Noah and The Ark
Text: Genesis 6:5-22; Matthew 24:37-42
Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, UT
June 23, 2024
There are many cherished stories in the Bible that we tell to our children and make sure they hear in Sunday School. No one meant it to be this way but as a result many of these stories get dismissed as we grow older. This sermon series is geared to lift these stories out of a mere children’s level to a more mature level. It is to help us see the God who is at work in these stories. It is to help us understand the larger aspects of faith in these stories. I hope these sermons help us get things that we never knew were there because we left these texts as children and never came back to them and read them with adult understanding. It is to maybe discover why they were placed here in the first place by the original authors.
Even people who know next to nothing about the Bible know about Noah and the ark. God told a man named Noah to build a large ark. Noah gathered all kinds of animals. A flood comes on the earth. Noah and those in the ark are safe. That’s about the extent of most people’s knowledge, even longtime Bible readers and church goers.
Who was the first financier in the Bible? Noah. He floated stock while the rest of the world was in liquidation.
But seriously. Why did God tell Noah to build an ark? What is said and not said that movies and depictions often lead us to believe? What is said about Noah? What does Noah do? What does he not do? How does God respond? Does God say anything? Does Noah say anything?
I admit we decorated one of our daughter’s room when she was an infant with wallpaper and a crib hanging with Noah and the animals. But this is a story that has judgment, destruction, and people dying. It’s about more than that which is what we will get to. But it’s not a cute children’s story, though we have made it that. It’s kind of serious.
The story of Noah can be found in Genesis chapters 6 through 8. We read, “The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.”[1] Every inclination. We’re told that the LORD regretted making human beings and it troubled him. He vows to wipe out the good creation he made.
But we are told one person – Noah – found favor in the LORD’s sight. It says that Noah was righteous, blameless among the people of his time, and walked faithfully with God. Noah is different than others. God will work through Noah. And here is kind of a foretaste of grace: though things will get bad, God still finds one to work through.
Again we are told that the earth is corrupt and full of violence. No specifics are given describing this corruption and violence. People have let their imaginations run wild in speculating the various crimes and acts that may have been taking place. We may assume tremendous decadence, but the Bible gives no descriptions or details. Whatever it is, it makes the LORD sorry.
The Hebrew, biblical word for “sorry” really isn’t a word about emotion. It is a word that has to do with keeping accounts. The LORD has audited the books and things aren’t adding up. God has weighted the situation and believes a flood is how the balances must be leveled.
God doesn’t do anything out of rage or anger in this narrative. We might say his heart is broken.
Again, unlike many imaginary depictions of this story, there is no description of the building of the ark. We are given a brief description of the LORD instructing Noah how he is to make it, but it is pretty sparse and it certainly doesn’t answer all the practical questions we might have. What is important is that we are told that Noah did all the LORD commanded. This is said several times about Noah throughout the story.
Noah constructs the ark. He and his family – he had three sons and they were married – go into the ark. In one spot we are told Noah was to gather pairs of all living creatures. But another verse says Noah was to gather seven pairs of every clean animal and one pair of every unclean animal. There is some debate about what is meant by clean and unclean at this time. But the point I want us to see is two different places, two different counts of animals.
The flood is the result of days upon days of rain. There are two verses that say that all life on earth dies. Just two verses. And there are no descriptions or depictions of the suffering of those outside of the ark.
Chapter 8 begins with this: “But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” It says “God remembered.” Not in the sense that God forgot Noah and those in the ark like we forget a lunch appointment. This was a way of saying God cared and never lost sight of everything. And things are still alive.
Now, many people have spent a great deal of time trying to get all the details and parts of this story to add up. They do this to show the Bible is reliable. There are all kinds of logistical issues in this event. When it says a flood came on “all the earth” we have to remember the geographical perspective of ancient people was more limited than those who read this story today. Their understanding of all the earth was much different than ours.
