Mike
Scriptures Genesis 6 2 Timothy 3 2 Peter 3 Genesis 7: 11-16
The account of Noah and the Great Flood in Genesis is one of the most captivating passages in all the Bible. I suspect that most of us remember it mainly as a Bible story we heard in Sunday School when we were little children. We remember those flannel graph images of Noah with his long white hair and flowing beard; the image of that huge boat he built called “An Ark.” We remember the images of the animals that came two by two into the Ark.
But the account of Noah is far more than a children's Bible story. It is a true-life account of God's fierce judgment against sinful humanity. Noah was a real person with a real family, the Ark was a real structure that took around 100 plus years to build. The flood was real, it took the lives of every living thing that lived in that part of the world.
In Genesis 6, God sees that there was great wickedness in all the earth, men’s thoughts were continually evil. The sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore them children and they became mighty men of renown, and the earth was filled with violence.
Adultery and fornication would have been widespread, the marriage relationship, that God established in the Garden of Eden between one man and one woman, deteriorated to the point that the marriage vows were no longer held sacred.
God was greatly grieved that he had made man on the earth, but still allowed over 100 years to establish an ark for their survival, sadly this did not happen and God destroyed them from the face of the earth.
But doesn't this describe the conditions of our own day and time? Conditions here on earth are really bad and growing increasingly worse with the passing of time. We have agreed to have same sex marriages in New Zealand. Human trafficking and child pornography are widespread in the world today, with governments that want to legalise abortions and allow the uncontrolled use of cannabis.
But do we actually realise that what is going on in the world today is eerily similar to life on earth in Noah's day? Seemingly life is normal, the sun is shining, the markets are good, interest rates are low, the majority of the world's population is going about its daily routine business with absolutely no thought about Eternity.
Once it started raining it’s too late!
I had often wondered why God shut Noah and his family in the Ark. I cannot start to consider the change in the mood of the people when it started to rain, the first couple of hours it may have been funny but as the waters rose the joke was over. The hatred and violence towards Noah would have been incredible, people would have been all over the Ark trying to get in and Noah’s humanity would have wanted to open the door.
Noah was instructed to build an Ark for his preservation and that of his family, and we too have a blue print to construct our own Ark. Not built by our own hands, but by faith in the One who laid down His Life for us, Our great Creator and Redeemer. As Noah walked with God, he listened to God, just as we must listen to God as we walk with Him. Jesus Christ is to us today, what the Ark was to Noah in his day.
Remember, there was only one door, only one way to enter the Ark, and for us, Jesus is the door to sheepfold, the only one Way to enter.
Remember, the Ark was made of wood, just as the Cross was.
The Lord told Noah to put pitch on the inside and outside of the ark. The Hebrew word for pitch is “kaphar” and its definition is; “to cover, to purge, to make an atonement, make reconciliation”. Just as Noah was reconciled and atoned by the sealing of the Ark, in like manner the blood of Jesus is our cover, our atonement, the One that has reconciled us back to God.
The pitch protected the people inside, making it water-tight, and it is the Blood of Jesus that applies the pitch to our lives and protects us from the events of this life.
The deluge of water, at that time, represented the judgment of God, but it was the same waters that carried Noah to the new world, where God had prepared a place for Noah and his family when the Ark settled.
Jesus said He is preparing a place for us at His return (John 14:3).
Noah’s ark was visible, it was huge, but how do we make our Ark visible? Jesus tells us that, as we walk with Him, we must abide in the Vine, so that we can bring forth Fruit. It is the Fruit of Holy Spirit that makes our Ark visible, people will see this Fruit even when they don’t see us going through the oil press of Gethsemane that crushes and moulds our life into the vessel that our Lord would have us be.
Prayer: Dear Lord God, guide our steps as we walk with You, that we may follow Noah’s example, and enter into our Ark, bought for us by our Saviour with His precious Blood. Amen