God's Touchpoints - An Old Testament JourneySample

NOAH – SURVIVING FAITH As earth’s population grow, murder, lust and evil spread their tentacles into every aspect of creation. God saw that “every imagination and intention of all human thinking was only evil all the time”. Gen 6:5 Those were the days of dragons, dinosaurs and gigantic winged multi-headed creatures (cherubim) guarding the precious treasures within the garden of Eden. Perhaps fairy tales are derived from these times. In those days people themselves would have been encyclopedias, living hundreds, almost a thousand years, orally passing down knowledge to generations. Yet there are few role models, among whom were Abel, Enoch and Noah known for their: • Commendable contribution • Close communion with God and • Clean character respectively. God attempts to warn mankind of impending disaster. Enoch’s son Methuselah’s name means “when he dies the flood will come”. All of his 969 years, the oldest man ever known, was a walking warning. Eventually God decides to save Noah and his family, and destroy the world. When he was over 500 years old, He gives him detailed instructions to build an ark. The decades during which this massive structure was being constructed along with Noah’s preaching were the last warning to a corrupt world. There was not even one who repents. Unlike the rest of the world, “Noah did everything just as God commanded him” Gen 6:22 As predicted, in the year of Methuselah’s death, after Noah was 600, God instructs Noah to populate the ark with the animals and sent the flood. It is estimated that around 8000 species of animals were in the three tiered ark, occupying only half or one third the space. As the earth is destroyed, Noah and his family remain in the ark for over a year till the waters recede and the earth dries up. Noah’s first action on coming out of the ark is to build an altar to worship God. In response, God, via the rainbow, covenants with Noah (whose name means “rest”): • Never to destroy the world again • To remove the curse of the soil given to Adam As Noah was saved through the waters of the flood we today are saved from God’s final judgment through the waters of baptism, by faith in Christ. (1 Peter 3:20, 21). Do we hold on to God’s word and promises as Noah did? Are we prepared to be different, and obey God unconditionally?