Noah (Heb. 11:9)

Noah is one of the most important people in the Bible. He was God’s man at a time of crisis, a crisis of such proportions that we can truly describe him as a history- changer. When he was young, he may have wondered what he would do with his life. If someone had told him the details that we know about him, he might not have believed what he heard. Yet he believed them when God told him about his role in a gradual manner.

Noah is an encouragement to young people to live out promises that were connected to them from their first days. He fulfilled the expectations that his believing father had about him, and that is a valuable experience to have.

Noah is also an encouragement for older people, a reminder that God can use them in his service, no matter their age. After all, Noah was five hundred years old when he became a family head, he was six hundred years old when the threatened flood came, and he was six hundred and one when he stood on the cleansed earth after the flood was over. Although an older man, he had many years of service ahead of him in the Lord’s work, and we cannot estimate how many would have listened to him after the waters of the flood evaporated and the population grew again.

The flood of Noah in the New Testament

There are two New Testament references to the flood for us to think about at the start of this sermon because they help us understand why it is important. One concerns information given by Jesus and the other is a reference made by Peter in one of his letters.

First, Jesus revealed to his listeners that he knew the way that life was before the flood: ‘For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man’ (Matt. 24:37-39). From one viewpoint, life at that time seemed normal, with people engaged in regular activities such as feasting and marriage; but we must observe that all was done with no desire to please God in any way at all.

Second, the judgement of the flood was designed to be remembered as a warning throughout all subsequent generations. Peter informed his readers that a mark of scoffers in his day was that ‘they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly’ (2 Pet. 3:5-7). Yet it should be remembered because it is the only global judgement that has occurred in our history, and it is like the bigger one yet to come.

Maybe when we have read the newspapers tomorrow, we can reflect on two things. First, do we say about what we have read, ‘Just like the days of Noah,’ and, second, did we recall the flood?

What preceded the flood?

No doubt, many things took place, but I will mention three highlighted in the Genesis account of Noah and his days. First, there was the withdrawal of the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. It is not clear if this convicting work is his special work when leading a sinner to confess his sins and be saved or if it refers to his restraining work in the hearts of sinners to stop a society descending into greater sins. Either way, it was a solemn divine pronouncement of divine judgment on an entire generation.

Second, there was the virtual disappearance of the church of God in that society. Earlier in Genesis, after Seth was born, we are told that some men began to call upon the name of the Lord. But with the passing of time, over a period of two thousand years, things changed, and by the time we get to the days prior to the flood, all that is left of God’s professing people is one family, and events would show that there was even a spiritual division among them. The story of society from Eden to the flood is one of increasing wickedness and declining attention to the things of God.

Third, there is the unusual event of the animals and birds entering the ark that Noah built. Surely that should that have caused people to think about what had taken place. It was a reminder of God’s power over the creation, and it should have made them wonder about what was going on regarding the ark. Yet we know that people remained unmoved when they saw the miracles that Jesus did during his life on earth. Mighty displays of God’s power did not change their hearts, and visible evidence of God’s control of nature did not change the outlook of Noah’s contemporaries.

Noah was a sign

The first detail that we have about Noah is that his birth was a promise of rest and comfort. We see that stated in Genesis 5:29 in the words of his father Lamech who prophesied about his new son, that ‘Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.’ What did his father mean? We can see that he was concerned about the effects of the curse, but not only the effects on himself. He knows why things are as they are. He may have been given this prophecy by God with prior information, or he may have been given it as an answer to prayer. What is clear is that there was a longing in his heart for the curse to be gone. Do we have such a longing?

By giving his son the name of Noah, Lamech was showing his faith in God. When we read the account of society given in the first verses of Genesis 6, the words to describe it are turmoil and insecurity. Yet each time he called out his son’s name, Lamech was indicating his faith that God had the answer for living in the world that he had cursed and that somehow it would be possible to have rest and comfort in this life. We could say that he would have comfort from watching his son as he grew up because we are told about Noah that he found favour in the eyes of the Lord. Lamech would also have comfort and rest from the messages that his Son preached. The challenge of Lamech to us regards where we find our rest and comfort.

