(delivered in a gruff but loving manner of a dottery old man)
My name is Noah, the son of Lamech, who was the son of Methusaleh, and he in turn was the son of Enoch…
Now there was a man for you. Enoch. Walked with God he did. They say that one day he and God were out walking and God said: "Enoch, we appear to be closer to my home than yours, so why don’t you come on home with me?" Enoch, now there was a man to pattern your life after.
Enoch was the son of Jared and Jared was born of… born of… Now don’t tell me. Jared was the son of… Mahalalel.
Always had trouble with that name: Mahalalel. Never could figure out why anybody’d ever name their boy Mahalalel.
Anyway, Mahalalel was the son of Kenan and Kenan was born of Enosh, Enosh was the son of Seth… and of course, Seth was the third son of Adam and Eve.
Ah, the stories I could tell you about those men, the books I’ve read. We had books back then before the flood. A few of them made it over on the ark.
Now, some of those men were good and some weren’t so good, but… well, you didn’t come to hear about all that, now did you? You know when a man gets to be 900 years old he begins to ramble on a bit.
Don’t mind if I sit down do you? My legs get tired. You know, this getting old isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
So, what you want to hear about? Oh… I know, I know. You want to hear what everyone else wants to hear about. I go to visit my boys, Shem and Ham and Japheth and their kids gather around and it’s always the same thing - "Grandfather tell us about the flood." Every time it’s the same old thing. I try to put in details they haven’t heard before but they never seem to tire of having me tell it. I swear that when I die - all anybody gonna remember about me is "Noah and the flood… Noah and the flood."
I was a young man then. A mere 500 years old. Back then, there were 2 branches to the family of Adam. There were the descendents of Cain... Now Cain, there was a mean one for you. Never could figure out why God let him live... But then, it doesn’t pay to go arguing with God - it doesn’t turn out to well in the end. Anyway, Cain’s descendents turned out to be a lot like him. Arrogant, self centered, vain. If there was anything evil to do, they thought of how to do it.
Then there were the children of Seth. At first they were good people. Worshippers of God. Those people knew how praise God the way it ought to be done.
But then, well, the children of godly parents married - ungodly. And before you knew it women were sleeping with husbands that weren’t their own. Men were sleeping with men. Sacrifices that had once been grain or animals were replaced by those of human flesh. And probably the worst of it was the babies. If people didn’t want their babies, they left them to die along the road.
(sigh) But I don’t want to say anymore… don’t want to shame myself. It was an evil time and it seemed that even the thoughts of the people always dwelt on impurity and violence.
Hard to raise 3 boys in that kind of atmosphere. Shem, now he was my oldest. Then there was Ham, my 2nd born. And Japheth, he was my youngest boy. They were good boys, those three. It was hard to raise them right in that evil world. It was harder still finding 3 wives fit for them to marry.
I suppose what saved us was that - I loved my sons. I stressed to them God’s faithfulness and power and mercy and love. Even after they were married, we met regularly to worship. We’d offer up sacrifices, sing praises to God and bow our faces to the dirt in prayer.
But, no one else seemed to do that. They all thought it was a waste of time.
One day, out in the fields I heard the voice of God. I don’t know how I knew it was God’s voice - I’d never heard it before. But He said to me: "Noah I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I’m surely going destroy both them & the earth."
Build me an ark 300 cubits long, by 50 cubits wide, by 30 cubits high. …
Oh, I forgot, you folks probably don’t even know what a cubit is, do you? Well, a cubit was the distance from a man’s elbow to the tip of his fingers. But then you don’t need to know what a cubit is to know that was one BIG boat. Three stories high and longer than a field of grain.
I was a builder then. I built houses, chairs, small boats. You name it, if it was made of wood, I could build it. But still… I’d never took on anything quite this big before. Wasn’t sure I could get it done. But like I said… doesn’t pay to argue with God.
Besides, down deep the depth of my bowels, I knew He was right. This was a wicked generation and something had to be done.
But to destroy every man and woman on the face of the earth, that was a terrible thought. I knew it was going to fall to me to warn those people of the coming judgment. I went into the surrounding towns… visited people’s homes, went as far off as I could manage. Talking to anyone who’d listen. Told them God had spoken to me and was going to flood the land and destroy every living creature that breathed upon the face of the earth. Maybe… if they’d repent, He’d stay His hand.
But you know what they did? They just laughed at me. While we were building the boat, people’d come from miles around to watch as we built. Some people would travel several days’ journey. It got to be quite a tourist attraction. They’d all stand around making fun of us, telling jokes, throwing stones at us.
Didn’t matter though. The Boat had to be built… Still we had to work the fields. Had to supply for our families. It took nearly 100 years to build that ark. But when it was finished… best work I’d ever done. I have to admit - at 1st I didn’t think it could be done. Didn’t believe anything that big could ever float. But I tell you, when it was finished, I knew no water would ever get inside that boat.
A week before the flood, God gathered birds of every kind, every size every shape and every color. Then there were massive elephants, graceful giraffes, lumbering bears. Slow moving tortoise and slothes. (pause) I kept telling the rabbits: "only two, only two."
