NOAH (rest) , AMAN OF FAITH IN HIS WORK. Hebrews 11:7 The story of Noah is recorded in Genesis 5:29 through 10:32. He is mentioned in various other places in scripture, in genealogical accounts, and in references to the times in which he lived and the faith he demonstrated [1Chr.1:3-4; Isa.54:9; Ez.14:14, 20; Mat.24:37-38; Lu.3:36; 17:26-27; Heb.11:7; 1Pe.3:20; 2Pe.2:5]. He found grace in the eyes of the Lord and walked with the Lord, but perhaps the verse that best describes the value of the man and his testimony is [Gen.6:22]. "Thus, did Noah; according to all that God commanded, so he did." That was evidence of his faith in the Lord.
He likely learned the value of faith from his great-grandfather Enoch and his grandfather Methuselah, who was a testimony to Enoch's prophecies. Not much is known about his father and his sons, except that his sons were saved through Noah's efforts and used by God to begin repopulating the earth. God called him to build the ark, a ship 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 50 feet high. He was also a preacher and ultimately a farmer.
A message came to this man alone, regarding something previously unknown - "Take steps, start building immediately. The results of which you will see later on will bless you, your wife and family, and the whole world will again be conscious of Me," said the unseen God of eternity. 120 years of intense labor probably made little sense to most people. Noah preached and labored each day, based on what the Lord personally said to him, "Make an ark according to these dimensions. Follow precisely all of these My instructions," said the God who sees everything. By walking with God, he received clear directions. Even in the animal creation, God made connections. When the job was done, full and complete, with nature changed, man and animals met. The Lord God spoke to Noah, "You and your family come in here to Me." Two by two they entered and, for a year, lived in peace.
Noah's great work was entirely by faith. God delivered him from judgment because he found grace. God Himself is the same Gracious God today. When those He speaks to will trust and obey, we too will know His great blessings, sublime, of learning and doing what we know is God's mind - and with Him forever will be.
When we read about Noah's life, we learn that he was one of two (the other was Enoch) mentioned in scripture who walked with God. He would have been in a position to hear what the Lord said and to learn to live by faith in Him. Noah found favor with God [Gen.6:8] even though he was living in a time of moral and physical corruption [Gen.6:1-13]. He undertook what would seem an impossible task to us. When he was instructed to build the ark [Gen.6:13-22], he did so. During that time, he was also a preacher of righteousness [2Pe.2:5], warning the people of the coming judgment for their sin. When the ark was completed, he entered it with his family and animals [Gen.7:1-24], where they were preserved during the flood [Gen.8:1-17].
There were two floods in his day, one of evil and one of water. Of all the people of the world who remembered the God of creation, perfection, and love, the number had dwindled to one. Only Noah did God see as righteous. God’s response to the world’s evil was a 120-year-long last chance. The building of the ark on dry land for 120 years, day in and day out, while preaching righteousness at the same time, was a graphic illustration of the message of his life. He obeyed God in his work despite what others did. A 450-foot boat on dry land certainly made a point. The point of Noah’s obedience was to contrast with and condemn the disobedience of his generation.
The doctrine of the wrath to come was foreshadowed in the account of Noah’s faith. When he was warned by God about something that had never happened before, he believed God without question. Because of God’s grace to Noah, He gave him instructions as to how he could escape the coming judgment for sin that was going to come on the world.
When a person believes what God says, they do something about it. Faith takes action when a way of escaping judgment is given. The effect of personal faith can affect the lives and future of those who know you. Even though the majority of people may think a person of faith is foolish, deranged, deceived, or disillusioned, those who know us best will often do what we desire of them, even though they have no faith of their own yet.
Because we believe in the coming judgment for sin and that its consequences are real and irrevocable, we must continue to proclaim the doctrine of the coming judgment. We are responsible to be like Noah, preaching righteousness and the way of salvation. We must warn people of everlasting condemnation if they do not come to God in repentance and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s ark of safety for us. A righteous life itself condemns the sins of those without faith in God.
Being justified by faith is based on believing what God says despite the ungodliness, wickedness, and opposition others may have. To fail or refuse to preach the fact that the coming judgment for sin is true is the same as false teaching. Any effort to please God, religious affectation, and activities are useless if they take away the whole point of Christ’s death for sin. He knew what was ahead and died to seek and save us from a lost eternity in hell and the lake of fire.
The only long-term project that compares with Noah building the ark is the work of our lives. The challenge of Noah’s life to us is to live in acceptance of God’s will, God’s grace, and God’s right to direct us; and to be grateful and obedient. Noah experienced rejection because he was different from his neighbors. Obedience makes disobedience stand out. If God asks you to do something, He will give you the strength to do it. There are many lessons we can learn from this man who did a work of faith. “Just and perfect” indicates Noah's love and obedience to God rather than sinlessness. We either influence others or are influenced by them. God is concerned about people and what they do to themselves. Sin grieves God [Gen.6:3,6-7], and it should grieve us.
When “Noah found grace (the first mention in the scripture) in the eyes of the Lord,” he moved with reverential fear, responding to the Lord’s mercy and instructions on how to escape the coming judgment. He obeyed God and built the ark. Fear brings repentance; repentance brings faith; faith brings obedience and action. A deep sense of sin acknowledges the justice of God and a desire for deliverance. When faith takes root in “a humble and contrite spirit” that trembles at the word of God, the result is a work of faith. A consistent work of faith will be tested by those who feel condemned by what you do, but judgment will not fall on those whose ark is Jesus. They live in the shadow of the Almighty.
