The Home Church Podcast

Genesis Part 10 | Adult Bible Class

Genesis 6:8-22 The Pattern for Every Born Again Christian 1. Noah received the grace of God (6:8) 2. Noah became righteous by faith (6:9, Heb.11:7; 2Pet.2:5) 3. Noah lived blameless in his generation (6:9) 4. Noah walked with God (6:9) 5. Noah obeyed the commands of God (6:10-22)

Duration:: 39m
Broadcast on:: 27 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

thank you for listening to the Sunday school teaching ministry of pastor Luke Pollock at the Home Church of Lodai, California. You can get more information about our church and about starting a relationship with Jesus Christ at www.thehomechurch.net Our prayer is that this message from God's Word will renew your heart and mind today. We're going to talk about Noah's ark this morning. It's interesting how the account of Noah's ark has become perhaps the most iconic Bible story for children. I can't think of one really that would be more iconic for kids which is kind of interesting given that it's the destruction of all humanity and we're teaching our kids about that but I mean we even put a playground up out here at our own church the Noah's ark playground have a little picture to remind us okay and I'm I'll help her out here there we go there we go and we it's it's you know one of the reasons we have this ark out here is to create interest just of course to be a place for families to come and enjoy themselves which a lot of families do by the way just during the week we'll see random families just coming in enjoying this playground and and also create interest in the Bible because we have these we have the real ark facts out there that people can read while they're sitting there God has used that playground in many ways to to bless people even one of our new members recently said seeing that said as as a as a Jew I realize when we drove by here if they have a Noah's ark they must believe in the Old Testament over here so I think we could try going there and so and God has just done a great work through that through this playground it seems like everybody in the world knows the flood story to be honest with you I mean you can go anywhere it seems people know about the great flood even non Christians which you would kind of expect to be true if it's a true account in history you know a massive event like that that literally wiped out the face of the planet and every human being in it except for eight people would certainly be written down and remembered and when you look at the cultures all over the world you find similar renditions of the Great Flood in fact I've seen a list of over 200 different legends if you will of the Great Flood all over the globe Babylon has probably one of the most famous the oldest known recording of the global flood it's the epic of Gilgamesh from the 18th century BC Hawaii they have a legend of a flood a man named Nootu made a great canoe with a house on it and filled it with animals and in the story the waters came up over all the earth and killed all the people only Nootu and his family were saved interesting China one of the Chinese legends they explained that the flood was caused by an argument between a crab and a bird Fuhi his wife and three sons and three daughters escaped a great flood and they were the only people left alive on the earth and after the Great Flood they repopulated the world Greece there's more than one Greek flood myth actually but the the one that most likely corresponds with Noah Noah's flood is about de Calion who is told to build a chest to survive a flood and some men on some high-mountain survive also though when when you look at all these accounts and all these legends and myths all over the world about the flood you have to ask ask the question if a worldwide flood never happened then why are there so many stories about it why not a fire or an earthquake that destroys the world why a flood in so many cultures of the world beside creation this is the most cataclysmic event that has ever happened in history and I believe and I think it's pretty obvious that really all of these flood narratives or these flood legends and myths from all over the world really are just stories that have been passed down from the original Great Flood but just have taken different shape so we're gonna read the correct one we're gonna read the real one we're gonna look at that but before we dig into the details of the ark and the flood I want to take a look at the man at the center of this story because this is really incredible his name is Noah and because the reason we want to center in and kind of focus in on him is because scripture does God gives us some important information about this human being this amazing man and his family and rightfully so because all humanity living today comes from Mr. Noah and Mrs. Noah and so this morning I want to I want to show how Noah is an excellent picture of the truly born-again Christian and I'm going to show how I think he is the pattern for every born again Christian he is the pattern for every born-again Christian and it begs the question here if God were to do this today if God were to do something like this where he's gonna destroy the entire world would you be the one man or the one woman who escaped the flood who escaped that destruction are you a Noah of your generation now what do we first learn about this man in history name Noah number one that Noah received the grace of God Noah received the grace of God Genesis chapter six verse eight but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord now we discussed