Matthew 24:37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
Matthew 24:38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;
Luke 3:36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,
Luke 17:26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.
Luke 17:27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
Hebrews 11:7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
1 Peter 3:20 to those who were disobedient 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,
2 Peter 2:5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
(From a couple of Sermoncentral lessons) -All I will ever need to know I learned from Noah. One, Don’t miss the boat. Two, Remember that we are all in the same boat. Three. Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark . Four, Stay fit. When you’re 600 years old someone may ask you to do something really big. Five, Don’t listen to critics, just get on with the job that needs to be done. Six, Build your future on high ground. Seven, Speed isn’t everything, the snails were on board with the cheetahs. Eight, When you’re stressed, float awhile. Nine, Remember the Ark was built by amateurs, the Titanic by professionals. Ten, No matter what the storm, when you are with God there’s always a rainbow waiting.
This is the fifth lesson in our Genesis series. This afternoon the groups will study about Noah together from Genesis 6-9 about how when sin got so bad God started all over. This morning let’s look at some New Testament statements about Noah and consider how God used Noah’s faithfulness as an example for us today.
Noah’s name occurs 8 times in the New Testament. He and his wife and three sons and their wives were the 8 people God chose to save when He wiped out everything that had breath in it by a flood.
The first two times Noah is mentioned in the New Testament is in Matthew 24. Jesus is explaining when Jerusalem will be destroyed and when will be His coming. Look with me at verses 35-42.
35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
Noah is an example to remind us to be ready for the Lord’s return.
Nothing motivates us to be careful like a strong anticipation of Christ’s return. I remember in elementary school when the teacher would leave the room and tell us to behave until she came back. Miss Sibley, my first grade teacher, would warn us to be quiet and work on something until she got back. She would warn us that if we weren’t quiet, we’d lose our recess. As a first grader, I’d rather die than lose recess! She would walk out that door and within minutes the noise of talking would rise and paper wads would begin to fly, and I would be miserable just knowing we were going to miss recess! I was one of the few that took her seriously.
2 Peter 3:1-13. Noah and the flood is a reminder to be ready for the Lord to return. We’d do well to take God’s word seriously. A strong awareness of Christ’s eminent return keeps us walking in God’s grace and helps us find favor in His eyes.
The next mention of Noah in the New Testament is in Luke’s genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:36.
It is popular among theologians to see the first 11 chapters of Genesis as mythical. None of the biblical authors of the Old or New Testaments understood them that way. In fact, Noah’s name mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in Luke leaves us with a huge dilemma if we take him as anything other than a historical figure. Either Noah really lived and his story in scripture is based on a historical event or Jesus human ancestry is at least partially myth.
Noah here in the line of Jesus reminds us that God’s words are true all the way back to the beginning. God created this universe and He placed man here on planet earth just as He told us. When God saw the wickedness of men reaching a certain point He destroyed all human life with a flood. God’s wrath against sin was expressed by a flood. But in the midst of God’s wrath against sin, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah stood alone in his faith and above the crowd. He and his family were saved by God’s grace even as God poured out His wrath on the rest of humanity. And God provided a way to bring His Son Jesus into the world as Savior through Noah.
Luke 17:26-27 mentions Noah twice and tells the same story as Matthew 24, but in a bit of a different context.
Let’s go to the sixth mention of Noah in the New Testament. That is in Hebrews 11:7.
Here as Hebrews lists great heroes of faith, we find Noah as the third model of faith after Abel and Enoch. Noah listened to God’s warning of things not yet seen. There had never been a flood before. God tells Noah that He will destroy everything that breathes on earth with a flood. Then he instructs Noah to prepare a very large boat to save his family and pairs of all the animals. What do you suppose all the guys down at the lumber yard thought of Noah’s big boat project?
Noah was a man of faith in God’s word. God was telling Noah things no one had ever seen before. God was preparing Noah for a terrible day of judgment and wrath so that Noah and his family could be saved. Noah had to do something that made no sense to anyone around him. He had to stand out in the midst of a generation that rejected God’s will. He couldn’t just go and privately live his faith, God called Noah to build an ark.
How important is it for you to be acceptable among those around you? What happens when you are in the midst of peers who are not walking with God. Do you hide your faith? No one wants to be mocked. No one that I know of, wants to be seen as weird. Some people would rather go to hell than be weird.
When you walk with God among people who are not walking with Him, you will probably look weird. The question is, can you do that? Are you willing to stand with God when it means standing with a very few? Recently a group from Minnesota wrote a letter to our local school warning them to stop having public prayer at beginning of ball games. What surprises me is not that such a letter be written, but that it would have such power as to stop prayers from being led at the beginning of the games. Heath Smith has begun a sort of campaign to get people to exercise their right to pray at the next homecoming football game here on Signal Mountain. His vision is for the field to be filled with people who will come down on the field after the game for a prayer. He has spoken with our elders about it and has asked me to reach out to the area churches to support it. That’s an activist way of responding to this.
You know, it is one thing for a huge crowd gather on the field for prayer, but it is quite another thing for only a handful to do so. Which would be more like the faith of Noah?
When Jesus explained what the kingdom of God is like, He often used little things that grew. When Paul described the power of God to the Corinthians he said that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God.
Noah had to look past the culture and his peers and the pressures to conform to the world around him. He had to look up and live by a different standard. And because he did, God chose him. He found favor and grace in the eyes of God.
Our last two references to Noah in the New Testament both come from the pen of Peter. Noah is mentioned in both of Peter’s letters. 1 Peter 3:20 is a passing reference, the days of Noah, and the passage is a bit mysterious in that Jesus is said to have gone to proclaim to the spirits of the disobedient who were in the days of Noah. For whatever else this means we are reminded again that only a few were saved.
The last reference to Noah is 2 Peter 2:5. Here Noah is one example among several to show that God knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.
Here Noah is called a preacher of righteousness. We don’t have any other reference that explains when where or how Noah preached righteousness, but we only that he did. This means again that Noah did not hide his faith. He did not concern himself with fitting in with the world, but with turning the world back to God.
When God began again with the human race, He chose a man of righteousness who could make a stand and be willing to stand out even against the tide of his time. Noah is a great example of faith during times when wickedness seems to prevail. Who will be like Noah today? Who will dare to be different for the cause of Christ? Who will find grace in the eyes of God in a world that saturates itself in pleasures and selfish pursuits?
