More Lessons from Noah

As we continue working through Genesis, we saw last week in those first several verses that God was sorry He’d made mankind because (Genesis 6:5) “Every intent of the thoughts of [Man’s] heart was only evil continually.”

But, as we also saw last week, (Genesis 6:8) “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

And so, beginning with verse 18 of this sixth chapter, God gave Noah instructions for the Ark’s construction: “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for food for you and for them.” Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.

With those words, chapter six ends. But we must now also look at the first verse in chapter seven. (Genesis 7:1) “Then the Lord said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household.”

Do you remember from last week’s message how much time elapsed between God's initial command to Noah to build the Ark and when He told Noah it was time to enter the Ark with his family and all the animals?  It was at least fifty years, and probably closer to 100 years. Let that sink in. It was nearly a full century.

We dare not gloss over that point. Noah endured God's SILENCE for nearly 100 years. And I think it is safe to assume that during that time, Noah endured the mockery and sneers and blasphemies of his community. I wouldn’t be surprised if families traveled for miles to vacation in the area where he was building the boat just to see the crazy man and his family hammering away.

Let me repeat this for emphasis: Noah endured all of it after hearing from God ONLY ONCE. But once was all he needed. God had not only promised to destroy humanity with a flood, but God ALSO promised to establish a covenant with him.

One time. One promise. And nothing more for decades.

Of course, most of you know Noah is not the only godly person in history who endured desperate trials while God remained silent. You remember Job. He’s only one of many. We don’t know how long he suffered his physical and emotional heart-rending agonies and the ridicule of his so-called ‘counsellors - but we know he DID endure. St James tells us in his epistle: (5:10-11) “As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.”

And, much closer to our time, is Mother Theresa of Calcutta. After she received God's call to India FIFTY years earlier, Theresa wrote in her memoirs before she died that she’d only heard God’s voice one more time in all those 50 years that she labored among the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. Only one more time.

In a letter published after her death, she wrote: "I just long and long for God... The torture and pain [of not hearing from Him] . . . I can't explain."

It’s tempting to ignore this side of Mother Theresa and focus instead on her selfless service to India’s poor, and the joy with which it seemed she lived.

But to ignore her ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ – as some might call it – to ignore the sense of emptiness she felt would be a terrible mistake.

We naturally shy away from the harsher realities of following Jesus, not wanting to examine them too closely, unless we ourselves get overwhelmed by fear that such things can and might happen to us.  We MUCH prefer preachers and authors who tickle our ears and tell us things we want to hear – things of pastel colors and fragrant aromas. We want a Christianity that only brings joy and laughter, not at times emptiness and pain. Yet, to refuse to engage with the reality that ALL faithful Christians WILL have times in the wilderness is dangerous.

Why? Because there WILL be times of wilderness, as even our Lord endured. There WILL be times when we look to heaven and cry aloud – as the Psalmist cried: (Psalm 77)

“My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud; My voice rises to God, and He will hear me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness; My soul refused to be comforted. When I remember God, then I am disturbed; When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint. Selah. You have held my eyelids open;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak . . . Will the Lord reject forever?
And will He never be favorable again? Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Selah.
Then I said, “It is my grief, That the right hand of the Most High has changed.”

We’ve all been there – and if we haven’t – then wait awhile. The time will come when we earnestly seek Him, we earnestly pray– and heaven remains silent. And while those times might not last 50 years, they are an inevitable part of the faithful Christian’s journey.

But those times of silence are never the end of the story for the child of God. God answered Job out of a whirlwind in chapter 37 of his book and continued for the next five chapters. You can read it yourself some time. And God did answer the Psalmist. Read the entire 77th Psalm and see what he discovered.

And Noah? Moses tells us in Genesis 8:1 “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.”

Is God silent to you about something? So, what sustains YOU for all the decades you have served the Lord?  What is it that sustains you even after all these decades of having heard the promise of His second coming, of His redemption and salvation, promises you’ve heard pastors and teachers and from the Holy Spirit Himself as you’ve read God's word again and again? 

What is it that sustains you despite – for some of you – despite failing health and dwindling finances? What is it that sustains you despite the unanswered prayers and the ongoing scoffing of your family and friends as you continue telling them the gospel message – that being, the Ark of Christ is your only hope for salvation when God brings His judgment.