There are logistical issues about the amount of waters, what rain clouds can actually hold, care of the animals on the ark, fresh water, waste, food, and the time it takes to do it all. What do carnivores eat? The heights that the waters are said to rise is unimaginable. How quickly it would take them to recede is a question. Noah sends out a dove and that a dove can fly up to 17,000 feet is a problem.
Read the text carefully: when Noah comes out of the ark he makes a sacrifice of an animal. Noah is already killing animals, and if there are only two, then they can’t procreate.
Don’t get lost in making it all add up. As I said about the story of creation last week, we have to read this according to what the original author wanted us to understand. We have to be careful about reading certain parts of the Bible according to our understanding of the world. And our questions may not be the point of what the original writer wants us to get.
If people want to try to find the ark on Mount Ararat, fine. If people want to spend years of their lives adding up all the numbers and details to show it’s possible, go for it. If people feel the need to defend the Word of God by explaining it all in 21st century, scientific, western understanding, knock yourself out. To throw a bone to those who get caught up in making this all add up, scientists have determined times when there was massive flooding in the Near East. There is evidence of flooding of the Mediterranean and of the Black Sea. I don’t suggest for a moment that this doesn’t speak to things that happened. I believe they do.
But my guess is that the struggle to get through all the logistical problems, and what may or may not actually have happened will not help us love God more, nor will it help us love our neighbor, or forgive our enemies, feed the hungry, be filled with the Spirit, have courage in our fears, or give us stronger faith in our daily walk with the Lord. Because all the logistics really aren’t the point. Those in the ancient Near East weren’t as concerned with this as some in modern times have become.
This is a story, and the stories of the Bible have central truths. And when it says, “But God remembered Noah…” the writer is trying to bring to our attention the main point. I won’t get into various literary ways of writings in the Near East, but often they told big stories and the key meaning would be in some phrase right in the middle. And the main point in Genesis 6-8 is “God remembered Noah…” And underneath this is salvation and restoration. It also tells us that God is the main player. This is far more than a cute story about animals for four-year olds.[2]
We aren’t supposed to pay all that much to attention to Noah as we are to God. Actually, the passages don’t say much about Noah on a number of things we might expect or that we have been led to believe. In fact, Noah is silent in the whole thing. Never says a word. No questions of God. No cries to help those on the outside. No gratitude for being saved. No signs of grief. No prayers. Noah doesn’t say a thing.
This is about God bringing creation back to the drawing board by means of a controlled cosmic meltdown.[3] If God is the main player, what does all of this tell us about God?
God is a God of judgment. But he also a God of grace. God desires this world and the people he has created and put in charge to acknowledge him. He knows who we are, how we are made, what we are like, and what we need. He is serious in his judgment. He is also serious in his grace.
Jesus referred to Noah in some of his teaching. His point was that no one knows when the final time of this world will come. And this not knowing should make disciples of the Lord alert. We are to be on our spiritual toes.
Jesus said the end-times will be normal. I said there is no graphic description in Genesis of how people were living to make the world corrupt and violent. But Jesus gives the only hint at what it was like when he said, “For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage…” In other words all was normal. And no one knew anything about what would happen until the flood came. [By the way, you won’t find people ridiculing Noah for preparing for a flood in the account in Genesis. It’s not there.]
I am not into end-times predictions and all the sensationalism that some create. But people often speak of the end of time when something horrible shakes us all up. Some huge catastrophe happens and you start hearing, “Maybe God is getting near.” Maybe we need to pay more attention to the normal things and be alert. The plain old eating and drinking and marrying.
Perhaps the sin of Noah’s day was no different than our day. Perhaps people were living quite respectable lives but doing it with no true thought for God. Sure, we look at murders, and sexual lust, and abusers. We say, “Now that’s violent.” And it is. But people who get along with their families and have parties and go to dinner, but who give no thought to God’s will and how he wants us to live are no better. A relaxed, social life can be great, but what is going on underneath the surface? What’s going on in people’s lives, hearts, morals, and ethics? Because when we live without thought for God that is a violence and corruption all of its own.