God brought to us 7 of every clean animal and 2 of every unclean. Now, you might ask, what was the difference between the clean and unclean animals? The short answer is that the clean animals were the only ones God would accept as sacrifices.
When all the animals and all my family were inside - God shut the door (pause). I can still hear the creaking of the hinges and the sound of the door as it locked into place. It had the sound of… finality.
And then it began to rain.
And it rained, and it rained and it rained. After a while you could feel the boat lift off the ground and float free in the water.
People I knew and loved were outside that boat. One of them was my grandfather Methusaleh. When I warned him of the coming flood, he just laughed. He said he was too onery to die (pause). No, he wasn’t too onery to die… he was just too onery. Too sure of himself, too disrespectful of that which was holy. In the end - he died just like the rest. (long pause in grief). I loved that old man. (long pause) (see apendix at the end of the sermon).
Inside the ark was like Garden of Eden. Every imaginable animal was there.
And the smell? Well, there was a smell. But you know, it wasn’t all that bad. Kind of got so I liked it. It was the smell... of life. Many of the animals slept most of voyage – hibernation I think it’s called. Those that didn’t became like close friends. They would follow us around. The birds - they were my favorites. The birds would light on my shoulder. Nuzzle my neck. The Parrots and Minaw birds were perhaps the most fun – you could get them to talk.
Well, it wasn’t all a pleasure cruise. There was work to be done, animals to feed and clean up after. Minor leaks to fix. A couple of the boys didn’t do real well on that trip. Seasickness. Cleaning up after Shem, now that was a mess. He eventually got used to the motion of the boat, but until he got his legs under him… it wasn’t a pretty sight.
I suppose the journey would have been fairly hard except for one thing… God was there. Even when He wasn’t talking to us – and He did talk with us – you knew He was there. You could feel His presence and you could sense He was watching us.
Good thing too. That was a long time to be on a boat…even one that size. Love my boys tho’ I did - they could get old after awhile.
Forty days it rained. Then it was, goodness, 4 months till the flooding subsided and the boat settled onto the side of the Mts. of Ararat. Then it was another 3 months till you could see tops of the mountains.
At one point, I wanted to see if water receded enough so that we’d have an idea of how much longer we’d need to wait on the ark. So I called on services of my friends the birds. I was particularly fond of one of the ravens. So I took him and went up to the top of the ark, opened the window and let him go. And he flew off across the face of the waters. When he finally came back, he lit on the roof of the ark – and there he stayed. Never could get him back into that boat. I had to feed him regularly from the windon. He’d stay for a while and then fly off again for awhile before he returned.
After a few days I wasn’t sure he was doing the job I wanted done, so I went back down and chose another type of bird. A dove. I took him up to the top of the ark, opened the window and let him go. He flew around for awhile and then came back, lighting on my hand and I brought him back in. We waited another 7 days and I took him again to the window and let him go. He stayed away longer that time… didn’t come back until evening. But when he came back, in his beak… he had a freshly plucked olive leaf.
That night we had a celebration. We laughed and we sang and we danced. Mother made a meal that was finer than any she’d ever prepared. And then on the 1st day of the 1st month of my 600th year, we removed the covering from off of the ark. From that time until about 2 months later - we slept beneath the stars.
Then God called us out of the ark. We left the ark – me, my wife, my boys and their wives, and all the animals with us. And I built an altar and made sacrifices… And God smelled the sweet aroma and vowed - never again would He flood the world. And he set the rainbow in the sky. Never saw one before, but it was the most beautiful thing I believe I had ever set my eyes upon. And God promised that everytime He would see that rainbow, he would remember His covenant with us and even though the land be filled with wickedness, He would never flood the earth again.
You have a prophet named Peter – a follower of Jesus. He said that one day scoffers would come deliberately ignore the flood. They’d try to explain it away.
Fools, I was there, I saw it, I lived through it.
Your prophet said that when those scoffers would come they would: “deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” 2Pe 3:5-7
Peter also wrote: that Christ preached through me to the people of my day… "who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also-- not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, (I Peter 3:20-21)
Who’d have tho’t God would have used water to destroy world because of its sin and then He would use it as a means of saving men from their sins.
You know, it doesn’t pay to go arguing with God. He’s a patient God, but His judgment will not be held off forever. Just like as in my day, when God shut the door, there was no way to enter the ark. And when the day comes for His final judgment – the day of repentance will have passed you by. The door will have closed and you won’t be able to enter. Don’t make the same mistake those of my day did. Listen to God’s warning and accept His way for your life.
APPENDIX: Regarding Methusaleh. If you do a time-line of the lifespans of the early Patriarchs, you find that Methusaleh died in the year of the flood. Whether he died BEFORE the flood or IN the flood isn’t made clear. I’m presuming he died IN the flood and only because he refused to heed the warnings of Noah. I admit however I may be wrong and I will gladly apologize to Methusaleh if I meet him in heaven.
OTHER 1ST PERSON SERMONS
A Centurion’s Story = Matthew 27:50-27:54
The Night Of Darkness = Acts 12:1-12:19
My Name Is Noah = Genesis 6:1-9:17
A Burning Conversation = Exodus 3:1-3:6
