IT TAKES FAITH (part four)
Hebrews 11:7
INTRODUCTION: Last week we looked at Hebrews 11:5-6 and the account of Enoch. The next verse in Hebrews talks about Enoch's great-grandson, Noah. As we continue our series on what it takes faith to do we'll see it takes faith to commit to the seemingly impossible.
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 comes by faith."
1) Noah was warned.
First we see that God warned Noah that the flood was coming.
Gen. 6:9-22, "This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it.
Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
Noah did everything just as God commanded him."
God chose Noah because he was righteous. And his righteousness was a result of his faith for it is faith that declares us to be righteous as the bible supports. Noah was blameless. He wasn't sinless but he was without a lifestyle of sin; he was above reproach. Noah stayed true to God when those around him weren't. This was because Noah walked with God; he was close to God. That faith and closeness enabled him to live righteously in an unrighteous world.
We see that God warned Noah of his coming judgment and told him what to do and Noah obeyed. When we have faith God will warn us of things. I think this is mainly seen in His Spirit pricking us about heading into a situation that would not be good or making a poor decision or engaging with certain people. There will be a feeling of uneasiness; a warning sign from God that something isn't right. We can ignore it and proceed or we can heed it and change our course of action.
Perhaps there will be times when God's warning comes and we have the opportunity to warn others. I believe Noah did that. 2nd Peter 2:5 calls Noah a 'preacher of righteousness'. Noah took the warning that God gave him and shared it with the people as he took to building the ark. People were going to be inquisitive as to what in the world this guy was up to. Noah had continual opportunities to share what God had divulged to him.
God may alert us regarding a situation someone else is dealing with and he wants us to speak to them about it. so we go to them and warn them that what they're about to do will not turn out well. And, as with us, they can heed the warning and avert a dangerous situation or ignore our intervention and suffer for it.
I've seen it happen where people have gone against my warnings and things turned out badly for them. I know I haven't always heeded the warnings I've received but the point is that God will give us warnings and when he does we need to heed them and perhaps even share them.
2) Noah was moved by holy fear.
This means Noah had respect and reverence for God and his word. His faith is what enabled him to trust in what God said. Noah's faith also enabled him to be obedient to what he was being told to do. His holy fear told him, "I believe what God said is going to happen so I better do what God has told me to do to prepare for that day."
I'm not sure how God had proved himself to Noah over the years but he developed this intense faith in God that enabled him to accept the impossible. It takes faith to believe the impossible and it takes faith to act on the impossible. Nothing like this had ever happened before. No one had taken on a project like this before. Noah is believed to have lived near the region of the Arabian and Syrian deserts. So it's quite possible that Noah was commanded to build an ark near a desert. Talk about having faith!
And Noah not only needed faith to commit to the project but he also needed to faith to stay committed for the duration. The length of time it took to build the ark isn't specifically stated but there was a 100 year span between the time Noah's first son was born to when he entered the ark. So since Noah's three sons were grown and had wives it is estimated that Noah may have spent roughly 75 years building the ark. I would say it takes faith to stay dedicated to the impossible for 75 years.
It takes faith to believe that the earth would be destroyed and that two of each animal species would make their way to the ark I've been called to build. Noah's faith allowed him to believe what would seem like an impossibility. Noah acted on the promise of what was coming. And that's all the evidence he had was God's word; nothing else.
For the entire time he spent building the ark we know of no further revelation or any sign given whatsoever that would lend credibility to God's original declaration. I'm thinking Noah may have had a pretty good idea when God gave him the measurements how long this project would take. 75 years is a very long time to stick with it. 75 years of fighting through people's criticisms; 75 years of being tempted to disbelieve; countless chances to get frustrated and throw in the towel.
God's word was all Noah had and God's word was all Noah needed. This was his reverent faith in action; staying true to the word of God. Trusting in the one thing he was given to go by; but it was enough to keep him dedicated for 75 years and beyond. Noah got a word from God and even though it probably didn't make any sense to him he acted on it. The fact that God had said it was all he needed to obey it.
Dr. Percy Ray was a church planter for many years with the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board. In the late 1940's, God told him to build a large assembly hall where Christians could gather. God told him to stand in the middle of the land in Myrtle, Mississippi, and start digging the footing for the 2,000 seat building. So, so he went out and started digging. Folks laughed at him.
That is until one day, a man came along and gave Dr. Ray a check to pay for the entire shell of the building; This man had been praying in Memphis, Tennessee, and God told him to ride down into northern Mississippi where he would find a preacher digging a footing for a building, and he was to give that man a large amount of money! Camp Zion stands today as one the great Christian assembly halls in America. Dr. Ray obeyed God, and the blessing came."
When we have that healthy fear that respects and reveres God and his word we will have the faith that believes and acts upon the impossible.
3) By his faith he condemned the world.
This doesn't mean in an authoritative sense; like he had the ability to render someone saved or condemned but this is talking about his words and actions. While Noah was building, he was preaching. He was showing the world his faith and by his commitment to the impossible he was giving the people the warning that God had gave him.
1st Pet. 3:20 says that God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. God waited patiently for the people to repent. God knew ahead of time that they wouldn't but I believe that's why God gave Noah a task that would take 75 years to complete-so the people would have plenty of time to believe.