this first last week it says that Noah found grace it does not say that Noah earned grace you can't earn grace and as Noah surrendered to God in humility God gave Noah grace he gave Noah the power the strength that he needed and all Noah did was then just received that as a gift just as God will give grace to anyone who comes to him in genuine humility today they will find grace in the eyes of the Lord all you have to do is admit that you're a sinner and I'm in need of a Savior the whole world at that time pretty much was away from God and running away from God and living in evil but Noah was different he humbled himself and he said I'm a sinner and Lord I can't do this life and I can't do anything without you and so that he really was would make made him so different these people that he was living amongst were arrogant self-centered extremely wicked and totally out of control but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord there was something different in this man he responded to God in a way that was more similar to his grandfather Enoch and not like the people of the day and that's a lesson for us if as born again Christians we respond to God when we first come we come to him unlike most of the people of today and that's a and look at what we see next in verse nine these are the generations of Noah Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations and Noah walked with God there are three things here that are said about Noah and I think we all need to take them to heart the first one is that he was a just man which means righteous just means righteous he was a righteous man let's put it this way number two Noah became righteous by faith Noah became righteous by faith you see not only did Noah do righteous things as we're gonna see very clearly but Hebrews 11 makes it clear that he was righteous by faith look at Hebrews chapter 11 verse 7 by faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an arc to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith so it's not just that Noah did righteous deeds he certainly did but it's that he became heir of the righteousness which comes by faith his faith made him a recipient of the righteousness righteousness that comes from being a child of God now remember the writer of Hebrews in the New Testament which is a book especially pointed to the Jewish people the Hebrew people so when the writer wrote this he was showing by God's inspiration he was showing us that people have always since day one obtained righteousness in God's eyes the same way by faith it is a distortion of God's plan and the scriptures to say that following the Old Testament laws or doing good deeds could save a person that's never been that's never been how God intended it it's never how God wanted it to be and Noah is a perfect example of that it's always been we by faith we get the righteousness of God deeds alone do not have that kind of power to make us righteous enough to go to heaven you know the rabbis who came along after Moses created a system that God never intended a system of strict adherence to obtain righteousness but God said Noah and all these other people in Hebrews chapter 11 they obtain righteousness by faith it's not about all of doing all of those to obtain righteousness it's not something that's something God never intended so this is telling us that Noah's works proved that he had genuine faith which and faith is the thing that made Noah righteous in God's eyes so we don't look at Noah and we say wow what a perfect human being he was he did so many good things no wonder he no it was by faith he got the righteousness of God just like every born-again Christian and then we work out of that faith our righteousness but when we do talk about faith Noah certainly stands out among all the heroes of faith think about it Noah's faith is remarkable despite three things that we're always trying to cause him doubt and three things I want to just point out the length of time lack of evidence and loss of reputation think about it just for a minute length of time think of how long Noah had to work and wait to see God's promises come to pass Noah had to exercise faith in God's word alone for 120 years or at least 100 years God gave him the measurements of an enormous box and says start building the box and this means he had to drop plans by faith he had wondering you know all the while is this really going to happen he had to cut down hundreds and hundreds of trees by faith wondering if God was going to come through he had to purchase another tool hire another worker nail another board etc etc and he did all of this just because God told him to do it and God told him this was gonna happen that's it that's all he had he woke up every day for 43,800 days without any sign of anything happening but just believing that God would be faithful and just kept going kept going kept going kept going we complain when God doesn't come through for us in just a few days Noah is waiting the longer than all of our lifetimes and that leads us to the second hurdle that was the lack of evidence no one had ever seen rain Noah's mind couldn't even fully comprehend what God was going to do he had never seen what God was saying he was going to do so he just had to believe what he could understand in spite of what he didn't understand so he what could he understand he could understand God's word that was clear build a boat I'm sending I'm wiping everybody out and you're gonna want to be in that boat that he could understand and and that's the same thing with us have you ever had to believe in what