The Beginning and the End XX. Noah Did All That God Commanded Genesis 6:11 7:5

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Morris Rogers
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1 November 5, 2017 The Beginning and the End XX. Noah Did All That God Commanded Genesis 6:11 7:5 Dr. William P. Seel Easley Presbyterian Church Easley, South Carolina When we left off a few Sundays ago, God had just decided that He was going to blot out human beings from the face of the earth. The reason He had decided to do this was because the capital letter S Sin of turning away from God, which had begun with Adam and Eve in the Garden, had spawned a tsunami of little s sins so destructive that the very survival of God s Creation was being threatened. The thoughts of humankind had become only evil continually 1. This is that by-now familiar pattern we have seen in these early stories of Genesis: human beings up the ante on sin, and God responds with a judgment against that sin and a fitting punishment for it. But that pattern now highlights two new concerns as we contemplate God s blotting out of humankind. First, that the punishment this time is so comprehensive that we wonder how the human story can possibly continue after this punishment. And second, how then can there be a grace note in the wake of God s decree of destruction? Remember that the grace note is the third element in our pattern: Sin, Judgment but then, at the end, a small grace note from God that reassures us that He has not yet given up on the human creatures He has made in His image. With God just about to blot out every living thing on the face of the earth, where in the world, what in the world, can possibly serve as our grace note? The answer, of course, is Noah. Noah and his family. Earlier in Genesis 6, we read how when God looked down upon humankind, all He could see was that every intention of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. But then Genesis 6 states that when God looked down upon Noah, He saw something completely different: But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And then two more things were said about Noah: one, that he was a righteous man, blameless in his generation ; and two, that Noah walked with God. And this morning it is revealed to us that this good man Noah, who alone had found favor in the eyes of God, that this Noah and his family will be the grace note to this story of God blotting out humankind from the face of the land. In our passage, God speaks to Noah: For behold, I will bring a flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you... you, your sons, your wife, and your son s wives with you. In other words, here is our grace note. Humankind has become rotten to the core and God intends to blot them out but, Noah and his family shall be spared. And with Noah, his wife, his sons and his sons wives, God will start His Creation over again. God will restart the human story on the face of the earth through this one righteous, blameless, walkingwith-god man Noah.

2 2 Now I know we are all eager to Noah, and especially all the animals two-by-two, male and female, loaded up on the Ark I mean, that s our favorite part of the story! But before we get there, I think it is worthwhile, and Biblically responsible of us, to examine further Noah and his righteousness before God. Just how is it that Noah has come to receive God s favor? Especially given the fact that Noah did all this, was all this, during a time in which the culture around him had become thoroughly rotten. How was it that Noah could be so good in the midst of a world that had become so bad? The first thing we can gather about Noah from our text is that Noah listened to the Word of God. God speaks to Noah all through our story this morning God speaks and He speaks and He speaks. Noah, in fact, never says a word. Maybe he couldn t get a word in edgewise but far more likely that Noah was simply too enthralled with having God speak to him, too moved by the fact that he should so be so privileged as to hear the Word of God directed to him. God was speaking and Noah was all ears. It s one of my favorite verses in all the Book of Psalms Psalm 119, verse 105. The Psalmist is praising God for the gift of His Word, the gift of this light of wisdom and revelation spoken into the darkness of this world and into the confusion of our own hearts and minds. Oh, how I love your words, cries the Psalmist. He even calls the Word of God sweeter than honey to his mouth. And then comes that wonderful verse, verse 105: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. A lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Think about what that means, about what that is saying to us about the place of the Word of God in our lives. I m not much a fan of Twitter, but one of my favorite tweets comes from a very accomplished concert cellist named Matthew Barley. Barley was at the eye doctor to have his vision tested. While there, he sent out this tweet: Just walked into the side of a doorway at the eye doctor... guess that gives them some useful info. 2 That s us! I mean, we make a good show of having it all together, of having figured it all out, of knowing exactly how to proceed and where we are going confident, forward-marching, in control. When we all know deep inside that it s a bit of a put-on, an acting job, a pretense before others. Because when it comes to the things that really matter, the big-picture of life sort of things, most of the time we might as well be walking into the side of a door at the eye doctor s office. We are doing the best we can here, but so much of the time we re just guessing, just hoping we re doing the right thing, going in the right direction, making the right choices and setting the proper priorities. And then, in the midst of our darkness, we hear God speaking to us. We pick up our Bibles and start reading and suddenly the light is shining, suddenly there is a new clarity breaking in upon our muddled minds, suddenly insight and understanding take shape from out of our blindness. And that Word of God becomes for us a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Noah walked with God because God s Word revealed to him the right steps to take. Noah found favor in God s eyes because Noah kept his ears trained on God s speaking. Noah was righteous and blameless in his generation because He listened carefully to what God had to say. He listened, he took it in eagerly, He treasured those Words above all earthly words. And God is speaking to His people still God is speaking to you and me through His Word are we listening? Are our ears and eyes and understanding continually feasting upon that Word? Can we truly say that we are letting God s

