Genesis 6
Peace be you, listening
friends. We greet you in the name of God, the Lord of peace, who wants everyone
to understand and submit to the way of righteousness that He has established,
and have true peace with Him forever. We are happy to be able to return today
to present your program The Way of Righteousness.
In our reflections in the Holy Scriptures, we have
already seen that, in the beginning, when God created the world, everything was good. However, when our
ancestor Adam disobeyed God, evil entered the world
through him and spread to all men. Truly, "an epidemic is not confined to
the one from whom it originates!" {Wolof proverb} In our last program, we
learned about the two lines which descended from Adam, the descendants of Cain
and the descendants of Seth. The descendants of Cain did
not believe God.
However, among the descendants of Seth, there were those who believed
God's Word,
and, as a result, God forgave them of their sins. One who came from Seth, was
named Enoch. Although most who lived in the time of Enoch followed Satan in
lives of impurity, Enoch walked with God in holiness.
Today we will begin to learn about another man who
walked with God in a crooked and depraved era. This person is the
prophet Noah {Noh in Arabic}, the great
grandson of Enoch. We have already learned that, in early times, people lived
to be older than we do today. Do you know who lived to be the oldest man in the
world? It was Methuselah, the son of Enoch. He lived until he was 969 years
old. Methuselah was the father of Lamech who was the father of Noah. This
Lamech, Noah's father, is a different man from Lamech, the descendant of Cain
about whom we learned last time. Noah, belonged to the tenth generation after
Adam. When Noah was five hundred years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham
and Japheth.
What we plan to study concerning Noah will be of great
value to us, because the days of Noah were similar to the times in which we
live today. In the time of Noah, the world was filled to the brim with sin. The
Scriptures say that "the wickedness of man was
great on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil all the time." (Gen. 6:5) The hearts of the children of
Adam were filled with evil thoughts, greed, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander,
arrogance, strife, fighting, adultery, theft, murder, and folly (based on Mark
7:21,22). Men were ruining the world which God had created for them. Many had
religion, but it was merely for show. Fleshly pleasure was their god, and their
sins just kept piling up!
Listen to what the Scripture says in the Torah, the
book of Genesis, chapter six:
(Gen. 6) 3Then
the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is
mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." 5The
Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every
inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6The
Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled
with pain. 7So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I
have created, from the face of the earth, men and animals, and creatures that
move along the ground, and birds of the air, for I am grieved that I have made
them."
Thus we see how God purposed to wipe out the
descendants of Adam from the earth because of their wickedness. However, we
also see how God, in His mercy, intended to be patient with sinners for another
120 years to give them time to repent, so that they might not
perish. However, when that limit was reached, God would judge everyone who
refused to repent and accept His way of righteousness.
There is something we can learn about the character of
God, from that limit of 120 years. It is this: God
is very patient, but His patience has a limit! He will speak and strive with man so
that he might repent, but not forever. That is why in the time of Noah, God
said, "My Spirit will not contend with man
forever. His days will be a hundred and twenty years." Thus we see how God
planned to be patient with sinners for a time and then judge them if they
refused to repent. In this, we can observe two characteristics of God: His
patience and His
wrath.
God is good and can be very patient; but He is also righteous and can get very
angry!
Some think of God as one who hovers
over them with a big stick, as though God is quick to anger and takes pleasure
in hitting and hurting people. But God is not like that. Others
think that
God is never angry and will merely forgive and forget the sins of people.
"God is good! God is good!" is all they know. But God is not like
that either.
The Holy Scriptures tell
us the truth concerning the character of God. God is
good and righteous! He can be patient and angry. His goodness and
His mercy are why He is patient with sinners, but His righteousness and His
holiness are why He is also angry with their sins. God is a Savior and a Judge.
The prophets wrote a great deal about the patience and
wrath of God.
Let us listen to some of their words.
The Scriptures say:
"But do not forget
this one thing: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand
years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some
understand slowness. He is patient with you, not
wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But
the day of the Lord will come like a thief." (2 Pet. 3:8-10) "The
Lord will judge his people. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God…. See to it [therefore] that you do not refuse Him who
speaks…for our God is a consuming fire!" (Heb. 10:30,31;
12:25,29)
In the Psalms we read: "God
is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every
day [toward the sinner who] does not relent." (Psa. 7:11,12)
In the Gospel {Injil} it is written:
"The wrath of
God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and
wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their
wickedness …[God will judge them and His] judgment…is based on truth.
