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
boys had to live 3 times longer than the average father of their day
without children just to keep the ark child free. It is hard to look at
these facts and escape the conclusion that there are times when family
planning is definitely God's will. That is what Jesus was getting at in
Matt. 24:19 when he said, "How dreadful it will be in those days for
pregnant women and nursing mothers." He was warning Christians
not to have children just before 70 A. D. when they would have to flee
the judgment of God on Jerusalem. Like Noah, they were wise if they
postponed their family until after the storm. A time of judgment is
never a good time to become a father or a mother.
Noah fathered the 3 fathers who fathered the human race all over
again, but on the ark he was the only father in the world. Can you
imagine babies and toddlers on the ark? These little creatures will
gag at the sight of good food, but then go and drink the dog's water
and lick the cat. They will stick every dirty thing they can find in
their mouth. With several thousand animals around it would be a full
time job just in life saving prevention. God spared these 4 couples
from parenthood, for on their survival the whole future depended.
There is a lot we don't know, of course, about what kind of father
Noah was, but we have strong evidence that Noah spent a lot of time
with his family.
If you read Gen. 7:11 you will see that Noah was in the 17th day
of the second month of his 600th year of life when the flood started,
and in 8:14 we read that he was in the 27th day of the second month
of his 601st year of life when the flood was over, and he stepped out
onto dry land. That means that for 1 year and 10 days Noah was
locked in with his family without monopoly, checkers, or a stereo.
They were a busy family caring for their zoo, but they had plenty of
time to be with each other. It was a family group of 8 people. It was
the only small group in the world, but it was enough. All anyone
really needs is to be a part of a small group of loving and caring
people to be a healthy and happy person.
You do not have to be popular, famous, or successful in the eyes
of the crowd, but you do need to be a part of a small group where you
are loved and accepted, and that is what they had on the ark.
Everybody in the world was in their small group supporting and
encouraging one another as they rode out the world's worst storm.
Now you might object that Noah had no choice in the matter. He was
forced to be with his family and not off selling souvenir miniature
arks to the masses who would come to see the strange sight. It was,
no doubt, the tourist attraction of the world, and Noah could have
made a fortune. He could have become a workaholic neglecting his
family, but the evidence clearly reveals that Noah spent time with his
family even before the flood forced them into the ark.
Look at these amazing facts. Noah was a great man of prayer.
He is linked with Daniel and Job as the 3 great intercessors of the Old
Testament, and yet he could not by prayer save a single soul outside
of his 3 sons and their wives. Noah's father Lamech died just 5 years
before the flood, but Noah had brothers and sisters alive, but as their
oldest brother he could not persuade them to join him in the ark. He
preached for over 100 years and did not win a single convert. He had
tree cutters, carpenters, and helpers of all kinds, but as their boss he
never won a single one by his authority.
As a preacher and a prayer warrior, and as a brother and a uncle
Noah could not save a single person. All of his success in saving
people was as a father. By his role as a father he saved his sons and
their wives. His greatest success in life was as a father. Had he failed
as a father there would have been no future. His boys were old
enough to be independent of Noah, and like the rest of his family and
the community could have told him to go jump in the lake. But they
did not do so. They were a close family, and so we see the evidence of
Noah being a father who spent time with his sons, and he won their
love and loyalty.
Many fathers, when their family is grown up, realize that if they
had to do it over again they would have spent more time with them.
It goes so fast, and this opportunity to love the children while they are
children is gone before you realize it. The wisest fathers in the world
are those who somehow get an insight into the value of spending
quality time with their children. Children know how much you love
them in proportion to the amount of time you spend with them. H.
Thompson wrote,
Look at him!
He spends time as if
He were a millionaire!
It's golden sands he heaps
Upon his children as if
They were his heirs.
Awake! Do you not know
The problems of the world await?
Whence thy puritan pride?
Work does not wait nor time or tide!
I gaze upon him to despise
But turn and envy, yea greed, and surprise.
For he spends time as if
He were a millionaire.
Here is a man who knows a good investment when he sees it.
Noah invested in his boys, and the payoff was that he saved the world
and became, not only the best father of his day, but the father of the
future. By his fathering he made possible a future of the human race.
One good father in a wicked world was all God needed to save the
future of mankind. Good fathering is one of the best investments any
man can make in the future. Noah could have made a fortune, and he
could have had the biggest house in town. He already had the biggest
boat, but he could have given his life to the acquiring of material
possessions, and none of it would have made it into the future. But he
invested in his children, and they became the future. All of us are a
part of history because of this one father who gave time to his family.
We are not here just because of our own father. We are here
because of father Noah, and because of his effectiveness as a father.
Had his three boys said, "Forget it dad. We are not going to move
into that stupid boat." That would have been the ultimate in birth
control and zero population growth, and the end of the world without
a miracle of God. But they did not say that. They joined together as a
family and rod the ark into the future-our future. One good father is
all it takes to have a future yet today. Invest in your children and the
future will be better.
The paradox is that Noah was not the father with the large family.
Three sons was not a large family in that day. He did not even have
any daughters of his own. He was not unique at all in terms of the
number in his family. What made him unique was that he was
righteous in a wicked world. He gave his children a foundation in
faith. God chose him because he would assure that the future would
have people in it that worshiped Him and sought to know His will.
You can give your kids everything on earth, but if you do not give
them this kind of foundation in faith you can never be the best kind of
father.
We can assume that Noah had many of the common experiences of
fatherhood. It can often be a chore to raise kids. L. D. Stewart said a
man is not really a father until he has pulled his first Lincoln log out
of the toilet bowl. He had to pull an assorted variety of toys out of it,
and that is part of fatherhood. But all of the things you do to save
things from children and save them from themselves, are of no lasting
value for the future if you do not give them a foundation of faith in
God. Without an eternal perspective there is no ultimate future.
Noah was a great role model for his children, for he was able to be
the only man alive who remained faithful to God when his whole
culture was calling him a fool. That had to be hard, but he stood fast
and did not conform to the world for the sake of making it easier for
his family. The boys were likely teased by other kids in the
neighborhood. They were the non-conformists in their culture. It
would have been tempting to back away and tell God you could not
build the ark because it was too much pressure on the family. But
Noah obeyed God whatever the cost. "Let the world laugh and
humiliate us, we are going to do the will of God." This was his
attitude, and by it he saved his family. Had they had a different kind
of father they would have perished with the rest of the world.
Here was a father who put God first in his life. He chose to be a
miserable minority going against the grain. His boys probably did
complain at times that it was very difficult to put up with the
mockery. Noah had to do a lot of encouraging to keep them faithful.
This is the hard part of fatherhood-the keeping children committed to
God's way when the world says it is folly. But a good father is one who
does not go by what is popular, and what the polls say, but by what
God says. He made it clear to his family that God's will was always
first for that family, and whatever the cost, that was the way they
would live. May God help each of us fathers have this kind of
commitment so that our children always know where we stand, and
commit themselves to carry this faith into the future. Noah was the
father of the future of all of us, but all of us fathers are the fathers of
the future of our children and generations to come until God ends
history with the coming of His Son to begin eternity.
