Vision - Noah

Vision - Noah

Seeing with the knowledge of your heart and soul

“Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.” What a powerful description of a man’s life….

That is the kind of quote I would like to have on my Spiritual resume. You know, the stuff they keep on file about you in heaven. We are going to take the next few weeks and look at some of our Biblical forefathers and their concept of vision. We are going to look for the signs of how important vision is in the lives of believers and how it should shape our lives.

Let me define the type of vision I mean. I am not talking about how we see with our eyes. Not the 20/20 stuff that most of us don’t have without correction of glasses or contacts. I am talking about Biblical vision, seeing with the heart and mind. We might say Spiritual vision, it is the ability to see and hear with something that God gives you. It happens with the gift of the Spirit. Some might call it discernment, the ability to understand things that others don’t always see or feel.

Most of us have already made up our minds that we don’t have any Spiritual vision. In a way it scares us and we are afraid that if it was true, EVERYBODY would think we were weird. Some doubt the gift and think that they need spiritual glasses to really see clearly. Most of us don’t believe what we feel and see and handicap the vision that God gives.

But, what is vision?

Phil Grant describes Spiritual Vision this way, he said:

A vision is the dominant factor that governs your life.

It determines all the choices you are making.

It’s what’s left after all the layers are peeled away like an onion.

Clinging like glue to the inside of your rib cage...

It’s what your mind naturally gravitates toward when it is not legitimately concentrating on something else.

It’s ... what determines your friendships and your relationships that you are cultivating ...

It’s what your prayers are about--what you dream about and are giving money toward.

Citation: Phil Grant, Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 3.

Mr. Grant seems to be describing an obsession. When a person is open to spiritual vision they become focused and live and breath in expectation of the vision of God. When they know God’s will they want to get in line with his work.

- From our scripture this morning we know that God was angry at how his creation was turning out. Corruption and violence were everywhere. It affected everybody except this fellow named Noah Zark. That is the way I have always heard it pronounced…Noah Zark. Well, Let’s move on.

So Noah heard from God. The scripture says, “God said” That sounds very direct to me. God told him what he thought about the world and that he was going to destroy man kind and t earth…

You know that Noah must have been a faithful man or perhaps polite, because he did not interrupt God when has days “Put and End to all people.”

All when God says it means ALL. An logically that includes Noah and family…But God immediately gives Noah the plan to build a boat, an Ark.

So, Noah heard from God and obeyed the Lord’s command to build an enormous ship. This was no little raft or row boat. This was a big; really big building…… it was bigger than any thing that would have been constructed on the sea at this era in time. The shear size of the project would have been astounding. Picture yourself building a boat the length of one and a half football fields and as high as a four-story building. The neighbors are going to think you went nuts.

When Noah started the project, he was acting out of faith in God. Faith in the promises that God offers to those that will obey his commands. That means that God would give all the tools necessary. Long life, raw materials, good health all needed to complete this fantastic undertaking.

Let’s look at his background. Noah, whose name means rest, was the grandson of Methuselah. Noah is said to be the connecting link between the old and the new world. He is the second great father of the human race. It wasn’t until Noah was 500 years old that his sons were born – they were Shem, Ham & Japheth.

He was known as a “just man, perfect in his generation,” and one who “walked with God”.

Noah was one of thoes guys that was probably a good neighbor. It appears that everybody liked him, he is said to be blameless among the people. Except for that one flaw, he is a little crazy, because he thinks that God told him to build a really big Boat. The building of the ark takes around 80 years… A giant boat the size of a decent shopping mall with 3 floors, build hundreds of miles from a body of water where it could actually float.