Personalities of the Old Testament #5 - Noah Part 2

 We want to continue our study on “Old Testament Personalities.”  We’ll be looking at the second part of our study on the personality of Noah.  If you remember las week’s study, we found that Noah found favor with God.  He was the only righteous man, in the world at that time.  We discussed that Noah was accounted as righteous because of his faith.  In the same way that Abel and Enoch were righteous because of their faith. 

We also saw that God preserves the righteous and doesn’t destroy the righteous along with the wicked.  Noah was preserved because of his righteousness.  God destroyed the wicked but did NOT destroy Noah.  He was a preacher of righteousness for one hundred-twenty years.

Today, I want to look at the flood and Noah’s reaction to God’s warnings and his behavior.

Obedience

Genesis 6:13NKJV

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

God is warning Noah of His intentions.  People have become wicked.  Remember we talked about this when we said that two lineages descended from Adam: Seth, (The Lineage of Jesus), and from Cain (The Lineage of Wickedness).  Noah has descended from Seth and is found to be the only righteous man in the world.  So, God wants to deliver him, and through him, preserve the lineage of Jesus. So, He warns him and gives him these instructions:

Genesis 6:14-16 NKJV

Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.

God also told him to take two of every animal, male and female, and seven of certain types, mostly for sacrifice, as well as:

Genesis 6:21 NKJV

And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them."

Look at Noah’s response to these things:

Genesis 6:22 NKJV

Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.

Noah was obedient to God’s direction.  God places value on obedience.  Look at this:

1 Samuel 15:22 NKJV

So Samuel said: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.

This scripture above takes place in the life of King Saul.  God had commanded him to utterly destroy the Amalekites and all of their livestock.  Saul had his own ideas and kept some livestock back saying that he wanted to sacrifice them, but this was not what God commanded him.  Look at what Samuel says to him about it:

1 Samel 15:17 NKJV

So Samuel said, "When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel?

“When you were little in your own eyes…”  Obedience is a sign of humility toward God.  We talk a lot about doing God’s will rather than our own.  How difficult is that for us?  As we’ve seen with Saul, we can easily call our will God’s will. God calls that rebellion and stubbornness:

1 Samuel 15:23 NKJV

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king."

Saul didn’t do everything God had commanded, Noah on the other hand, “according to all that God commanded, so he did.”  We need to examine our own behavior, are we acting according to all God has commanded, or according to our own will?  Are we humble enough to put aside our own will for God’s?

We’re Christians, followers of Christ, we should desire to be Christ-like. 

Luke 22:42 NKJV

saying, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done."

This is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, looking ahead to His crucifixion… “Not My will, but Yours be done.”  Is that your prayer?

A Covenant with God

Genesis 8:1 NKJV

Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.

The flood was judgment on the earth.  It was God’s judgment on the wickedness that had sprung up in the world.  As we spoke about last week God doesn’t judge the righteous with the wicked so Noah was preserved to continue humanity.

After the judgment, the death of all living things on the face of the earth except those God had preserved in the ark, God turned his mind back to Noah and his family.

Genesis 8:15-18 NKJV

Then God spoke to Noah, saying, "Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth." So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him.

This is about a year after the flood began.  It had rained for forty days, but the ground had to dry sufficiently for them to go out. 

Noah’s first act after leaving the ark was to build an altar to thank and honor God:

 

Genesis 8:20 NKJV

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

The first thing Noah did was to worship God.  He didn’t build a home for himself.  He built an altar to praise and thank God for his deliverance.  He’s acknowledging God’s sovereignty, protection and mercy.  God could have completely destroyed every single living thing on the planet, but He didn’t.  He wasn’t finished with us. 

We often cry out to God for mercy, for help, and for deliverance.  Usually, though, these are help to deliver us from problems we’ve created for ourselves.  Noah expresses his extreme gratitude for god’s preservation and deliverance from the judgment of the flood.  It is an example for us to remember to express gratitude for what God has delivered us from.  Look now at God’s reaction to this sacrifice:

Genesis 8:21-22 NKJV

And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, "I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. "While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease."

God was soothed by the smell of the offering.  He’s pleased with what Noah has done here and he makes a covenant with Noah.  He says that He will never destroy every living being from the earth again.

Even during the tribulation, not everyone will be killed in the judgments.

It’s interesting that, even though God knows and understands men’s hearts, He makes this pledge.  “Although the imagination (or desire) of man’s heart is evil, from his youth…”  This is the essence of God’s forgiveness and mercy.  He knows who we are.  He knows our hearts and yet He chooses to forgive, anyway, knowing we will sin again.

Genesis 9:9-11 NKJV

"And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth. Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."

God told Noah, and his sons to go and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.  We are all descendants of Noah.  Every human being can trace their ancestry back to that family.

Acts 17:26-27 NKJV

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

This covenant that God made with Noah is still in force today.

Summary of Noah

1.       Noah found favor with God – This descendant of mankind from Seth.  He was righteous by his faith.  He was a preacher of righteousness.  We are made righteous by our faith in Jesus.  Salvation comes through faith.

2.      God preserves the righteous - Noah was preserved because God doesn’t judge the righteous with the wicked. 

3.      The Flood – God’s judgment on the earth and the wickedness of mankind.  God called on Noah to prepare for the coming judgment.  We need to prepare for God’s call on our lives.

4.      Obedience – Noah was obedient to God’s commands.  He put God’s will first in all that he did.

5.      A Covenant with God – Noah’s first act out of the ark was to build an altar and thank God for his deliverance.  God made a covenant with him that He will not completely destroy all living things in judgment again. 

Noah is a lesson for us in our thoughts and behavior toward God.