03 May 5/5/19 Genesis 6:11-22, 7:24, 8:14-19 “Noah, Build Me a Boat”
5/5/19 Genesis 6:11-22, 7:24, 8:14-19 “Noah, Build Me a Boat”
Today we are going to begin our look at Genesis. I will not be preaching on Genesis every week but we will come back to it often. Steve Kilson tells us the top 10 reasons to study Genesis and I will try to put them in the sermon if I remember. The 10th reason is when the pastor announces a new sermon series on Genesis and you have to check the table of contents to see if it is in your Bible. Obviously these are tongue in cheek reasons. I think that Genesis is an exciting book and it has many of the stories that we grew up hearing. We teach many of these stories today in our Sunday schools. They are timeless. I know that there are some churches that don’t teach out of the Old Testament. And I don’t know why that is because the Old Testament is the very foundation for Jesus. As a matter of fact we will see today how Jesus is alluded to in our story of Noah. Hopefully today we will be able to see just how relevant the story of Noah is to the people of today.
Wayne Burnet came up with 10 things that he learned from reading the story on Noah. I must be into lists of 10 this week. Anyway, #1. Don’t miss the boat. 2. Remember that we are all in the same boat. 3. Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark. 4. Stay fit. When you are 600 years old someone may ask you to do something really big. 5. Don’t listen to critics, just get on with the job that needs to be done. 6. Build your future on high ground. 7. Speed isn’t everything; the snails were on board with the cheetahs. 8. When you’re stressed, float awhile. 9. Remember the Ark was built by amateurs, the Titanic by professionals. 10. No matter what the storm, when you are with God there’s always a rainbow waiting. When we first hear these 10 pieces of knowledge, we think that they are kind of humorous. But if you look closely you will find a lot of truth in these statements.
We begin today with God saying that the earth had become corrupt and it was filled with violence. Everywhere he looked he saw violence and depravity. I know that the world’s population was smaller then but God could only find one righteous person in the world and that was Noah. Think about that for a moment.
I think that in today’s world we often like to look at how bad things are and that they are so bad that Jesus surely must be coming soon. After all, we have so many world religions that are absolutely false. We have huge chunks of the population that don’t believe that there is a God. We even have many Christians in name only that believe in other teachings that don’t come from the Bible. Many so-called Christians believe only the parts of the Bible that they can agree with. If you have listened to me over the weeks you know that I have mentioned many other ways that we don’t follow Jesus even when we think we are.
We also have a world full of wars and murder. We have people robbing people. As I said before, we have gotten to the point where we don’t feel safe anywhere. We have people starving other people to death around the world. We have women and children being slaughtered in many places. If we use the internet, we find pornography. We also find it on our TVs, on bill boards and just about any place you can think of. And we cannot shut any of this down because they have the right to show it. Well, what about my ‘right’ not to have this garbage shoved down my throat? Everywhere we look we see sin, more sin and even more sin. Our world is in pretty bad shape morally.
But I have a feeling that it is nothing compared to when Noah was here. We have many righteous people in the world today. You have many who live right in your own communities. But Noah was the only one in the world who was righteous. So God decided to destroy the world and all the people and animals with a great flood. Now the time may be coming when Jesus returns, but it may not be as soon as many people think.
One more thing before we leave this subject of living in a broken world. There many people who ask me when I think we will be coming to the end times. And my answer is I don’t know and I don’t think about it much. If we are as close to the second coming of Jesus as many people feel we are, then we should be out there ministering to anyone and everyone instead of talking about the end times. We need to get as many people as possible ready for Jesus. That is our job. I believe we should all be in Bible studies and things like that but if these studies are a replacement for action in the community, then you might want to forgo the study for another time. Jesus has a job for you!
The first thing that God does today is give Noah exact instructions on the dimensions of the Ark. Once again God is showing us that He has a plan. It is an exact plan. It is a plan of salvation. He is going to save the world through Noah. God does not do things that are not of His plan.
We may think that God must be asleep sometimes in order to allow some of the things that happen in this world to happen. But He is not. We are the ones who are asleep. It is through our sin and the sin of others that bad things happen. Too often we feel that just because we are good people, that we are entitled to a life free of trouble. We have talked about this before. Just how good a person are you? For instance, how many of the 10 Commandments have you broken this week? No matter who you are, you are a sinner. And God detests sin. Fortunately for us, he loves the sinners.
Once again God has a plan. Have you been fulfilling His plan for you? Noah obeyed God and built the Ark. Can you imagine the community reaction when he started to build a boat that was nowhere near water and that was bigger than a football field? He had to have been the laughing stock of the area. I bet people came from miles around just to see Noah’s folly. It probably took extra prayer every day to get the job done. And Noah did because he was faithful to the Lord.
