusing and perhaps there’s a nugget or two in it so here it is.
Don’t miss the boat
Remember that we are all in the same boat
Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark
Stay fit. When you’re 600 years old someone may ask you to do something really big
Don’t listen to critics, just get on with the job that needs to be done
Build your future on high ground
For safety’s sake travel in pairs
Speed isn’t everything. The snails were on board with the cheetahs
When you’re stressed, float a while
Remember the Ark was built by amateurs, the Titanic by professionals
No matter the storm, when you are with God there’s always a rainbow waiting.
But, no matter what you’ve learned from the story of Noah’s Ark what we want to do is focus on what Scripture desires us to see and learn
And there are two kind of major approaches to this familiar story
The first focuses on the controversial issues.
Did the flood really cover the whole earth?
How large was the Ark?
How did Noah get the animals in the Ark?
How did they keep the Ark clean with all those animals inside?
Although some of those questions are useful and might even be important and I hope to answer some of them as we continue.
But, if we concentrate only on the controversial, we run the risk of mission out on the larger message.
So, it may be worthwhile to ask about the civilization that perished, but the emphasis of the text is not on those who died, but on the family that survived and so that’s where we will put our attention today
Last week we discovered it was Noah who found favor or grace with God. But why and how? Today we will look at what we can learn from Noah so that we too may find the same grace that Noah found.
Big Idea: How do we not miss the boat?
Big Idea: How do we not miss the boat?
Noah The Man Who built the Ark
When we think about all that has happened and we see that it’s Noah who found grace in the eyes of the Lord we must wonder why Noah? What set him apart? Let’s look at these next few verses to see why to maybe learn something from him.
He was a godly man (V9)
9 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.
This verse is key to understanding the flood and why grace found Noah. Noah was a righteous man. This is the first time the term righteous and blameless is used in the Bible.
Now remember that Noah is not perfect. It’s not that he wasn’t without sin and therefore not deserving of wrath. If we begin to take that stance then we quickly begin to belittle the grace of God
The word blameless here refers more to “whole, or complete” when tied directly with righteousness it can be read as, “moses was wholly commited to righteousness.”
It denotes to abstain from sin not to be absent of it. We see a similar phrase use from King David in 2 Sam 22:24 where he says “I have been blameless before him.”
Now how can a man who’s committed adultery and murder make a claim like that? Because although he is not absent from sin his desire is to pursue righteousness. And we see that when David does find himself in sin his reaction is always repentance.
And so it was also for Noah
He believed in God and took His Word seriously. There’s no indication that he doubted or was skeptical at all.
His faith produced in him a lifestyle that was so categorically different from his counterparts that he seemed blameless by comparison.
He was a man who walked with God and knew Him intimately. He didn’t merely know about God, he knew God and walked with him on a daily basis.
He and Enoch (Gen 5:24) are the only two men in the Bible who are specifically said to have walked with God and so this phrase links the two. Enoch who was saved from death and Noah who was saved from the flood because they “walked” with God.
He was a family man (V10)
10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Noah was married and had three sons who were also married.
This little genealogy serves multiple purposes
Introduces an idea we see in Acts 1 & 2 that we will discuss later in Chapter 9 of Genesis
Link Noah and his 3 sons with Adam and his
It is a foreshadowing of the destiny of Noah and his sons as the common ancestors of humanity
But it also shows us that Noah is the head of his household.
He was the spiritual leader of his home.
Not one word is ever said about the faith of his wife, or the faith of Shem, Ham, or Japheth or their wives.
When Noah entered the ark, his wife went with him. When Noah and Mrs. Noah entered the ark, their boys went with them, and their wives with them.
Scripture doesn’t say how much faith they had but they had to have enough to follow the lead of Noah. And Noah had enough faith to inspire all of them to follow his example.
That’s the power of a godly leader. Noah’s faith and leadership saved his entire family. In the grand scheme, it saved the entire human race.
He believed so deeply and obeyed so strongly and walked so intimately with God that it was only natural for his entire family to do what Noah did. They believed because he believed.
He was a unique man (V11-12)
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
There was a vast contrast between Noah and his generation.
The wickedness of this generation was beyond belief. There was praise given to the man who could do the most evil.
It was “corrupt.” That word means Rotten. Putrid. Foul. It had gotten to the point that it was unrecognizable from what God created. There was violence, hatred, abuse, murder, dishonesty, and every expression of the depravity of man.
And it was in all people.
And in those dark days there was one that was unique. Noah.
In an unrighteous world, he was righteous. In a world that walked away from God, Noah walked with God
He stood alone. Believing God, building the ark, always confident that God could be trusted and that the flood would someday come to the world.
He was an obedient man (V22)
22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
Imagine the cost
Can you imagine cutting down all the trees required to build something like this?
Maybe he hired it out but then imagine the cost
Imagine the time it must have took.
Imagine the food he had to store up to feed him, his family, and all the animals
Imagine the ridicule he must have gotten
Imagine the conversations he had with friends and family
It had to have cost him greatly but he didn’t waver. He did everything the Lord commanded
His faith was made whole through his obedience. He did everything the Lord commanded.
He didn’t do it halfway. He didn’t add anything to God’s word and command, and he didn’t take anything away from it. He followed the Lord’s Word to a T. He was an obedient man.
He was a bold man
5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
Noah is referred to as a “preacher of righteousness.”
Noah wasn’t just a man who knew how to build a big boat.
He wasn’t even just a man who let his life speak for him.