According to Jesus the people of Noah’s times weren’t doing vicious things. Rather they are indifferent. They were immersed in their own lives without thought for God, or that their lives will be called into accounts someday.
There is nothing wrong with business as usual. You gotta get up and go to work and watch the kids and play some cards with friends and go to the store and celebrate the birthday. The problem is living life without God and presuming upon his grace. That’s really what sin is: independence from the LORD. Someone can even believe God exists, but they are living life as their own.
We can’t know when God will end all of history, or even when our own short life span will be over. But we can know that the day will come. Many people give this no thought. Jesus teaches judgment, which is ultimate accountability before God. But he also speaks of love, mercy, compassion. Because that is the end game for the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Some people read the story of Noah and of a flood taking away the lives of who knows how many and it’s hard for them to accept this part of God’s character. What kind of a God is this?
We don’t need hellfire and brimstone preachers, always trying to scare people to God and turning up the fires of hell. If you were ever part of that kind of church I am sorry. But that doesn’t change the reality of ultimate accountability before God. Jesus spoke of judgment.
God is not seem gentle, grandfather sitting on a chair wanting to make the world a nicer place, who can just look the other way when we ignore him. Judgment is real. But so is God’s mercy. Sin is serious. But so is grace. Separation from God is real, but so is reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ.
God is a God of grace. At the beginning of the story of Noah the LORD intends to wipe out everything. But because of Noah he saves. And humanity and civilization are saved. And there is no hint that God is reluctant about saving what he can. In fact, God is about salvaging people from the wreckage. I am a life salvaged from the wreckage of my own foolishness, arrogance, and sin. God can look beyond the things inside of us that are not of him to see the value of the person he has created.[4]
After the waters recede and Noah and his family come out of the ark we are told this is what the LORD says:
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
“As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”
Never again. Mercy. This isn’t a God who loves devastation. We humans do that pretty well ourselves. This is a God who wants to restore what has been lost.
God knows the deal. The effect of the flood was only temporary. He knows that the human heart is evil and from the time we are children. Did you catch that. We need God’s grace even as children. And God commits himself to never again destroy all living creatures. And he commits himself to letting the seasons go on.
Sin remains. It remains in us. What is needed is a new creation. A day will come when God will bring a new heaven and new earth. But first he is making people new creations. It wasn’t that God the Father threw up his hands and said, “Well, I guess sin wins. Nothing I can do about it” No. He dealt with it through his Son, Jesus Christ.
In 2 Corinthians Paul writes, “[Christ] died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”[5] No longer live for ourselves, but living for the LORD. Or as Jesus said, staying alert to God.
And then he writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”[6]
God is about making new creations, one life by one life. I heard someone say one time that God’s judgment is always in service of his mercy. Meaning, if God draws the line it is only because he wants to save or wake up or reclaim what has been lost in that person. I wonder sometimes if we need to see that certain things that hit us hard can be God’s merciful call to us to be his and fully his.
Across the street from our house work crews have absolutely ripped out trees, concrete and part of the house of our neighbors. It looks like total destruction. You drive by and you say, “Whew, what happened there.” It looks like a bomb went off. But, of course, they are doing it to rebuild something new. I am sure it will look beautiful when that new creation comes.
The flood destroyed. But God saved. And that’s the story of Noah and the ark.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, continue to grow our understanding of these stories. Take us to an adult faith, and adult reading of the Bible, spiritual maturity. We recognize that you are a God of judgment but also full of mercy. For that we thank you, praise you, and ask you would help us to stay alert to you in all parts of our lives. Amen.
[1] 6:5
[2] See John Walton, NIV Application Commentary: Genesis, p. 316
[3] W. Brown, The Ethos of the Cosmos, pp.54-55, quoted by Walton, p.331
[4] Walton, p.338
[5] 2 Corinthians 5:14,15
[6] 5:17