you could understand in God's word in spite of all the things you don't understand yes we have to do that all the time like having to keep praying even when the physical evidence isn't there or keep trusting when the situation looks hopeless reminds me of this campus actually when I was thinking about that there is there was no evidence that a little church in Stockton could raise enough money to make this campus a reality debt-free there was no evidence of that it was only it was a vision it was just a vision birthed in the heart by God and faith is just taking God at his word and even when you don't see the end thank God it didn't take 120 years to build this these buildings but but like the ark this building and these other buildings here are being used to save souls praise the Lord and that's what God does with our faithfulness in difficult times as well he uses it he uses our faith if we'll just keep plowing on based on what we do understand he'll use us for something bigger than us and then Noah had the hurdle of lastly the loss of reputation you know Noah today has a great reputation because we're sitting here after the flood and we're seeing that he did the right thing but Noah had to spend 120 years being ridiculed as that strange fella down the road who's building a ginormous useless wooden box he you know you can't you when you know the size of the ark you realize you couldn't hide that in his backyard everyone knew he was building something gigantic and Noah's daily life was always connected to that thing and to the coming judgment of God everybody knew what's Noah gonna talk about today I mean he's his life is just around the judgment of God is built around that which people do not want to hear the Bible tells us that Noah was a preacher second Peter second to in verse five says and spared not the old world but save Noah the eighth person or the eighth person in line after Adam a preacher of righteousness bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly it calls him the Bible calls Noah a preacher the word preacher means herald his life and his words were a constant message to the wicked world geez God's gonna judge this place God's gonna judge this place I'm telling you every nail that he nailed was a what was a preaching of righteousness to the world which means if you're gonna do that and you're gonna live that way you have to give your reputation to God because nobody wants to hear it no one listened nobody listened to Noah other than his family and got in the arc we remember how evil things were back then and he probably had the liberals and the skeptics and the educated and the celebrities everyone against hair brained conspiracy theorist Noah how many jokes did he have to endure how much ridicule that he have to endure and also how lonely at times it must have been for him but how strong his faith was and this is why Noah's faith is an example for every born-again Christian he is an example to every born again we just keep going doesn't really matter what the world says it doesn't matter we give our reputation to God then it says to that Noah number three was he lived blamelessly in his generation we're gonna see that here again in verse nine Noah lived blamelessly in his generation verse nine and these are the generations of Noah Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations and Noah walked with God now this does not mean perfect in the sense of sinlessness Noah was not sinless he just sinned less we'll see some of his sin even after the flood so we know he wasn't perfect in that way it's not what it's saying the Hebrew root of the word perfect here involves the idea of completeness or blamelessness or without blemish those who knew Noah could not bring an accusation against his moral character he paid his bills he treated people with dignity and fairness he was a man of integrity Noah was the same at home as he was in the world Noah lived by God's moral standards and that's maybe largely what this is really talking about this is this word righteous and perfect these words have to do with being straight and following the standard that God has set God or Noah lived by God's moral standard not what society's norms were at the time that's what everybody was doing every society and every culture has their norms and has the people the the level that people think well this is fine to do this is fine to do that wasn't how Noah lived Noah lived according to God's standards he not did not live like the vast majority of the men of his day and he was virtually alone in all of this and that's what the phrase in his generations means that's what it's telling us Noah's righteousness and his blamelessness stood out against the sinfulness of his generation and every generation of Christians has to deal with a whole new set of cultural issues and no matter where you are in this world we have things that we have to deal with but we live blamelessly in our generation that's what we're called to do Noah wasn't self-righteous about all of this he just lived life according to God's standard and everyone else while everyone else was living by their own pleasures and pursuits and it's the kind of life that gives us the platform to preach Noah was a preacher of righteousness a clean life does so much for our message the further our culture gets away from the things of God the more we have to graciously uphold the standards that God has set no matter if if people get on board or not we also see that number four Noah walked with God like his grandfather Enoch Noah walked with God look what it says again