Noah was a saint

A beautiful threefold description is given of Noah in Genesis 6:9: ‘Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.’ It looks to me that the second and third features of his life indicate what is meant by calling him a righteous man. So we can think about them briefly.

What was the generation like? We have already mentioned the description given in Genesis 6. It was a godless time affecting the whole of society. God had taken away the Holy Spirit from striving in their hearts. Yet amid such ungodliness there was a man who was different from the others. He was blameless, a description also given to Job and the parents of John the Baptist. According to Paul, it is also a qualification for eldership, and these other uses suggest that blamelessness should be a feature of older believers. It is a word that points to ongoing holiness, of those who have proved that they are devout followers of God.

The other feature of Noah’s righteousness is that he walked with God. Can two walk together if they do not agree? The obvious answer is no. Walking together is a marvellous illustration of Christian progress. Each walk in everyday life involves a start, a path and a destination. The spiritual life has a start when a person leaves the ways of sin, a path in which he walks along the highway of holiness, and a destination when he reaches the Celestial City. Noah walked on this path for a long time, for many centuries, in the company of God.

How does a person walk with God? He walks in this way by faith in God. By how can he have faith in God? From what he knows about God. What did Noah know about God, as far as we can tell? He knew that God had created the world and that Adam had disobeyed the Lord and brought himself and his descendants under the curse. He also knew that God had promised to send a deliverer who would rescue sinners from their sins. In addition, he knew that God had a people who could pray to him, as it said of those who lived in the days of Seth. He walked with a God who judges sin, who promised to send a Saviour to undo the curse by suffering, and who listens to the requests of his people. Is that not what we have when we walk with the Lord?

Noah was a servant of God

Peter describes Noah as a ‘a herald of righteousness’ (2 Pet. 2:5). A herald has a message, he knows who it is from and he knows where it has to be delivered. He passes on to those to whom he is sent a message from his master. A herald did not base his message on what he thought would be suitable for the occasion. He knew who he was, a sent messenger. Noah recognised that he was such after God called him. This was his primary calling and when he was instructed to make a large boat he obeyed, even although such activity would have seemed unusual or odd to those to whom he preached. We can imagine him pointing to the unfinished boat and saying to people, ‘This is how God will save me and my family from his judgement. And it is big enough to hold more.’

Noah was a sinner

Not much is said of Noah after God after the flood made a covenant with him on behalf of all creatures and gave the sign of the rainbow as assurance that there will never be another global flood. One incident is recorded that reveals that it was not enough to have a new world for sin to be curtailed. The sin was that Noah drank some of his own wine and became drunk. What can be said about his sin?

First, it happened in connection with his daily activity. There was nothing wrong with him planting a vineyard and drinking of its wine. This is a reminder that we must be watchful. Second, his sin led to him to longer being able to control himself and he ended up naked. Third, the sin revealed that two of his sons respected him and the third son, Ham, did not. Fourth, Noah still functioned as a prophet, a reminder that God was gracious to him, and no doubt he had comfort given to him from knowing that his sin would not hinder the progress of God’s kingdom in the world. Fifth, it revealed that despite all the experiences he had known with the ark, he was not the world’s Saviour. Moses reminds his readers that Noah was not the Champion promised by God in the Garden of Eden.

Noah is secure for ever

Where is Noah today? The author of Hebrews tells us that Noah was ‘an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith’ (Heb. 11:7). Because he believed in what God had said, he entered a relationship with God marked by righteousness. This righteousness does not refer to Noah’s own actions because we have seen that he had been unable to live a sin-free life. Rather, he had received from God another righteousness, one that he could not lose even although he had sinned badly, a righteousness that was reckoned to his account, the righteousness that is given to everyone who believes in the Saviour, namely, the righteousness of Christ, even if Noah himself personally knew less of its details than we today have with our complete Bibles. Noah was secure, and still is, now in the presence of God.