NOAH'S ARK

NOAH'S ARK

Genesis 6:1-14 (KJV)

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

Whenever I read the story of Noah's Ark, I am reminded of Our Lord's words of warning in Matthew 24:37-42 (KJV)

But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

Everything that had happened previous to Noah sets the stage and lays the groundwork for the flood.

And everything about the stage and the Flood is Biblically relevant to our day.

See First 

I.  A PROCLAMATION

Genesis 6:13

And God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh is come...

God,s resolutionwas to "destroy them with the earth."

God wasn't throwing a temper tantrum--

He wasn't angry without cause.

God had a reasonto destroy all flesh.

Verse 13 summarizes it this way--

"The earth is filled with violence through them."

Genesis 6:1-5 lists this "violence".

Wives were taken without God's approval.

Genesis 6:2 (KJV)

That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

They married whoever they chose—

·  Whether is was right or not.

·  Whether their parents approved or not

·  Whether God approved or not

The children of those ungodly marriages became mighty in the eyes of man.  

Genesis 6:4 (KJV)

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

Men of renown—

Seeking their own glory

·  Building a name for themselves

·  Seeking to be popular and famous

·  Attracting the attention of people

Ignoring the glory of God

God doesn’t share His glory.

If we choose to accept glory, we have chosen to rob it from God.

These men thought only of evil continually.

Genesis 6:5 (KJV)

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

No concern was ever given 

·  To please God

·  To do that which was right or to be holy

·  To worship and give praise to God

God was rightly infuriated with mankind.

Verse six says, 

"it repentedthe Lord that He had made man." 

God isn’t a man to repent of sin like you and I should do.

Can you imagine? God regretted he had made man.

Verse three says, 

"My Spirit shall shall not always strive with man."

We learn a valuable lesson here.

God will sometimes let us get away with sin - for awhile

He will "strive with us", attempting to turn us the right way.

·  He will bring conviction to our souls.

·  He will remind us of Bible verses we have learned

·  He will give preachers messages that strike at our hearts

·  He will sometimes bring hardships to make us think and reflect

But, there will always come a point when God says, “I’ve had enough.I will not strive with you any longer.”

Genesis 6:7 (KJV)

And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

Our world needs to learn this lesson. 

·  We have become bold against God.

·  We rebel against His Word and His Standards with no apparent repercussions.

·  We have become emboldened to greater and greater levels of sin.

There will come a time, if man does not repent, when our cups of iniquity are full and God resolvesto destroy men from the earth.

Not only does God warn that this couldhapppen, He has told us that this willhappen.

Evil men shall wax worse and worse[1]until finally, according to 2 Peter 3:10 (KJV)

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

These are the days when we need to take seriously the Word of God.

How do you live your life?

·  To seek your own glory?

·  To do as you please--even if God is displeased?

·  With evil thoughts and imaginations?

You need to repent of these things before God repents of making you in the first place.

Secondly, the story of Noah's Ark contains

II. A WONDERFUL PICTURE

Genesis 6:14 (KJV)

Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

The Ark is a picture of Jesus Christ:

A.  All who were in the Ark were there by grace.  

Genesis 6:8 (KJV)

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

The Bible tells us, Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV)

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Not of works, lest any man should boast.

No one has ever been saved except that God was gracious to them.

B.  The ark was large enough to include all who would come in  

Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis, has constructed a replica of what he believes the ark would have looked like and how large the ark would have been.

I hope to go there one day to see it.

I hear it is enormous.

Truth be told, I have no idea how accurate it is.

We can’t even give accurate dates for things two thousand years ago because they changed how they figured calendars numerous times over the centuries.

We have no one who can speak the actual languages they spoke even two thousand years ago, let alone 4500 years ago.

We have no documentation to provide us a precise measurement for those days.

They used measurements like:

·  A cubit and

·  A span

·  A cubit is believed to be the distance from the elbow to the tip of the longest finger.

·  A span is the measurement from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger

Those measurements would be different for every human being.

It would be different for a man than a woman.

But then, we don’t know how tall people were before the flood, do we?

·  We know there were giants in those days.[2]and

·  We know that Noah lived to be 950 years old.

Is it possible that Noah was much larger than men are today?

If so, his “cubit” could be significantly larger than we think it to be.[3]

Here’s the thing,

Some students of these things have calculated that the Ark would have been large enough  to hold thousands of people, even with the animals, if they only would have entered.

And the lesson is this, 

Jesus Christ is capable of saving all who will come.

Hebrews 7:25 (KJV)

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

And God is willing to save all who will come

1 Timothy 2:3-4 (KJV)

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;

Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

C.  The Ark lifted those inside above the destruction.

The Ark itself suffered through the flood but those inside were safe.                                              

Jesus Himself suffered death and anguish for our sins upon the cross.

But all who are hidden in Christ[4]will be safe from such judgement from God!

D.  The Ark was a foolish thing to those outside

It was built at a time when it had never rained. 

The earth was almost totally a hard mass with very little surface water.

No one then believed: 

·  The message Noah preached was possible or that 

·  The salvation Noah offered was necessary

People today, look at Christians as fools.

We are 

·  teased, 

·  ridiculed, 

·  ignored and 

·  the brunt of jokes

But, we are still right.

E.  The Ark had very few people inside

Even today, those who will become 

·  God loving—

·  Christ living 

Christians, are few and far between

F.  Considerable time passed between the decision to build the Ark and the actual flood happened.

It was 120 years passed from when Noah was commanded to build the ark, and God destroyed the world by flood.

It's been more that 2000 years since Jesus promised to return with His Holy angels.  

·  Just as surely as the flood came, 

·  Jesus will come with judgment of this world

I'll tell you--

When that day comes, I want to be in Christ, safe from God’s wrath. 

Don't You?

Finally, from Noah's Ark--

III.  THIS MARVELOUS PROMISE 

Genesis 9:8-17 (KJV)

And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,

And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

God made an everlasting covenant with those who escaped the flood never to destroy the earth with a flood again.

God made a token of that covenant which was the rainbow--

not to remind men of the covenant, but to remind God.[5]  

There are also some fantastic promises that God has made to those who escape God's wrath through Jesus Christ and

just like Noah's, they are everlasting.

A.  The promise of eternal life.   

John 10:27-29 (KJV)

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

B.  God's love for us is everlasting.

Romans 8:38-39 (KJV)

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

C.  God will forget our sins and iniquities

Hebrews 10:17 (KJV)

And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

D. Jesus is coming again for us

Acts 1:9-11 (KJV)

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;

Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

God set the rainbow in the sky to remind Himself of His promise to Noah.

He set Jesus at His right hand to remind Himsef of His promises to us.

Hebrews 7:25 (KJV)

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

The the Bible reassures us,

1 John 2:1 (KJV)

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

---

[1]2 Timothy 3:13 (KJV)

But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

[2]Genesis 6:4 (KJV)

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

[3]As I understand it, about 18 inches.

[4]Colossians 3:3 (KJV)

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

[5]Genesis 9:16

And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.