By Noah's active faith in word and deed he was speaking condemnation on the world. He was proclaiming that God's judgment was on its way. The people had a choice to make: believe that this man building a huge boat in an arid place was really acting in accordance with the will of God or Noah was a crazy fool acting in accordance with his own misguided will.
God is no different today. The message of condemnation is there along with the message of salvation. And God is still patient. 2nd Pet. 3:9, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
Noah was patient while he went about the long grueling task of building the ark. I'm sure there were times when Noah just wanted this project to be done and over with. Maybe we feel like that sometimes when life seems grueling and laborious. Times where we want nothing more than to 'get this project over with' so we can go home. But we need to patiently continue our task, as Noah did, knowing that when we think the Lord is slow in keeping his promise he's really just patiently waiting for more to come to repentance. In light of that, when we're getting impatient with the Lord's coming we should pray that it be held off so that more lost souls can be saved.
4) Noah became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
Righteousness is possible through faith. Noah, and us, inherit the benefits of righteousness through faith.
Rom. 1:17, "For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith'."
Righteousness comes through faith, not by works, although it is accompanied by them because the righteous will live by faith; they will live out their faith through action. Noah may have had to deal with a lot of backlash for what he was doing and he may have had to deal with a lot of temptation to give up but I guarantee one of the things that kept it moving for him was his appreciation for the reward of being spared. Yes, Noah's fear of God's promise of watery destruction kept him true to his task but fear wasn't his only motivator.
Think about what must've been going through his mind as he contemplated the fact that the world was going to be destroyed but he was going to be saved. I can only imagine the gratitude that filled his heart. Perhaps as he imagined what the powerful and unforgiving waters were going to do to these unsuspecting people he thought all the more about the safety he would enjoy in the security of the ark.
I'm sure it also caused him much sadness. Knowing the world would soon perish caused him to grieve the lost. Since Gen. 6:9 says that Noah walked with God that means he was close to him; he shared his heart. I'm positive God grieved over having to mete out his judgments against sinful mankind but that's what his holiness demands. Noah's joy was mixed with grief as he carried out his work.
What about us? How often do we sit and reflect on the fact that we who are of the faith are among a select few? Jesus said in Matt. 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."
We need to grasp the magnitude of that and allow it to bring us to our knees in humble gratitude. Most of the people who've ever lived will not be going to heaven! I don't know what the exact ratio will be but when you're talking about the difference between a broad road and a narrow road and the difference between many and few you can get a pretty good idea.
Do we grieve over the lost? Are we like Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, who was often grief-stricken over the rebelliousness of his people? Are we like Jesus, who wept over Jerusalem? He wept over their unwillingness to come to him.
If we are walking with God, if we are living to emulate Jesus then we will grieve over what he grieves over. And we will rejoice over what he rejoices over. In Luke 15 Jesus talks about the rejoicing that goes on in heaven over one sinner who repents. When someone repents and is baptized do we rejoice?
It takes faith to be declared righteous. And faith enables us to inherit the blessings and benefits of righteousness; both in the rewards we receive from righteous living and from an eternity spent with Jesus. We are heirs of righteousness.
5) It takes faith to believe the impossible.
There are times where we will be faced with the same challenge Noah, and the people around him faced. Faith will demand believing in the impossible. Faith is what enabled me to move forward in what I believed at the time to be an impossible endeavor in taking over the sole ministerial role of this church. But when we meet our impossible challenges head-on, in faith, with an element of holy fear, we'll see impossibilities become possible.
That's what happened in my life and it can happen in yours too.
Noah obviously accepted a much bigger faith challenge than I did and it worked out quite well for he and his family. Even though there were 75 years worth of jeers from the naysayers, 75 years of second-guessing himself; second-guessing God's word to him Noah stood firm; he stood the test of time and completed his mission. And for those who said he was crazy, for those who said he was wrong, for those who chose not to believe-there would be condemnation when the flood waters came.
People criticized Noah's actions then and people criticize our spiritual actions today. People thought Noah was crazy for thinking God had told him to build an ark to get ready for a flood. People today think the story of the flood is a fairy tale; it never really happened. It sounded too far-fetched then; it sounds too far-fetched to some now.
And for the most part; we today still only have the only evidence Noah had-God's word. Yes, today there are some evidences of the flood but none without their counter arguments. We think we have aerial footage of the ark amidst the ice and snow of Mount Ararat. But the government of that region will not allow explorers up there to check it out.
There have been fossilized fish found in mountainous regions which begs the question, 'how did they get there'? We have the Grand Canyon which many purport to be evidence of the flood. It's believed that if the current land masses were pushed together a certain way they would fit together like the pieces of a puzzle; providing an argument that they was once one giant land mass until the flood separated them.
These all sound plausible but as conclusive as these things may seem there is enough there to leave room for doubts and counters. The main evidence we have today for the flood, and other biblical accounts that people want to conclude are just fables and stories, is God's word; his Holy Bible. And for those of the faith; that's really all we need to believe. I don't need all the other things I mentioned to believe that the flood actually happened. I believe it because I believe in the God who said it happened. And until someone can undeniably prove to me that the bible is false, I will believe everything that took place within its pages.
So we don't have to worry about those who reject or criticize what we know the Lord has asked us to believe or do. We just need to stay true to the task that we've been given and persevere until the end. The Lord will provide authenticity to his truth and what he has called us to do; he will silence the foes. We just need to have the faith that Noah possessed and continue to build our ark.