Noah found favor in God's eyes because of his faith. The writer to the Hebrews reminds us of that in that 11th chapter of his book, and if it has been a while since you’ve read that 11th chapter, please – make time to do so sometime today.

Noah found favor because of his faith – and YOU also can be ASSURED that you also find favor in God's eyes because of YOUR faith – despite feeling you’ve not heard from God for a long time and despite the scoffing of so many people.

But there is yet much more in today’s text, so let’s move on: God told Noah to build the boat. He told him to gather food for his family and the animals. God then brought the animals to the Ark, and then . . . . God closed the door. Listen to Genesis 7:14-16 –

“On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark,  they and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds. So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life. Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him . . . . And the Lord closed it behind him.”

Let that last clause sink in for a moment. Let the finality of that terrifying statement occupy your thoughts later today. God. Closed. The door.

It ought to be a most sobering thought, a terribly mournful realization that Noah, his wife, their sons and their sons’ wives listened to the terrified screams of their families and friends and neighbors at the base of the Ark as the waters surged around them. They had to listen helplessly to the cries of their brothers and sisters and cousins and friends – all of whom scoffed at Noah’s century-long pleading for them to repent and be saved from the coming judgment.

And then – God Himself shut the door. There was nothing Noah could do any more to save them.

And there is a grim lesson there for you and me in 2024. Listen to Jesus in Luke 13:24-25 - “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.  Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’”

The statistics ought to frighten every man and woman who stands today outside the Ark of Safety which only is found in God's eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Those statistics are ‘one out of one,’ and that means there will come a time in the life of every person – EVERY person – when God shuts the door to further opportunity for safety, for hope, and for eternal life.

Whether death comes simply with ‘old age’, or death comes as the result of an accident or an illness – or the second coming of Christ, which I believe is imminent – one day known only to God, their door to eternal life will close. Forever.

For very good reason God warns again and again throughout Holy Scripture, as He does here in 2 Corinthians 6:2b: “Behold, now is “The acceptable time,” behold, now is “the day of salvation.”

Let me pause just a moment here. I know many of you have been praying for your loved ones for years. Probably for decades. But it some of your loved ones seem harder to the gospel message today than they have ever been. And sometimes you might get to thinking, “What’s the use in praying anymore?”

Please – don’t think that. You and I are in a SPIRITUAL battle for the souls of our loved ones. And I counsel myself as much as I counsel you: Keep at it. Keep praying. Don’t give up.

And while we are praying for our loved ones, consider also this point: What about us? What are WE doing with Jesus? Are we striving to follow Him each day in obedient faith? Are we daily striving to KEEP Him Lord of everything we watch on television or in the movie theater? Is He Lord of what we read and what we say and what we do?

I memorized this passage some time ago and I call it to mind quite often: (Luke 16:10) “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.” 

Consistent faithfulness in LITTLE things, like picking up a piece of candy wrapper that you dropped on the floor. Or not fussing about someone who’s sitting in your seat at the dinner table. Or being sensitive to the Holy Spirit when He tells you to not say what you are about to say.

Listen: Practicing obedience in LITTLE things will lead to practicing faithfulness in the big things. But consistent disobedience in ‘little’ things will lead to disobedience in big things. That’s just a spiritual law.

God provided Noah’s ark as the only means of salvation for a world steeped in sin, whose rebellion had finally brought God to the end of His patience. And in similar fashion, God has provided in His Son, Jesus the Christ, the ONLY means of salvation for a world steeped in sin, whose rebellion is surely bringing humanity close to God's so-called ‘breaking point.”

Scripture says it in many ways, but this text in Ecclesiastes strikes me as the most succinct (Ecclesiastes 7:2): “It is better to go into a house of mourning that to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living take it to heart.”

As I speak with people here and there, I have to wonder if so many keep themselves so busy because in keeping so busy they don’t have to think about eternity.

Please, brothers and sisters, let never be said of us that WE were so busy trying to escape reality that we MISSED all that God has prepared for us.  Let it never be said of us that we were so busy that we did not focus our attention on eternity.

One day God WILL shut the door. May the Holy Spirit PLEASE help each of us, as St Jude urged his readers (Jude 1:21-23), to “Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.”

And may the Holy Spirit also help us to keep trusting God, even in the silent wilderness; To keep praying for our loved ones, especially those outside the Ark of Christ; And to keep practicing obedience to Him, in the little things and in the big things.