3 3 Word be to us that lamp to our feet as we plot our way through this life, that light for our pathway as we step forward from day to day? Which leads, then, to a second way our passage describes the righteousness of Noah, how it was that he was blameless in the midst of an evil generation: Noah not only listened to the Word of God, Noah did as the Lord commanded. That phrase, Noah did all that God commanded him appears twice in our passage and it will appear several times more before the story of the Flood is ended. Noah did all that God commanded him. Noah hears God speaking to him, hears the Word of God and then Noah actually goes out and does what God has told him to do. Noah listens to the Word of God and then actually walks out the front door every morning determined to put into action everything which God has said to him. Helmut Thielicke, a great preacher from the last century, has a sermon in which he wonders whether all the celebrities who advertise to us that we should by this product, wear those clothes, eat these foods he wonders whether any of them ever really uses those products they are so earnestly endorsing. And having wondered about that, he then turns and asks his congregation the same thing about their endorsement of Jesus. Could it be said of us, he asks, that we actually are living by the teachings of the Jesus we claim as Lord and Savior and the Light of our lives? 3 And then there is our brother James, in his challenging little letter to the church, chapter one, verse 22 where he goes straight to the heart of the matter: But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Don t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like. 4 And then there is the word, the warning, of Jesus Himself: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 5 Noah listens to the Word of God instructing him to build an ark which had to sound as ridiculous to him in that moment as some of the other things Jesus has said seem to us: forgive the one who has hurt you, love your enemies, turn the other cheek and return evil with good, seek first the Kingdom of God. All of it so countercultural, so against the grain of this world, so contrary even to the thoughts and desires of our own hearts. But Noah did all that God had commanded him. Can the same be said of us? Can it at least be said of us that we are earnestly seeking, day by day, to be doers of God s Word, and not just hearers only? Which leads to one last thing our passage reveals to us about the righteousness of Noah, how he walked with God and was blameless in his generation: Noah did all these things, even in the midst of an evil age. In an age in which his actions were completely contrary to the world around him, Noah had the courage to go against the grain of the world, to swim upstream, to say no when everyone else was saying yes and to say yes when everyone else was saying no. Noah, in other words, lived his life solely for the eyes of God, seeking God s approval above anyone else s. Instead of living his life for the eyes of the world and the approval of his peers,

