Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.
– Genesis 6:9
Let’s go on a journey to the distant past in our mind today. We will travel thousands of years backwards in time, past Jesus, past King David, past Moses, and past even Abraham and land on the era where Noah lived. The world is still relatively new, having only had a few generations pass between the time of Adam and Noah.
There is no Scripture. There is no Bible, no Messiah, no hundreds of years’ worth of philosophy, thought and theology. There is no church, no crucifixion, nor Jewish or Christian faith. It is, for all intents and purposes, primitive in the sense that it is an early era. This is where we find Noah, a man that the Bible describes as a righteous man who was blameless in the midst of a world mired deep in corruption, evil, and violence. He walked with God and was the only one doing so faithfully since the Bible records that God saw fit to save only him and his family from the catastrophic flood that He planned to soon engulf the world.
Now, imagine yourself in this time period of early human history. Think about what your faith would be like removed from the Bible or the thousand years’ worth of history contained within its written words describing the miracles and experiences of the nation of Israel and the ministry and salvation of the Messiah named Jesus. Think about where your walk would be removed from the deep, enriching theological scholarship developed by men such as St. Augustine, John Owen, John Calvin, Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, and more. None of this exists.
And yet, Noah still followed God.
His faith did not have the tools of faith that we are fortunate to have today. His faith did not have the numerous eyewitness accounts of the miraculous events recorded in the Bible. His faith did not have the deep community of the church that encourages, guides and uplifts people in their pursuit of holiness and faithfulness to God.
And yet, Noah still followed God.
Not only that, but he followed God obediently even when God told him to build an ark in the middle of dry land. If you do a deep literary analysis of the Bible’s record of Noah building the ark and the text surrounding it, you can end up with a reasonable inference that it took Noah about 50-70 years to build the ark that he is famous for.
Would you have though him crazy too, following daily an order from an unseen God above for fifty, sixty, even seventy years?
I don’t know about you, but I think that’s an example of serious, single-minded faithful devotion! I’m not close to being fifty years of age, so I can’t imagine devoting that much time to a single project, much less a project that probably earned him years of merciless mocking and scorn from the world around him. Remember, the Bible records that the world was so littered with venal men who had strayed so far from God that God wanted to wash the earth clean.
How insane would Noah and his family look to these people that they were building an ark 450 feet long and 45 feet high in the middle of nowhere close to water? How nutty did they think Noah’s explanation was for building the ark: “God is going to flood the world so much that nothing on land that isn’t in this ark will survive”? Would you have though him crazy too, following daily an order from an unseen God above for fifty, sixty, even seventy years?
Noah’s incredible example of faith should inspire us to ask these questions because they’re serious questions to ask: Do you believe God? Do you think having faith in what the Bible says – including the birth, death and resurrection of Christ – is the looniest thing you’ve heard? Does your life reflect the same single-minded devotional faith to God like Noah’s? Are you loving God by following Him daily? Are you like the world or apart from it? Has God told you to do something as bold and audacious like building an ark, but you’re putting it off due to what people around you may think and say?
To all of these questions, I just offer one last thought and observation as we return from the distant past to this present time: As the rain fell upon the earth, Noah’s tireless faithfulness to God’s commands was the very thing that saved not just his life and his family’s lives and all the lives of the creatures that God sent into the ark, but also the countless lives that came afterwards, including you and I.
Image header © Paramount Pictures.
arkdevotionevilfaithfaithfulnessfloodGenesisNoah
Noah, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Others and Love God
January 23, 2015
Devotionals, Serious Devotion
Comments Off on Noah, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Others and Love God
Matt
Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.
– Genesis 6:9
Let’s go on a journey to the distant past in our mind today. We will travel thousands of years backwards in time, past Jesus, past King David, past Moses, and past even Abraham and land on the era where Noah lived. The world is still relatively new, having only had a few generations pass between the time of Adam and Noah.
There is no Scripture. There is no Bible, no Messiah, no hundreds of years’ worth of philosophy, thought and theology. There is no church, no crucifixion, nor Jewish or Christian faith. It is, for all intents and purposes, primitive in the sense that it is an early era. This is where we find Noah, a man that the Bible describes as a righteous man who was blameless in the midst of a world mired deep in corruption, evil, and violence. He walked with God and was the only one doing so faithfully since the Bible records that God saw fit to save only him and his family from the catastrophic flood that He planned to soon engulf the world.
Now, imagine yourself in this time period of early human history. Think about what your faith would be like removed from the Bible or the thousand years’ worth of history contained within its written words describing the miracles and experiences of the nation of Israel and the ministry and salvation of the Messiah named Jesus. Think about where your walk would be removed from the deep, enriching theological scholarship developed by men such as St. Augustine, John Owen, John Calvin, Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, and more. None of this exists.
And yet, Noah still followed God.
His faith did not have the tools of faith that we are fortunate to have today. His faith did not have the numerous eyewitness accounts of the miraculous events recorded in the Bible. His faith did not have the deep community of the church that encourages, guides and uplifts people in their pursuit of holiness and faithfulness to God.
And yet, Noah still followed God.
Not only that, but he followed God obediently even when God told him to build an ark in the middle of dry land. If you do a deep literary analysis of the Bible’s record of Noah building the ark and the text surrounding it, you can end up with a reasonable inference that it took Noah about 50-70 years to build the ark that he is famous for.
I don’t know about you, but I think that’s an example of serious, single-minded faithful devotion! I’m not close to being fifty years of age, so I can’t imagine devoting that much time to a single project, much less a project that probably earned him years of merciless mocking and scorn from the world around him. Remember, the Bible records that the world was so littered with venal men who had strayed so far from God that God wanted to wash the earth clean.
How insane would Noah and his family look to these people that they were building an ark 450 feet long and 45 feet high in the middle of nowhere close to water? How nutty did they think Noah’s explanation was for building the ark: “God is going to flood the world so much that nothing on land that isn’t in this ark will survive”? Would you have though him crazy too, following daily an order from an unseen God above for fifty, sixty, even seventy years?
Noah’s incredible example of faith should inspire us to ask these questions because they’re serious questions to ask: Do you believe God? Do you think having faith in what the Bible says – including the birth, death and resurrection of Christ – is the looniest thing you’ve heard? Does your life reflect the same single-minded devotional faith to God like Noah’s? Are you loving God by following Him daily? Are you like the world or apart from it? Has God told you to do something as bold and audacious like building an ark, but you’re putting it off due to what people around you may think and say?
To all of these questions, I just offer one last thought and observation as we return from the distant past to this present time: As the rain fell upon the earth, Noah’s tireless faithfulness to God’s commands was the very thing that saved not just his life and his family’s lives and all the lives of the creatures that God sent into the ark, but also the countless lives that came afterwards, including you and I.
Image header © Paramount Pictures.
Share this:
arkdevotionevilfaithfaithfulnessfloodGenesisNoah