Sometime ago, I received an email titled, “Everything I need to know, I learned from Noah’s Ark.” Here are some of the lessons noted:
1. Don’t miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all in the same boat.
3. Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark.
4. Stay fit. When you’re 60 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.
5. Don’t listen to critics. Just get on with the job that needs to be done.
6. Build your future on high ground.
7. For safety’s sake, travel in pairs.
8. Speed isn’t always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.
9. When you’re stressed, float awhile.
10. Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
11. No matter the storm, when you are with God, there’s always a rainbow waiting.
These are good and practical lessons for life, but I don’t think these are the lessons God intended us to learn from Noah and the flood account. After all, the context for Noah building the ark or the boat is one of God judging all of creation for the great corruption and wickedness of mankind at that time. Before we talk about the true lesson from Noah’s ark, let’s ponder whether the flood account was true.
You need to know that similar accounts of a great flood permeate many ancient cultures. The Babylonia account explained that gods brought the flood because they couldn’t stand the noise mankind was making. The Egyptians believed that the gods purified the earth by a great flood, and only a few shepherds escaped. The Greeks also had a tradition that told of gods bringing a great flood because of the wickedness in the world. The Chinese tells about Fa-He, founder of the Chinese civilization, who escaped the flood with his wife, three sons and three daughters. The Hindu, the Polynesian, Mexican, Peruvian, Native American, and many other cultures have similar flood stories.
Do you know why a flood account is found in almost all ancient cultures? Because a great flood really did occur. And one family of eight people, Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were the only ones to escape and to repopulate the earth.
Many scientists today conclude that the gene pool experienced a bottleneck effect early in human history. From one gene pool, mankind evolved to many gene pools, and then back to one small pool before evolving to the great diversity we have today. Why? The bottleneck effect came when the great flood narrowed the gene pool to one family: Noah’s family.
This account of the great flood is found in Genesis 6 and 7. Our text is Genesis 6:5-22.
You’ve heard the lessons from that email I read at the beginning. Let me tell you what I believe God wants us to learn from the life of Noah. It wasn’t about a boat, about staying fit or keeping safe. The story of Noah illustrates a life of obedience to God.
You need to know that Noah lived in a time far worse than ours. This week, someone stole some expensive music instruments and equipments from this sanctuary. Both the Lutheran Church and our church suffered loss. And then Eugene mentioned that his car was also stolen this week. As terrible as these occurrences are, they do not compare with what went on during Noah’s time.
I grew up in the inner city of San Francisco, and theft often involved violence as well. But San Francisco doesn’t compare with the corruption and wickedness of Noah’s time.
Nine generations, about 1,500 years of human history, had passed since the Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. Paradise had become a sewer. And that was not acceptable to God.
We don’t know a whole lot about Noah, what he did for a living, whether he was well off or poor. The Bible, however, tells us that Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. And he walked with God. In other words, he cared a great deal about his relationship with God. His goal in life was to live to please God.
Noah would tell you that his motive for being pure was not to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. His motive to be blameless was not to avoid being caught. His motive for being righteous was not to receive the applause of people. His motive for doing good was not to escape suffering. His righteous life incurred a great deal of ridicule and abuse by the wicked men and women surrounding him and his family.
When Noah heard from God, he didn’t know what to think. He was relieved to know that God would clean up the corruption and evil. He was glad to know there would be an end to the mistreatment by the wicked people. But Noah was also saddened by the thought that all his neighbors, his siblings and his grandfather would be drowned in the flood that God would soon send as judgment for mankind’s evil.
But he heard from God, and he had a choice to make. Either disobey God and perish with his ancestors, or obey God and save his posterity. Many of you had to make that decision when you heard about the salvation of Christ. You asked, “If I believe in Christ, I would be saved, but what about my unbelieving parents and grandparents?”
Many of us face the same dilemma, since rarely does the entire family receive God’s salvation through Christ all at the same time. I was the only believer in my family for almost twelve years. I made the choice to obey God and receive God’s salvation. Then I prayed for and witnessed to my family without seeing results for twelve years. But by God’s grace, my sibling and parents recently received Christ.
That was not the case with Noah. Noah obeyed God, yes. And as a result, he saved his wife, his three sons and their wives. Noah spent about 100 years building that ark. It was no small task for a family of eight and without today’s technology. And each day as he cut and gathered the wood and built the ark, Noah would warn his neighbors, his siblings, his father and grandfather about God’s coming judgment. But no matter how much he prayed, persuaded and witnessed, they did not believe.
Noah endured much ridicule and abuse for his obedience to God. I imagine that Noah’s neighbors did more than whisper about how Noah lost his mind. They would douse him with water each morning as he walked by and scream, “The flood is starting. You better hurry up, Noah!” Others would ambush Noah’s sons as they gathered food for the ark. “There goes Drip, Drop and Droopy,” the people would chide as they run off after giving the sons a good beating.
Noah was not angered by their persecution or their hardness of heart. He was grieved. Each night, he would gather with his wife, his sons and their wives and encourage each other to persevere in obedience to God. Maybe one of the reasons why God gave Noah his family was so that in times of discouragement, loneliness and grief, he could pour out his heart and receive mutual encouragement.
The cost of obedience to God is not cheap. We rarely get to choose how much we pay. Noah paid the price of obedience to God. Night after night, he and his wife, his sons and their wives would huddle together to pray and to bandage each other’s emotional and physical wounds.
One night, they huddled to pray, as they’ve done through the years of persecution and abuse. But this time, the prayer was different. It was no longer for relief from persecution or for the salvation of their neighbors and ancestors. This time, as the ark rocked methodically on the floodwater, Noah and his family prayed with gratitude to the God Who had mercy on them.