4 4 Noah lived for God, for God first, even God alone. Noah was the very epitome of Paul s challenging words in his letter to the Romans, chapter twelve: Be not conformed to this world. I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 6 It is human nature to want to fit in, to seek the approval of our peers. But Noah chose to live for God, according to God s Word, regardless of what it cost him, of what ridicule and rejection it might bring upon him. Noah was a man of courage, walking in the ways of God and not in the ways of everyone else around him. Noah dared to be different. Noah walked with God, conforming himself, not to the peer pressure around him, but to the Will of God. And so God brought him into and safely through the adventure of a lifetime. Presbyterian pastor John Ortberg tells this great story about the time he and his wife vacationed at a dude ranch in Arizona. Ortberg, who admits he knew little about horses at the time, agreed one morning to ride out with five of the ranch hands to move a herd of horses into a pasture about three miles away. He was excited this was not going to be some tame trail ride for tourists, this was going to be the real thing, real-live cowboy stuff! His excitement began to flag, however, when he met his horse for the day. He remarks that horses are often named according to some notable aspect of their temperament for example, if you get a horse named Pokey or Valium, you pretty much know what to expect. His horse was name Reverse, based on his tendency to go backwards anytime someone was foolish enough to pull on the reins. Ortberg says he made a mental note not to pull on the reins. The trip out to the pasture was uneventful. We dropped off the herd and were on our way back when one of the ranch hands decided to make a race of the return trip. His horse took off at full gallop and the other four immediately started racing to catch up with him. Reverse started to make his move. Instinctively, I pulled on the reins as hard as I could. Reverse rose up on his hind legs and took a few steps backward just as Silver used to do under the Lone Ranger and then took off like a bat out of... a cannon. For the better part of a mile, Reverse ran a dead heat (the word dead sticks in my mind). We were not sauntering or trotting this was all-out sprinting as in a scene from a movie. The five ranch hands were college-age guys who lived on horseback all summer long, racing their horses as fast as they could. Reverse and I passed four of them. I say Reverse and I, but the truth is, he was doing most of the work. I was just waiting to die. I was looking in the adjacent creek bed for the rock my head would split against once I was thrown off. Exodus 15:1 came to mind: I will sing to the Lord,

5 5 for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and ride he has thrown into the sea. While I was pondering how Nancy would spend the life insurance policy, the strangest thing happened. I realized there was a good chance I would survive this, and then it became one of the most exhilarating moments I had all week... For a few moments I was completely captivated by a single activity. All I could hear was the pounding of Reverse s hooves; all I could feel was the rush of the wind in my face and the swaying rhythm of the gallop. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the startled looks of the four horsemen of the apocalypse whom we passed up (a moment I enjoyed immensely). I felt alive from my now-hatless head to the toes of my stirrup-straining feet. I started laughing from sheer adrenaline. By the time we pulled up to the fence, I knew this had been the ride of my life. I would not have missed this experience for anything. Of course, when we pulled to a stop at the ranch (which to my great relief Reverse decided to do gradually), male pride would not allow me to indicate that this dash had been at all unplanned [But, the truth is,] My only choice had been to say yes or no to the ride. I had to decide whether I had enough faith to ride the horse. When I mounted that horse, I did not have a clue as to what was going to happen to me. I did not know all the details of what would happen. If I had known, I might have said no but then I would have never known the exhilaration of the ride. Once I took a single step, once I got into the saddle, a whole world of experience was set in motion. Everything else was up to the horse. I could not control it. But I could have missed it. 7 Noah listens to God. Noah does what the Lord commands. Noah is willing to have his life transformed by what God has spoken, instead of being conformed to how everyone else around him is living. And so it is that Noah goes for the ride of his life in obedience to the will of God the ride of his life in an Ark filled with animals riding upon the waters of a great flood. Noah had the courage to say yes to God in a world in which everyone else was saying no. Are we willing to do the same? To say yes to the Will of God no matter where it might lead us, no matter what it might cost us, no matter what anyone else might think or say. Do we possess the courage, the faith, the desire, to do the same? For saying yes to God may well be the very first step into what will prove to be the ride of our lives. 1 Genesis 6:5. 2 This tweet was quoted in an issue of BBC Music Magazine but I have lost the specific reference. 3 Helmut Thielicke, The Trouble with the Church: A Call for Renewal (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p James 1:22-24, as translated in Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary English (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002), p

6 6 5 Matthew 7:21. 6 Romans 12: John Ortberg, If You Want to Walk on Water, You ve Got to Get Out of the Boat (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), pp

Genesis. Lesson 5: Noah and the Flood

Genesis. Lesson 5: Noah and the Flood Read through this lesson with your parents and then study the highlighted referenced scriptures in your own Bible. This will increase your understanding and enable you to prove this material for yourself.