If Noah Were Here

11-8-04

If Noah Were Here...

Genesis 6:2-6:8

Nearly 6000 years ago there was a great man of faith called Noah.

Noah lived in a time of great turmoil and much confusion.

It had all began so beautifully as God had created man and placed him in the paradise known as the Garden of Eden.

But, oh how quickly the beauty and peacefulness began to disappear as sin entered into the picture.

From the lives of Adam and Eve, who knew the untouched innocence and beauty of God’s perfect creation, mankind had quickly fallen to the corrupted world of immorality that Noah lived in.

In fact, things had become so bad that God was sorry that He had ever created man.

Genesis 6:5-6 says, "And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

Genesis 6:2 tells us what happened to bring about this fall into absolute corruption when we read the words, "… the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."

The term “Sons of God” refer to those who, for a time, had chosen to have a form of religion where they would still recognize the Lord God, Jehovah.

Over a period of time man began to multiply and to fill the land.

As the number of people grew and each successive generation began to get farther and farther into sin, there was soon a large majority of the population who had totally forsaken God.

They had gone so far from God that there was no reaching them any longer.

They had no thought of God.

Their heart was only growing more corrupt with each passing day.

Living in a world of corruption took its toll upon those who considered themselves religious also.

Little by little, day by day, their religious beliefs were compromised, their faithfulness to serve God became weaker and weaker, their love for God was replace by a love of the things of this world.

Reading Genesis 6:2 gives us a picture of absolute immorality in the hearts of men.

Prostitution became the norm as Satan did his best to destroy the very design of God for one man to have one woman for life and create a family that would serve the Lord.

The depths of corruption, sin and immorality that man can ever reach down into are without limits.

Satan’s purpose is to drag every man, woman and child into those great depths of sin so that they will no longer have any thoughts of our Holy God and the great Creator.

Satan’s ultimate goal is always to destroy all of God’s creation.

But his greatest hatred and absolutely worst attacks are designed to come against all of mankind that is created in the image of the God that Satan hates.

His plan seemed to be working all too well.

At the rate that man was becoming more corrupt, it would not be long until Satan would realize his dream of stealing from God the one thing in all of creation that God loved.

You see, God created all things and called them good, but it was only man that God really loved for man was the only part of God’s creation that had the power of choice to love God in return and that possessed an eternal soul.

But God always has a plan of redemption and a remnant of those who will serve Him faithfully!

Into this sin blighted world of immorality was born a man who would be faithful to God in the midst of it all.

That man was Noah.

Noah came from a godly family.

His family is recorded in the Book of Genesis:

Enoch was his great-grandfather!

At the age of 65 Enoch had a son and named him Methuselah.

Enoch was translated into the very presence of God without ever having to die when he was 356 years old.

Methuselah, when he was 187 years old, had a son named Lamech.

Methuselah lived longer on this earth than any other man in the Bible, leaving this world at the ripe old age of 969.

Lamech, at the age of 182, had a son and named him Noah.

Then Lamech lived to the age 777.

Noah was a patient man and a godly man, staying faithful to the God of his fathers.

And did not have children until he was 500 years old.

That’s when he had 3 sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.

The problem was that the longer that man lived, the greater their moral corruption became.