in verse number nine these are the generations of Noah Noah is a just man and perfect in his generations and Noah walked with God this is where Noah's power came from this phrase walked with God is only used of two of the Old Testament patriarchs Enoch and Noah that's it there was something about these two men and their closeness to God that was very special it was daily it was a walk it's how the Christian life is meant to be lived it was there is something so relational about their closeness to God again this is why Noah is such an example to us today that is how our lives ought to be this is exactly what it's all about walking with God every single day and then there is one more theme of Noah's life that I want to point out that is number five Noah obeyed the commands of God Noah obeyed the commands of God we're gonna hop down to verse 22 now Genesis 6 verse 22 thus did Noah according to all the God commanded him so did he this phrase is used a total of four times for Noah that he obeyed all the God command he did according to all the God commanded which is that that just tells me that that's something that God really wanted us to take notice of about him he just did what God told him to do he did what God told him to do he did what God told him to do four times no Noah just simply did it he didn't complicate things he just simply followed God's directions that he had speaking of following directions I heard about a doctor who decided to put one of his overweight patients on a diet he said I want you to eat regularly for two days then I want you to skip a day follow this pattern for two weeks and come back to see me after two weeks you should lose five pounds got that eat two days skip a day so two weeks later the man came back for his appointment he had lost 20 pounds the doctor was amazed you lost all that weight just by following my directions and the man said well yes I'll tell you what though I thought I was gonna drop dead on that third day though and the doctor said why from hunger and he said no from skipping all day it takes you a minute but you're getting it most of you yeah I don't think Noah got that literal okay but he did according to all that God commanded him do what God says just do what he says these these these that's what a Christian does these are the kind of people that God can use on this earth and that's what was so special to God he's just a person who did what I said those who read their Bibles and just get to work but we know that Noah had a job to do that no one else has ever had to do so let's look now at the rest of this chapter here starting in verse 10 and let's just talk about what God told Noah to do verse 10 and Noah begat three sons Shem Ham and J. 5th we'll talk about these guys later verse 11 the earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence again we talked to a lot about what was going on in the world at Noah's day last week how bad things were I think it's unimaginable really but notice this time the mention of violence this is where human nature will go if left to itself it makes me think of Haiti right now if you're keeping track of that a little bit you if you were to go to Haiti today you might have a fraction of what was going on in Noah's day right now in Haiti there's no real government they're trying to reestablish something but it's very difficult the country is pretty much now run by rival gangs there is complete lawlessness violence is out of control and guess who's paying the heaviest price women and girls it is absolutely horrendous in Haiti right now and when we look around and see the needless violence against the most vulnerable people in a society it's absolutely despicable and it's no wonder when you see something like that you realize okay God now I see why you need to send a flood now I get it it's on a grand scale all over the world this was happening and it was just completely out of control verse 12 and God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt which means ruined or destroyed for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth verse 13 and God said to Noah the end of all flesh is come before me for the earth is filled with violence through them and behold I will destroy them with the earth now we cannot understate how enormous this statement is complete destruction of the entire earth and all the people you know we don't know again how many people were on the earth at that time I have seen scholars estimate it from a hundred million to one billion to seven billion even we just don't know how many people were on the earth so what's Noah supposed to do then in this situation where God is going to destroy everybody verse 14 make thee an ark of gopher wood rooms shout out making the ark and shout pitch it within and without with pitch arc build an arc make an arc arc means box literally in the most literal sense we don't know what the exact shape was it didn't have to sail all it had to do was float it wasn't gonna go anywhere unless God took it somewhere some some say it was more of a square bottom and others think it might have been shaped more like a typical boat shape those who visited the ark and counter in Kentucky we have a picture here know that they have just taken the words of scripture and and given us as a visual of what it might have looked like they've tried to go very as close as they could to the dimensions found in scripture and it's huge you can see the little tiny people down at the bottom it is just absolutely enormous and God tells that we see in this verse to make this ark out of gopher wood now the