Noah
By Pat Kilpatrick

We just completed our study about Noah in our Wednesday night Bible case.  We found that when mankind was so wicked and violent that God decided to destroy all living, Noah found grace in His eyes (Genesis 6:8).  Why?  Because Noah was a just man (Genesis 6:9), a preacher of righteousness (II Peter 2:5).  Noah found grace the eyes of God, and God revealed to Noah his plan to destroy mankind from the face of the Earth and what Noah had to do to be saved from this destruction.

Noah had faith in God, faith that made him believe God meant what he said.  If God said he was going destroy man, then it was so.  If God told Noah that he could save himself by building an ark according to His directions, then it was so.  Noah’s faith wasn’t just a warm fuzzy he had, not something “better felt than told”.  Noah’s faith was like James talked about in James Chapter 2, a faith manifested in his obedience.  Noah built the ark and saved his family and himself (Hebrews 11:7).  He did everything just as God had told him (Genesis 6:22; 7:5). What if Noah, comforted by the assurance that God loved him and wanted him to be saved, just sit down and decided that all he needed to be saved was the grace that he found in the eyes of God?  Would he and his family been saved without him having built the ark?  What if Noah had decided that he had a better solution for his salvation than building the ark?  What if Noah had decided that he could possibly get more people to come with him on the ark if he built differently than as God had commanded him?  How could anyone possibly think it would have been possible for Noah to have been saved from the flood?  How is it possible that people believe today that they will be saved through a faith that is without works?  How is it possible that people today can believe that they can be saved outside of Christ’s church or as part of church not built according to his word?

We also learned that Noah was grateful to God for his salvation.  As best we can tell, Noah labored 120 years constructing the ark.  Then he had to endure a year on that ark with the animals that were saved with him.  It would been easy for human nature to have taken over and Noah have felt that he deserved to be saved because of all that he done and all that he had endured.  But Noah understood that he owed his gratitude to God for his salvation, and the first thing that he did after getting off the ark was to build an altar and offer a sacrifice to show his gratitude (Genesis 8:18-21).  Noah was also going to be a very busy man after getting off the ark.  He and his sons had to start rebuilding their lives after the flood, but he was not too busy to stop and give God thanks first.  Don’t we get so caught up in our lives sometimes that we forget to stop and give God thanks?  Our rest, our favorite TV show, a family function, our children’s ball games, or any number of things often come before our gathering with other saints to worship God.  Don’t we have as much, or even more. to be grateful for than Noah?  Has not God promised an eternal salvation to all that obey (Hebrew 5:9)?

 “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  (Hebrews 12:1-2)

Let us not be condemned by Noah’s example as was the world before the flood (Hebrews 11:7).

Back to the Bible Page:

Back Home: