Genesis (15) (The Ark of Salvation)
Text: Genesis 6:9-22
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Text)
Now when I read that passage; my mind goes to the words of Jesus in the New Testament where He said, “As in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.” Now maybe that’s because we’re doing our study of the Book of Revelation in the evenings, or maybe it’s because I look at the state of the world today and I see a lot of corruption and wickedness. Now some people look around and say, “Oh it’s really not that bad, we’re no different than any time in the past.” Now I agree and disagree with that statement. If you say it’s not that bad, then maybe you and I have a different definition for wickedness. If you say we’re no different than generations past, then in a sense, I would agree with that. We just read how the people of Noah’s time were wicked. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Joel all said they were in a wicked generation. John the Baptist said he lived in a wicked time. The apostle Paul said he was living in an evil age. Now during all of those times there were people openly sinning – doing things like murder, and theft, they were practicing immorality; government officials were corrupt. But the reason behind all of these things… something we often overlook, was that there was a prevailing lack of faith in their societies. Let me clarify that; there was a prevailing lack of faith in the one true God. But as we look at this passage in Genesis chapter 6 we are reminded that God isn’t apathetic about what’s going on here on earth. Now to us who are Christians, that’s an encouraging thing – knowing that God is going to take care of it.
So as we look at our text here; and we look at the first couple of verses, we see how Noah is contrasted with the people of his day, and the lesson from verses 9 & 10 is that God is a God who sees and judges. God not only sees and judges wickedness, here God sees and judged faithfulness. When we read verses 1-8 we know that God’s judgment is coming and its going to come in the form of punishment. But in verses 9 and 10, God sees Noah’s faithfulness in contrast to those around him, and His judgment is favorable to Noah.
And what’s cool here; at least to me, is that we’re given the character of Noah. We’re given the character of this man, and again it’s in direct contrast to the world around him. 1st off, he’s described as a just man (some versions say righteous), and what that means is that Noah was willing to conform to God’s standards, not only in how he relates to his fellow man, but in how he relates to the Lord. He was fair and faithful. Next it tells us that he was perfect in his generations (again some translations say blameless here). To be perfect or blameless in this sense doesn’t mean that Noah was without sin. In-fact; when we get to chapter 9 we see Noah sin. What this means is that Noah was a person who desired with all of his heart to glorify God. That’s something I would say is lacking in the Church today; a desire to make the glory of God known. You know; probably one of the most beloved stories in the Bible is the story of David and Goliath. It’s one of the first stories parents tell their children, and I bet everyone here knows this story. But we wouldn’t even have that story if there hadn’t been a shepherd boy who was concerned with the glory of God. Today though, how often do we hear someone, maybe in person, maybe on the news, and they are dogging on God, or Jesus, or Christianity, or the Church; and we just kind of shrug our shoulders and don’t do or say anything.
Anyway… Noah is described as just, and blameless, and if we go on in verse 9 it says he walked with God. Now we’ve already talked about that when we talked about Enoch. It means that Noah had an intimate relationship with God; he was living in communion with God – he wanted to do the things that God wanted him to do, he wanted to live the way God wanted him to live. Noah wasn’t pretending to be religious, he was a man whose walk matched his talk. This is the kind of person Noah was. And we might look at this and say, “How in the world could Noah be that way, when all the world around him was so corrupt and sinful?” The answer to that question is found in verse 8. Noah was able to live for God, and serve God, and he had a heart for God, because God had grace upon him.
So Noah walked with God, and in walking with God, he was out of step with the world. But remember; God is a God who sees, and He sees the faithfulness of Noah, and because of this God chooses Noah to be the one who carries on the promised seed of the Woman. Now there’s so much here that we could camp on it for the next few months and not cover it all, but the main thing we need to see today is that God is sovereign. It’s God who chose Moses, it’s God who had grace upon him, it’s God who delivers him and saves him from the flood.
So God judged Noah faithful, but as we all know, God also judges against wickedness. And this can come in different ways. Paul tells us in Romans 1 and 2 that sometimes God’s judgment against wickedness is to confirm that wickedness. In-other-words, God doesn’t always turn a people that have set their face towards wickedness. He allows them to go on deceiving themselves, and the result is that sin multiplies and ends up destroying itself and the person who is committing it. And that’s a type of judgment. In-fact I would say it’s probably the most common type of judgment we see in our world today. We see it in individual lives, and we see it in societies as a whole. We could say this is a passive type of judgment. God allows sin to run its course to its natural end. But other times, we see God’s active judgment. That’s when He sovereignly intervenes and brings a forceful, and often times visible judgment upon a people.
