The Ark Of Salvation Series

Genesis (15) (The Ark of Salvation)

Text: Genesis 6:9-22

By: Ken McKinley

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Now when I read that passage; my mind goes to the words of Jesus in the New Testament where He said, “As in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.” Now maybe that’s because we’re doing our study of the Book of Revelation in the evenings, or maybe it’s because I look at the state of the world today and I see a lot of corruption and wickedness. Now some people look around and say, “Oh it’s really not that bad, we’re no different than any time in the past.” Now I agree and disagree with that statement. If you say it’s not that bad, then maybe you and I have a different definition for wickedness. If you say we’re no different than generations past, then in a sense, I would agree with that. We just read how the people of Noah’s time were wicked. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Joel all said they were in a wicked generation. John the Baptist said he lived in a wicked time. The apostle Paul said he was living in an evil age. Now during all of those times there were people openly sinning – doing things like murder, and theft, they were practicing immorality; government officials were corrupt. But the reason behind all of these things… something we often overlook, was that there was a prevailing lack of faith in their societies. Let me clarify that; there was a prevailing lack of faith in the one true God. But as we look at this passage in Genesis chapter 6 we are reminded that God isn’t apathetic about what’s going on here on earth. Now to us who are Christians, that’s an encouraging thing – knowing that God is going to take care of it.

So as we look at our text here; and we look at the first couple of verses, we see how Noah is contrasted with the people of his day, and the lesson from verses 9 & 10 is that God is a God who sees and judges. God not only sees and judges wickedness, here God sees and judged faithfulness. When we read verses 1-8 we know that God’s judgment is coming and its going to come in the form of punishment. But in verses 9 and 10, God sees Noah’s faithfulness in contrast to those around him, and His judgment is favorable to Noah.

And what’s cool here; at least to me, is that we’re given the character of Noah. We’re given the character of this man, and again it’s in direct contrast to the world around him. 1st off, he’s described as a just man (some versions say righteous), and what that means is that Noah was willing to conform to God’s standards, not only in how he relates to his fellow man, but in how he relates to the Lord. He was fair and faithful. Next it tells us that he was perfect in his generations (again some translations say blameless here). To be perfect or blameless in this sense doesn’t mean that Noah was without sin. In-fact; when we get to chapter 9 we see Noah sin. What this means is that Noah was a person who desired with all of his heart to glorify God. That’s something I would say is lacking in the Church today; a desire to make the glory of God known. You know; probably one of the most beloved stories in the Bible is the story of David and Goliath. It’s one of the first stories parents tell their children, and I bet everyone here knows this story. But we wouldn’t even have that story if there hadn’t been a shepherd boy who was concerned with the glory of God. Today though, how often do we hear someone, maybe in person, maybe on the news, and they are dogging on God, or Jesus, or Christianity, or the Church; and we just kind of shrug our shoulders and don’t do or say anything.

Anyway… Noah is described as just, and blameless, and if we go on in verse 9 it says he walked with God. Now we’ve already talked about that when we talked about Enoch. It means that Noah had an intimate relationship with God; he was living in communion with God – he wanted to do the things that God wanted him to do, he wanted to live the way God wanted him to live. Noah wasn’t pretending to be religious, he was a man whose walk matched his talk. This is the kind of person Noah was. And we might look at this and say, “How in the world could Noah be that way, when all the world around him was so corrupt and sinful?” The answer to that question is found in verse 8. Noah was able to live for God, and serve God, and he had a heart for God, because God had grace upon him.