A few faithful men (ark builders) who believe God and obey Him are able to change the outcome of the greatest problem. A covenant is a special kind of promise. God established a covenant with Noah consisting of three parts: [1] the earth will never again be totally destroyed by a flood. [2] The seasons will always come as expected. [3] The rainbow will be visible when it rains as a sign to all that God keeps His promises. People, for the most part, will not readily believe warnings of inevitable judgment. Most don’t believe it will ever happen. People will not welcome or accept the message of God’s judgment on sin.
Don’t worry about details you can’t control. Noah was to build the ark, not herd the animals into it. Concentrate on what God gives you to do and leave the rest to Him. Trust God’s timing in difficult times when we must wait. Noah’s salvation through water indicates that it is faith in Christ’s death and resurrection (the ark) that saves, not the water. Justice must be carried out. Forgiveness is an individual choice. The responsibility of the law of nations is to carry out justice, not to grant forgiveness. The coming of the Lord is sure; the time is not known; preparation must be made ahead of time; the effects are lasting. [Mat.24:37-38; Lu.17:26-27] We cannot save our family by our own righteousness. We must teach it to them. [Ez. 14:14, 20] God always keeps His promises. [Isa. 54:9]. We need to pass on to future generations the value of their heritage.
Noah’s faith testified that he was a sinner deserving judgment but who was saved by grace through faith. Then he acted on what he believed, went to work, and the righteousness which is by faith became obvious to the lost world, as it is to the world today through believers now. Believers in Christ need to show by their works a bright and clear testimony of faith. In that way, the wickedness of sinners will hopefully condemn them and lead them to seek salvation by grace through faith in Christ.
We may never know the results of preaching the righteousness that is by faith; Noah probably didn’t know who believed his preaching, as they may have died before the flood came. Our work is to make the way of salvation plain to others. We believe in the power of salvation and in God’s love and grace that provide it.
We believe that God wants us to speak of and live out what we believe. We believe God wants all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, and that salvation is offered to all people everywhere who repent. We have entered the ark – our Lord Jesus Christ – by faith, and we need to go out and work the work of faith as those who are heirs of the righteousness which is according to faith.
Noah was a man who was righteous before God, and his work of faith was exactly what God commanded. In his character, he was righteous [Gen. 6:9]. In his life, he was obedient to God [v.7] and lived in fellowship with God [Gen. 6:9]. He is one of the most notable figures in history as a result of his willingness to do what God said, building the ark that affected the whole world [Ez. 14:14-20].
When the flood had passed, he built an altar to offer burnt offerings of appreciation to God [Gen.8:18-22], and God formed a covenant with Noah [Gen.9:1-19], of which we are reminded when we see a rainbow. He planted a vineyard and, on one occasion, became drunk [Gen.9:20-21], to his embarrassment. He pronounced a curse and blessings on his sons before he died at the age of 950 years [Gen.9:22-29].
It is well for us to remember the strengths and accomplishments of those who live by faith, and not dwell on their weaknesses, as we may be prone to do. He was the only follower of God left in his generation and was, in effect, the second father of the human race. Perhaps that was why he became drunk and embarrassed himself in front of his sons. Thinking of all those people he knew, whom he had preached to, and who were now gone, and understanding that the second chance for the human race was on his shoulders, may have been the real test for this man of patience, consistency, and obedience.
PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF FAITH What faith is and what it does are described by the first three people mentioned in this chapter. Faith justified Abel's worship. Faith sanctified Enoch's walk. Faith testified to Noah's work. The practical aspects of faith are evident in the story of Abraham, to whom the "God of glory" appeared and instructed him to leave Ur. Faith is a fundamental action in all human experience. Very little of what we do is done purely by conscious, logical awareness. We are often assured, without thinking, that what we hope for is real. Things we do not see are real.
In the doctrinal sense, we believe this universe and all that is in it were created by the word of God, not from things visible to our eyes. The material world is no more real than the spiritual world. Although we cannot see the spiritual world, where love, mercy, grace, truth, etc., are present, we know they are real because we have experienced them. It is no more complicated or unreasonable to believe that things were made by the spoken word of God rather than by physical activity.
Either way must be believed by faith. It is more reasonable to think that a supremely Intelligent Designer created intricate and profound things than that something came from nothing by chance, without a power behind it. Physical matter and the way it’s programmed to work are evident to us. We know matter perishes, and we know information does not. So where did the information come from?
We know the answer by faith. The Creator of all things has spoken through prophets in the past and, more importantly, in His Son. We believe in Him and, consequently, have a real purpose in our lives. Our lives and activities have meaning now. We have complete confidence in a full, useful, and happy future for those who believe in Him by faith. It is by faith that we understand the way of approach to a holy God for people who have fallen in sin and "come short of the glory of God." It is by sacrifice. That acceptance is by the death of the innocent in the place of the guilty. For a sacrifice to be of any use, there can be no cover-up for sin nor any avoiding of its consequences. Divine justice has to be served. The reality of faith in the sacrifice is seen when one rejects sin and ensures the sacrifice is the one God can accept. By faith, we trust in the "one offering for sin forever," our Lord Jesus Christ.
By faith, we learn that our salvation will be complete in the future, when we are not only saved from the consequences and power of sin but also from its presence. The result of a life lived by faith is a commitment to purity in "all godliness and honesty," knowing that our Lord is coming for us and that then we shall be like Him. By faith, we know of the coming judgment and, in love, seek to warn others about it. Noah knew this and provided a place of safety for his family. At the same time, he preached the way of salvation to others to warn them. When Christ comes, the world's political, religious, economic, and social systems will be destroyed.