Verses 11 and 12 show us why this judgment is coming.
Now I want you to see something here. God is going to bring judgment upon the world, but in His grace and mercy, He has chosen Noah. Noah and his family are going to be spared this judgment. If we read on a bit, we find out that it’s 7 people in all who are saved from the flood. And what this show me, is that with God, the truth of a situation prevails regardless of majorities and minorities. Let me say this another way: it doesn’t matter how many people agree with something or support something, if it’s wrong, it’s wrong. PERIOD!
In this instance; the majority (who knows how many hundreds of thousands, maybe millions) were wrong and seven were on the side of God. When God says something is right, or wrong, you stand with Him in that matter. Regardless of what the majority says, and regardless of what the media says, and regardless of what the politicians say, or the psychologists, or teachers, or scientists, or whoever. To go against God in such matters is to say that you know better than Him. It doesn’t matter how emotional, or rational, or forceful their pleas are, YOU STAND WITH GOD!
The biggest complaint you’ll hear is that it’s not fair. It’s not fair that we forbid abortion, it’s not fair that we forbid same sex marriage, it’s not fair to the atheist to require prayer in school, it’s not fair to the communist to require the pledge of allegiance in school.
It’s not fair that so many died in the flood and only seven lived. Let me tell you something; it’s absolutely fair. In-fact, the only thing that you could complain about was that God was more gracious to the seven He saved than they deserved. It is absolutely fair and right and just for God to punish those who are in rebellion against Him. We hear the same thing when it comes to eternity don’t we? They say, “How could God possibly send someone to hell?” But that’s not really the question is it? The question is, “How could God, send a sinner deserving of hell, to heaven?”
And that’s where grace comes in – look at verses 14 – 17 (Read). Now its interesting, because the Hebrew word for “ark” here is the word “teba” it’s not the same word used for the Ark of the Covenant which is the Hebrew word “ron”. The word for ark here in Genesis is only used in one other place in the Bible, and that’s in Exodus chapter 2:3 where we are told of Moses’ mother placing baby Moses into a basket… an ark, a “teba.” This little box shaped boat would be used to save Moses from the destruction of the first born of Israel by Pharaoh, just like a box shaped boat – albeit much larger, would save Noah. See the ark wasn’t a ship that could navigate through the oceans. It was a rectangular flat barge shaped thing. And God tells Noah exactly how to make it, and in verse 17 He tells him why. Judgment is coming. But look at verse 18 – “I will establish My covenant with you.” In-other-words, God’s saying, “You know that promise I made about sending a Savior through the seed of the woman? Well I’m keeping it, and I’m through you Noah.”
You see; someone was going to survive this flood, because God had made a promise that He was going to send a Savior. A Messiah. A Redeemer. One who would crush the head of the serpent, and restore all of creation. So God had grace upon Noah; and He calls Noah, and He says, “Here’s what I want you to do, because here’s what I’m going to do.” “I want you to build an ark Noah, because I’m going to bring a flood.”
Now look at verse 22 (Read). See; Noah’s response to God was faith. The book of James tells us that faith without works is dead and unable to save. So think about this. If Noah had said, “Oh I believe in God, and I believe His word.” And then just sat on his rear and did nothing, he would’ve drowned just like everyone else. His profession of faith would’ve been found to be false. True faith is an obedient faith. That’s what we see here with Noah. And we see it over and over and over again in the Bible. Noah builds an ark, Abraham leaves all that he knows and goes to a place that God tells him, Moses stands up the Pharaoh – the most powerful man in the world at that time, David defeats Goliath, Solomon builds the temple, Esther stands up to Xerxes – the most powerful man in the world at the time, Jeremiah preaches for 40 years – knowing that no one will turn and repent, Daniel stands up to Nebuchadnezzar – the most powerful man in the world at the time, we could go on an on.
But how does this apply to you and me? How do we apply this to our circumstances and our situations, and our lives? Well in the NT Jesus only gives 3 explicit commands. The first one is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The 2nd one is to love your neighbor as yourself. And the 3rd one comes out of those two. If you aren’t doing the first two, you won’t do the 3rd one. Here it is: Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.
This is how we build our ark and invite others into it. So the message for us today is: Don’t just build a one man boat.
LETS PRAY.