word gopher here is just a transliteration of the Hebrew word gopher G-o-f-e-r and so we don't know what kind of wood that was that that when you see something like that in scripture where they just take the Hebrew word and just say all right we'll just use an English word that sounds like that Hebrew word because we don't know what it means and so that's what they did we don't know what kind of wood this was perhaps cypress some say cedar and then God says in the verse to make lots of rooms in that arc remember at this point Noah doesn't know what these rooms are for yet I mean he's just feverishly taking notes of what God's saying and not asking any questions probably but he's just saying okay God rooms all right then God says pitch it within and without with pitch the word for pitch in Hebrew is copher which is equivalent to the Hebrew kafar which is to cover and in the noun form it literally means a covering so it was probably some tar or resonance substance to help make sure that it was water proof but amazingly I want to tell you this this is so amazing it's the it's the regular Hebrew word for atonement it's the same word that is used in Leviticus and many other places in the Old Testament where where God is saying he's using this word as a covering for our sins in essence this is so what we're talking about then is this moment right here in scripture with Noah is the first mention of the atonement in the entire Bible what we're saying is that this pitch was the perfect covering for the ark to keep out the waters of judgment just as the blood of the lamb provides the perfect atonement for our soul and actually the ark pictures Jesus and his salvation in so many wonderful ways and I'll try to bring up more of that as we go along God then gives Noah the size of the ark verse 15 and this is the fashion which thou shalt make of it the length of the ark shall be 300 cubits the breadth of it 50 cubits and the height of it 30 cubits the people of ancient near East they had a few standards of measurement width between the outstretched arm that was one form of measurement the length from the elbow to the middle finger is a cubit the width from an outstretched thumb to the little finger that's a span and the length of all four fingers in a closed hand that's a hand breadth the cubit was not ever standard standardized but there are two basic lengths 18 inches or the royal cubit which is 21 inches so if we take the more conservative number we have the physical dimensions of the ark at around 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet this makes that the ark as long as a 30 story building is high there never been a wooden boat built that large and and now of course with with steel they make ships even larger like the Titanic but you can tell looking at a 747 plane just how small that is compared to the ark Henry Morris said that the dimensions of the ark were ideally designed for both stability and capacity it has been shown hydrodynamically that the arc would have been practically impossible to capsize and would have been reasonably comfortable even during violent waves and winds the dimensions and by the way I also read that the ratio of the ark's length to width was six to one and that ratio is well known in naval design for stability I mean this is God you know Noah didn't know naval designs for stability of boats you know he wasn't interested in all that stuff God says no you make it exactly how I tell you you're going to be fine the ark's proportions were carefully balanced to meet stability comfort and strength and in fact the ark's proportions that God gave were very similar to modern cargo ships today not only that but the ark was certainly big enough to do the job if the ark carried two of every family of animals then there were about 700 pairs of animals but if the ark carried two of every species of animals then there were about 35,000 pairs of animals that's 70,000 animals the average size of a land animal is smaller than a sheep though there's a lot of animals that are smaller than sheep and some are larger so the average is about the size of a sheep so the ark could carry about 136,560 sheep in only half of its capacity leaving plenty of room for people food water and whatever provisions were necessary the ark was plenty big verse 16 a window shout out make to the ark and in a cubic shout out finish it above and the door of the ark shout out said in the side thereof with lower second and third stories shout out make it window the word window in Hebrew is probably means literally an opening for daylight most scholars think that the window was a one-cubit opening that extended all around the ark circumference near the roof so it would be provision for light to come in and also much-needed ventilation with all those animals inside and presumably there was probably a parapet which provided enough covering to keep out the rain with the roof over it there was one door and one door only reminding us that there is only one way to salvation only one way to salvation and three stories in inside there for all the animals and provision verse 17 and behold I even I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to just to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven and everything that is in the earth shall die something interesting about the word flood here is the Hebrew word mabool that's not the typical Hebrew word for flood the word is only used here and once in the Psalms when it was referring to this flood the great flood the global flood the point is that the global flood was unlike any