You then …do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt
for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not
realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? But because of your
stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against
yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous
judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to
what he has done." (Rom. 1:18; 2:2-6)
The wrath of God is not
like the wrath of man. Man can become very angry, but his anger
will diminish little by little until he may even forget what made him angry in
the first place. The anger of God is not like that! The passing of time does
not cause God's anger to diminish. God is a righteous Judge and He does not
forget anything! His anger does not diminish toward those who refuse
to repent; instead, it increases! This is what we just
finished reading in the Scriptures: "Because
of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up
wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath."
The people of Noah's time were "storing
up" for
themselves the wrath of God! However, there remained one man at that time who
loved God with all his heart, and believed God's word. That man was Noah. Thus the Scriptures
say: "But Noah found favor (grace) in the
eyes of the Lord. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people
of his time, and he walked with God." (Gen. 6:8,9)
Why did God show Noah His grace? Did Noah merit the
grace of God? No! Grace which is merited is no longer grace. Grace means
"unmerited favor." Why did God extend His grace to Noah and not to
the others? What does the Scripture say about that? It tells us that Noah
believed God,
while the others did not believe Him. Noah believed
the word of God. He believed what God promised concerning the Redeemer
who was to come into the world to save sinners. Like all of Adam's descendants,
Noah had sin in him, but God counted Noah as a righteous person because he
believed God and offered Him the blood of a sacrifice for his sin, as God had
commanded. Thus, the Scriptures say "Noah was a
righteous man, blameless among the people of his time."
One day God said to Noah:
(Gen. 6) 13"I
am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence
because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14So
make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it
with pitch inside and out. 15This is how you are to build it:
The ark is to be 150 meters long, 25 meters wide and 15 meters high. 16Make
a roof for it…Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and
upper decks. 17I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to
destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life
in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18But I will establish
my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark, you and your sons and your
wife and your sons' wives with you. 19You are to bring into the
ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you… 21You
are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food
for you and for them."
Thus God told Noah how he planned to bring floodwaters
on the earth to destroy everyone who refused to repent and believe the truth.
God told Noah to build a large ark (boat) to escape the
flood. The length of the ark had to be 150 meters; the length of one and a half
soccer fields. It would be a refuge for Noah and his family and many animals
and anyone else who would believe God's Word. God ordered Noah to make many
rooms on
the inside of the ark, but only one door on the outside of the
ark. Thus, God's message for the people of Noah's time was this: Anyone
who wishes to escape the judgment of the flood must pass through the one door
of the ark. Every
person who passes through the door will be saved. Those who do not pass
through the door will perish!
So Noah started to build the ark. It was a huge task.
Noah and his three sons had to chop down hundreds and hundreds of large trees,
cut them into planks, shape and nail them, and coat them with tar inside and
out. Noah's wife and his son's wives also helped them in that hard work. For
one hundred years, day after day, Noah and his family worked on building the
ark. But Noah did not limit his activity to merely building. He also preached
to the people of his day. Perhaps he said something like this: "Listen! The
Lord has told me to warn you of His wrath! God's anger boils because of your
sin! He has decided to bring a flood on the earth to destroy everyone who
refuses to repent. However, I make known to you good news! God, in His mercy,
has ordered me to build an ark to be a refuge for anyone who repents of their
sin and believes the word of God!" Thus Noah warned the people with many
words, and urged them to turn from the evil ways of their corrupt generation.
What do you think? Did the people of Noah's era believe
the word which God announced to them through His prophet? We cannot reply now,
because our time is gone. Next time, however, in the will of the Lord, we will
continue with the story of the prophet Noah and see how God preserved everyone
who believed His word, and how He judged those who did not believe His word,
letting them drown in the waters of a great flood.
Thank you for listening….God bless you as you think
about what we read today in the Scriptures:
"The Lord is not
slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with
you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But [the
day of God's judgment] will come like a thief." (2 Pet. 3:9,10)
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