The Father Of The Future Series

It is tough to be a father in this world where everything is changing

so fast. In Africa the custom of selling the bride to her future

husband has been challenged for sometime by Christian daughters.

They feel it is a evil custom to be sold like an object to the highest

bidder. They have organized protest groups, and Christian girls have

been defying their fathers and refusing to marry for money. The old

people try to frighten the young by saying, "Your children will be

born deformed if the price is not paid," but the better educated

younger generation are not falling for that scare tactic.

So you have fathers caught in a world of transition where the old

just doesn't work anymore and the new is so different that it is

frightening. Every father on the planet faces some of this tension, but

we want to look at the father who faced the most radical transition of

history. Noah saw the whole world of his day disappear, and he was

left as the only father on the planet. He had to begin a whole new

world with his family. No father in history ever carried a heavier

load of responsibility than did Noah.

Adam and Noah are the only two men in history who have this

distinction of being the only father in the world in their time. None of

the three sons who were near 100 years old had any children, and in

spite of a year on board the ark none of them became a father during

that long ordeal. This was clearly not a love boat cruise. We do not

know if they had some birth control method, or if God just closed up

their wombs to prevent any children being born on the ark. They all

had good size families after the ark landed, and so there was no

problem of infertility. So what we have here is an example of family

planning. Either by their own wisdom, or by God's providence they

postponed their families until the circumstances were favorable.

We read in Gen. 11:10 that Shem waited 2 years after the flood to

begin his family, and he was 100 years old. His descendants had their

children in their 20's or 30's, but he waiting until they were settled,

even in his old age. So we see that the whole issue of family planning

is based on the circumstances. There is no support for the thinking

that it is such an evil world to bring a child into that people should not

have children. If Noah would have thought that way, we never would

have heard of him, and he would not have become the father of the

future. Noah had children in the worst of times, for they were the

only hope of bad times better. There is biblical support for not

having kids because the world is evil. However, there is support for

not having children when there is grave danger, and their presence

would be a threat to themselves and the well being of their parents.

If you study the ages of the fathers in the Bible, you discover that

those who waited for the right time were often the best fathers. Older

fathers are not looked down on, but are heroes in the Bible. Noah is

the prime example. If you study chapter 5, you will see the record of

10 fathers who became fathers from the age of 65 for Enoch to 187

for Methusalah. But then you come to Noah who went for 313 years

longer than Methusalah to become a father. Noah was, to the best of

my knowledge, the oldest man in the Bible to become a father, and

the oldest in history.

I was just barely 21 when I became a father, and the majority of

people in our culture who become fathers do so in their 20's or 30's.

But here was Noah who lived 500 years before he became a father,

and each of his 3 boys lived to nearly 100 before they became fathers.

The end result of all this late fatherhood was that there were no

children on the ark. God is saying by His providence in this whole

matter that there are times and places where children are not a good

idea. They are the future, to be sure, but the ark was no place for

kids, and God saw to it that there were no kids in that dangerous

situation.

Today and all through history the ark and children have been

linked. It is probably the number one story for children, but God

prevented there being any children on the actual ark. Noah and his

wife had to live for a century without grandchildren, and each of the