Noah's Obedience and Patience
Please forgive me for missing last week. My schedule had changed drastically and I also had 3 finals to do as well as trying to sleep. I will still be doing this weekly, Lord willing.
As we read through Genesis 7-8, there are points to take and questions to ask. I may not have answers to the questions that I propose, but we should always ask questions about scripture in order to bookmark (in a sense) how we think and answers that we seek to find in their proper context.
One point to take home is from Genesis 7:5, "And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him." Think about that. When the Lord commanded Noah to do something, he did it. He did not fight God for years and try to figure out why God was wrong, Noah just did it , like Nike. That paid off major dividends for Noah and his family as they were spared during the flood. When you do what God wants you to, He is sparing you from what is inevitable trouble if you do not follow through with what he said.
Also, there is another take home point from Genesis 8. The water was subsiding, but not quickly like a drain in a sink or bathtub. It took over 10 months for Noah to see the tops of mountains. That takes much patience. Now we also see that Noah kept checking for the development of what had happened to see if it was safe to exit the arc. Noah sent a Raven and then a dove to test the earth. When the dove no longer returned, another 50+ days later- Genesis 8:12, Noah knew then it was time to exit the arc. Do you see the obedience and the patience this man had? No wonder God spared him. That was not some guy that just reacted to everything on an emotional whim. He did what God said. Period.
A question I had was regarding the earth. I wondered if the flood covered the literal earth as in our entire planet, or did the flood cover the earth that surrounded Noah. I did not think I would come up with an answer (probably THE answer) so quickly. In Genesis 8:21 it reads "And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done." We know that there are still floods that happen on earth, but there are not major floods that have covered the entire earth/planet. So, we can understand the flood was covering the entire planet and not just a small portion of it.
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From Adam to Noah and the Flood
Genesis 5 breaks down the genealogy of Adam all the way down to Noah. A quick point to take from that chapter is that (similar to Matthew 1) you don't know what is going to come from your time on earth. I can look at the fact that I don't have a children and think that is where my "legacy" stops. But, I cannot see the impact I have had on people and kids through my 38 years of living and how that affects people. I cant see how what I was taught and then taught others will affect future generations. Which brings me to Genesis 6 and a serious point of how we should live our lives according to what God wants. God saw that the earth was filled with wickedness and decided to wipe it clean, but before he did so, he spared Noah and told him specific instructions on the arc Noah was to build that would eventually save his family and human kind. The final verse of Genesis 6 is verse 22 which states "Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him." I read that and say, this is what we are to do all the time in our walk with the Lord. We aren't to do whatever we want and validate it later, we are to do what is holy and pleasing to God. Is it difficult to stay on the path of pleasing God, absolutely. But no one said that walking with the Lord would be easy. It will be difficult. God gives us instructions and guidance on what he wants from us. We need to do like Noah did and do all that He commands us.
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