Key Players:  Noah and His Descendants; God

Read the Story Here: Genesis 8, 9:1-17, 11:1-8

Freedom!  I can imagine the relief Noah and his family felt as they walked down the exit ramp of the Ark after spending some 370 days on the water.  When you breathe the fresh air of spring, just think of how good it was to have fresh air after spending a year on a boat with so many animals and seven other people. The first thing Noah and his family did upon leaving the ark was to build an altar and worship God for His provision and for sparing their lives.  God loves a thankful heart, and His response to Noah is to promise He would never flood the entire earth again with water.  As a symbol of this promise, He set a rainbow in the sky as confirmation (Genesis 9:12-17).   

Keep in mind that Noah and his family were the only people on earth who were saved from the flood.  God gave them grace and showed them mercy because they were they only ones who followed and obeyed God before the flood.  Although they were followers of God, they were still sin cursed people who needed a Savior.  They were good by human standards but not so much by God’s standards.  God’s Words tells us there is no one who is good in themselves when compared to God’s righteousness (Romans 3:10-12).  We’re all cursed by the sin nature we carry as descendants of Adam, and we all need a Savior to rescue us from our sins. Although Noah’s family came through the flood, we soon see that sin nature revealed in a big way.

After the sacrifice, God told Noah’s family to disperse and replenish the earth.  So, in chapters 9-11 of Genesis, Noah’s descendants multiply into a great people, yet they have not dispersed as God told them to do.  In Genesis chapter 11, the sin nature, still alive in human hearts, shows itself in man’s attempt to “make a name for [themselves]” (Genesis 11:4).  Remember, God has told them to spread across the whole earth (Genesis 9:1), yet they were now attempting to build a great city and a tower that reaches to the skies—all to make a great name for themselves apart from God.  God’s remedy for this was to “confuse their languages” (Genesis 11:7) so they could no longer communicate and work together forcing them to disperse and cover the whole earth as God had instructed them to do (Read the story here in Genesis 11). 

Just as it is in our lives many times, their work was productive, and their plans were effective, but their motives were wrong.  They wanted to reach immortality, but they attempted to do so in their own abilities.  These people remind us of many people today who are attempting to work their way to heaven by doing good deeds and working hard to be righteous in their own good actions. Their plans to be good may help them be better people, and their methods of living righteous lives may help them feel better about themselves, but ultimately, they cannot live up to God’s standard of righteousness in their own strength (See Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:4-7).

After God stops the building of the Tower of Babel, the people finally spread out and multiply, just as God told them to do in the first place.  This dispersion fills the earth, fulfills God’s plan, and leads us into the rest of the Old Testament—the account of God’s chosen people of Israel.     

Key Players:  Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, sinful mankind, Noah, and God

Read the Story Here:  Genesis Chapters 4-11

We have sinned, now what?  Can you see Adam and Eve now as they leave the Garden of Eden God created as their home (Genesis 3:23-24)?  How sad that the first humans failed to trust God and failed to obey Him.  Sadly, our sin always affects others.  In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve sinned and brought about the curse of sin on all of creation, but their actions were spread to their children and all future generations.  Even today, we sin because we inherited the nature to sin from Adam. (see the previous blog post for more on Adam and Eve's fall into sin).

Genesis Chapters 4-11 hold the account of how quickly mankind fell from “calling upon the name of the Lord” (Genesis 4:26) to running away from God.  Adam and Eve’s first born son, Cain becomes the world’s first murderer when out of jealousy he kills his younger brother Abel (Genesis 4:1-16).  And as if that’s not bad enough, in Genesis 6:5 God’s Word states that mankind had come to the point that their every thought and intention was to do evil continually.  What was a holy God to do when his prize creation, made in His own image has turned their backs on Him?  How could these people that He loved and created only desire to sin and cause a flood of grief and suffering?  Enter a man named Noah...

It’s hard to find a person in our culture who does not know something about this man Noah who is found in
Genesis chapters 6-7.  As all of mankind rebels against God, Noah is the one man who has chosen to walk with God (Genesis 6:9).  God looks at the earth He created, sees the corruption in which sinful man has chosen to live, and His righteousness demands action.  God basically tells Noah, “I will destroy this earth with a flood of water and I will save you, your wife, and your three sons with their wives (see Genesis 6:11-22).”

Noah is the only one who believes God, and under God’s instruction he builds an ark for his family and the animals God would send into the ark. As he built the ark (a picture of God's salvation and grace), onlookers mock him and refuse to listen to his warnings about coming destruction.  All human and animal life outside the ark is destroyed by the flood, yet Noah and his family are safe inside.  For 150 days, water covers the face of the earth (Genesis 7:24).  The flood is later referred to in the New Testament in comparison to the coming of Christ.  Matthew 24:37-39 says, "When the Son of Man [Jesus] returns, it will be like it was in Noah's day.  In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat.  People didn't realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away.  That is the way it will be when the Son of Man [Jesus] comes (NLT)."  

What a sobering thought that these people who had been warned by Noah that a flood was coming, these people who saw Noah and his sons building this enormous boat day after day, would choose to ignore all the signs and continue to hold parties and banquets as if nothing was wrong.  I Peter 3:20 even says that God was patient during the time when the ark was being prepared, but only a few (8, to be exact) would listen and obey God.  Let this sink in today, and let's resolve not to be among the masses that will ignore the impending return of Christ, but among those who are ready to listen and obey.  If God is speaking to your heart about salvation or another spiritual issue, please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.