other local floods it was going to be absolutely unique in all of history you know some liberal theologians trying to appease modern scientists try to tell us that Noah's flood was just a local flood and that a global flood is just unthinkable but there are many reasons that cannot be true not the least of which is the ark itself and if God is telling somebody to build an arc at this size and how huge and all of that and first of all why even build an ark at all if it's only a local flood God would have just said Noah go to somewhere else and you'll escape the flood you don't even need to get on the boat and here's a picture of what it would look like if we tried to believe scripture and what man would tell us and there that's that's ridiculous waters going over the mountains but it was only a local flood you had to build this gigantic arc for just a little local flood come on I like what Adrian Rogers said I don't believe in the flood because of archaeology or geology even though I could I believe it because of Christology Jesus believed in the flood Jesus said as it was in the days of Noah so shall it be also in the day of the coming of the summer man it was true to Jesus and that's enough for me then look at what God says in verse 18 but with thee I will establish my covenant and now shall come into the ark thou and my sons and my wife and my son's wives with thee God tells Noah I'm gonna establish a covenant with you God is giving a special promise to Noah and his family here and I'm sure by the way that statement right there had to ring and Noah's mind for all the way those hundred that hundred years and then after the flood and even during while they were on the boat especially because he was it probably brought huge comfort that we're not going to die on this boat I'm establishing a covenant he probably had to tell Mrs. Noah listen honey I know we're feeling like we're about to die on this on this big boat but don't worry God said he's established a covenant he's promised he I promise he's going to make it make help us get through this not only that but this covenant also could also be part of the promise to send the seed of a woman to crush the serpent again we're meeting a God who keeps his promises all the way through he we might have been saying to Noah I'm not abandoning all of my previous promises God is reiterating here that I'm wiping out all of humanity but I'm keeping you alive so I can still keep all of my promises that I've made the covenant would now go through the line of Noah and here's what Noah would have to do verses 19 and 20 of every living thing of all flesh two of every sort that shall bring in the art to keep them alive with thee they shall be male and female the fowls of their kind caddles after their kind creeping thing on the earth after his kind two of every sort shall come unto thee to keep them alive at this point I can imagine Noah raising his hand for a big huge question all right God now I had now I really do have a question I got to stop you right there how am I going to get all of these animals to come on to the ark with me but notice what it says in verse 20 I love this shall come unto thee these these no they shall come unto thee I believe God worked miraculously here to bring the animals to Noah just as God programs migratory instincts into animals today he certainly would have no problem bringing those animals into the ark however God did it we're just amazed verse 21 and take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten and thou shall gather it to thee and it shall be for food for thee and for them research into low-tech animal care method shows that a small group of people could manage the needs of up to 16,000 animals effectively and there are simple systems and I think they were brilliant back then I think they had all kinds of inventions that Noah could have used to allow his small family to reasonably care for the thousands of animals that were on board no problem verse 22 thus did Noah according to all that God commanded him so did he next couple chapters are gonna tell us a little in more in detail of what he did and what the flood was like I want to just stop here because Noah just want to remind us he was obedient he did nothing halfway he didn't decide for himself you know I think I'll do two levels in the ark instead of three levels like God said or I think I'll use oak wood instead of gopher wood he's not that kind of a person he didn't question everything God said he didn't question if this well God is gonna be big enough or he didn't push back on God about all these animals he just took God at his word and just did it okay God you said to do it this way I'm gonna do it this way I'm gonna build this gigantic thing and these are still the kind of people that God needs this is still the kind of people that God's looking for the Noah's of their generation God doesn't maybe commanded you to build an ark but he's commanded you to build a family or build a life that preaches to a dark world or build God's church or build a legacy of godliness or build up the people around you we're all called to be Noah's today all of us every single one of us so don't complicate things read the Bible follow the Bible and let's do it by faith let's just walk with him by faith Lord we love we hope you enjoyed listening to the preaching and teaching from God's word today you can get more information about our church and about starting a relationship with Jesus Christ at www.thehomechurch.net from all of us here at the Home Church in Modai California thank you for joining us