I remember in my own life just a few years ago when I announced to the Post Office that I was quitting to become a pastor. Most people were cordial enough to my face, but I heard through the grapevine that many thought that I was crazy to leave such a so-called nice job after 25 years. But there was something deep down inside that told us we had to obey. And that was God talking to us, telling us that we had to obey Him. This is what we all have to do. What God is telling you may not be as dramatic as building an Ark or quitting your job. It may be something small like donating lights or an appliance to the church. Maybe God is telling you to tithe so that He will be able to bless you and others even more. Listen for that voice. Please develop a prayer life so that you can be aware of the good feeling that you get inside when you talk to the master of the universe. Then answer Him like Noah did.
As I mentioned many people think that the Old Testament is not relevant and only study Jesus in the New Testament. But as we continue to read about the dimensions of this Ark, we need to realize that God is about to change the world. Just as a little sidebar, it is important that Noah build this ark with three floors, one in for God the Father, one for Jesus the Son and one for the Holy Spirit. There is lots of symbolism here.
We can also see that God is a God of many chances. Just as we get many chances to come to Him in our lifetime, the people of Noah’s time had from between 80 and 100+ years to repent and join Noah. But no one did except for his family. No one came to believe until it was too late.
Unfortunately, we are a lot like this today. We feel that we can slide along in our sin and we will have plenty of time to know God later. We even try to justify our sin by saying that all people do it so it is ok. We try to change the wording of the Bible so that it will fit our decadent life styles. We miss the point. It doesn’t matter what other people are doing. It doesn’t matter if our life styles fit in with everyone else. It only matters what God sees and knows about us. If Jesus came back today, would you be ready? Would you be ready if you died this afternoon? Or would you miss the point or Noah’s boat in this case? Jesus wants everyone to be with Him so don’t delay because you will never know when it is too late until after you get there.
We need to remember that we have a God who is a God of His word. When He says it will flood, then it will flood. In the case of Noah, it lasted for 150 days. How many people of the world in those days wished that they could have had one more day? One more hour? This is probably part of their agony for eternity. How many people have you known that may be wishing the same thing? God will give you many, many chances to come to Him but there comes a time when He says enough and you die and go the wrong way. The choice is yours and yours alone. God doesn’t want anyone to go to Satan’s world but He will only give you so many chances.
Things were pretty bleak on the Ark. The world was covered with water. Don’t let anyone fool you by telling you this was an isolated local flood. All the ancient religions and civilizations of the world talk about a great flood. It happened and it was worldwide. Can you imagine what was going through the mind of Noah as he looked out and saw nothing but water? But he was a man of God that had tremendous faith in God.
God will not leave you in a flood. For those of you who know Jesus, you have the assurance that all will be well in the end. This story of Noah is the story of the ending of an age and the beginning of a new age of humankind. God is telling us here that when Jesus returns then all who don’t know Him are in trouble. And just like the people of Noah’s time who had 100 years to repent, we read in Revelation where the people will have opportunities to repent. God will keep on giving the lost chances as He does today. But there will come a time when once again, God will destroy the unbelieving world.
Now we read in Chapter 8 where the flood recedes and the Ark has finally landed. It landed on a new world. Nothing would be left to identify anything of what was there before. We can see this in the fossil record. Older things are layered above younger things as the flood mixed everything up. We find fossils of huge animals on mountain tops, where they had no way of getting there except by a flood. Everything has changed and Noah was the new Adam.
And everything will be all right for us in the end times. Whether they come next week or in the next hundred years, God is telling us today that we will be ok. He has promised us that He will raise us up in some fashion so that we will miss the terrible times of the end. Then He will plant us back on a new earth, a new place where we can live.
This is why I ask just about every week, “Do you have Jesus living in your heart?” Or “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior?” Now is the time to do it. Repent and ask Him to live in your heart. Don’t wait until it is too late like the people of Noah’s time did. Don’t wait because you do not know when your time will come and you must be ready at all times. So confess your sins to Jesus and ask Him to live in your heart as your Lord and Savior. You will never regret this decision.
As you can see this is a great story of hope. This is a story about how Jesus will take care of you. He loves you so much that He will do this for you. The challenge I would like to leave you with today is this. What are you doing to help those who don’t know Jesus? Is there someone that needs Jesus and doesn’t know Him? If you are uncomfortable about telling them about Jesus, you can ask me for help. Together we can come up with something.
We have seen today how Genesis ties in with the New Testament, especially Revelation. How Noah obeyed God, believed God and loved God. We saw how God rewarded Noah and his family for their faithfulness. I pray that you will read this whole story in Genesis and come away with much more than this because there is a lot more in there. Through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, God loves you far more than you deserve. Come to Him and obey Him in all things that you do. You will never, and I repeat never be dissatisfied with a life in Jesus. I praise and thank you, Jesus, for your love and patience. And thank you for first loving us. Let’s pray.
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