During the 120 years before the flood, Noah built the ark, lived a godly life, but he also preached righteousness to his own generation.
7 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 is in keeping with faith.
Noah believed what God said, then he built. In so doing he rejected the ways of the world. As a result, he saved his own family.
Noah was a righteous man who had great faith in God. And his faith, saved his entire family.
And ultimately, his faith saved the world
The Ark Noah built
13 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. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 16 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. 17 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. 18 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. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
If we were to condense this text down here’s what we see
a very specific design given in vs. 14-16
A very specific reason stated in vs 17
A very specific promise in vs 18
some very specific passengers in vs 19-20
With some very specific cargo in vs 21
Rather than going into great detail on each of these, I would just like to point out to us that there is nothing mystical here. Nothing accidental. It’s specific
It reads as a historical account of what actually happened
This isn’t a fantasy story that the Jews made up to teach a certain moral code.
It calls us to take Genesis 6 seriously and to conclude that God really did speak to Noah and told him to build an Ark because a great flood was coming. And all that God stated happened and on top of all of that He was in complete control the entire time.
The ark itself was large
The Hebrew text of genesis gives the measurements in “cubits” Usually = 18 inches
If that is true than the ark was 450’ long, 45’ high, and 75’ wide.
That means it was long and narrow. basically a floating barge
Various modern engineers have studied this and have concluded based on the design ratio, that it would have been incredibly stable and almost impossible to capsize
If we use the 18 inch rule and allow 3 floors inside the ark then it contained at least 100,000 square feet of floor space, equivalent of 20 full sized basketball courts. The total storage space would have been over 1.5 million cubic feet, roughly the capacity of 570 standard railroad cars.
That leads us to a question that we can’t really answer with any certainty but we can ask nonetheless and that’s: How many animals were really on the ark?
We know Noah was told to bring both male and female of all land animals but it’s a mistake to jump to the conclusion that Noah had to bring two of each species.
Genesis 1 speaks of created “kinds” of animals, a category that seem larger than every species.
Some scholars suggest the number wouldn’t have been more than 2,000. Others suggest as much as 16,000.
There’s a quote I found from the Christian Answers website that pads that number to 50,000 and here’s what it says:
Remember there are really only a few very large animals, such as the dinosaur or the elephant, and these could be represented by young ones. Assuming the average animal to be about the size of a sheep and using a railroad car for comparison, we note that the average double-deck stock car can accommodate 240 sheep. Thus, three trains hauling 69 cars each would have ample space to carry the 50,000 animals, filling only 37% of the ark. This would leave an additional 361 cars or enough to make 5 trains of 72 cars each to carry all of the food and baggage plus Noah’s family of eight people. The Ark had plenty of space.
There have been many studies done on this topic that offer many a detail. But let me just say that when the evidence is fairly considered, it is clear that the ark was large enough to deliver Noah and his family and the land animals through the flood safely.
So what we see is that once again, God was in control. He designed the ark in a way to provide everything they needed to survive and protect them from everything they didn’t.
Today’s Truth: In the “Ark” there’s protection and provision
Jesus, The Ark of Our Salvation
God judges sin:
Sin will be judged sooner or later. It is judged in this life through the suffering and pain we experience. And it is judged ultimately in eternity when the unrighteous are sentenced to everlasting punishment in hell. The flood stands as a stark reminder that no one gets away with sin forever.
Even in judgement God displays His grace:
Though the world perished, one man and his family were saved. God never leaves himself without a witness in the world. This truth saves us from despair when we see evil men rising to power and sin being praised openly. And it gives us great hope as we spread the gospel. Until the day the flood came, the door was open. Anyone could have entered.
Judgement will come when Jesus returns:
This is the point Jesus makes in Matthew 24 when he compares the “days of Noah” to the days before his return to the earth. There was total unconcern with even the remote possibility of divine judgment. Just as the men and women of Noah’s day did not believe him (or perhaps they didn’t even care enough to disbelieve him. Perhaps they ignored him altogether, which in many ways is much worse.), in the same way the world will have little concern for the possibility that Jesus will return and judgment will come to the earth.
The ark points to Jesus:
He is the “ark of salvation” to everyone who believes in him.
Just as the ark was provided by God, Christ was sent from heaven as a gracious provision for our salvation.
There was only one ark provided and it had only one door. God never said, “Make four or five arks and let the people make their choice.” And he never offered more than one door to the ark. Only one ark! Only one door! Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
The ark saved everyone who entered. And everyone who comes to Christ is saved. No one who comes to him in faith will be turned away (John 6:37).
The ark was a place of total security. No matter how high the waters rose, the people and the animals inside were safe. Let the winds howl and the waves crash against the side. Let the rain fall for 40 days and 40 nights. It did not matter. The ark was so strong that it preserved everyone and everything inside. And those who come to Christ find that they are not only saved, they are safe forever and eternally secure.
Once God shut the door, no one else could enter. This is a sad and solemn thought. While the door was open, anyone could enter and be saved from the coming flood. Once the door was shut, it would not be opened again until the flood was over. Today is the day of grace. The door of salvation is open to all who care to enter. Whosoever will may freely come. The invitation goes out to the entire world. God takes no delight in the death of the wicked. He delays the coming judgment that all may come to repentance (II Peter 3:9). But the day of grace will not last forever. Death comes to all men sooner or later. And there will come a time when the gospel call will end and judgment must begin.
Are you in the Ark of safety? Have you put your faith in the “ark of salvation,” Jesus?
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