I remember the song “Jesus Freak.”
It turned an insult directed at Christians into a badge of honor. If someone calls us “Jesus freaks,” it means we’re obedient to the Lord. Is that bad?
If we’re called names for faithfully following Jesus, we are in good company—Noah among them.
We’ve seen the need for judgment against the Earth in previous weeks. Noah obeyed the counsel of Psalm 32:9 (NIV), “Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”
A horse tends to want to run and get ahead of its trainer. Mules…well, we don’t have the expression “stubborn like a mule” for nothing. Noah, instead, walked in step with God, worked for God, and let God lead. It’s another reason Noah found favor with the Lord: he obeyed the Lord (Genesis 6:8, 22).
Let’s read Genesis 7:1-10.
The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
Genesis 7:1-10, New International Version
5 And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
There were about 100 years between the command to build the Ark and this point. Since the Bible does not specifically say how long it took to build the Ark, how do we know it was about 100 years?
It’s an educated guess. Genesis 5:32 tells us Noah was 500 years old when he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Genesis 7:6 tells us Noah was “600 years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.” I’m not great at math, but there are only 100 years between these two recorded points, and the story is laid out chronologically. Thus, we can figure that it took at most 100 years to build the Ark.
Did Noah do anything else besides function as a general contractor on this massive ship? Hebrews 11:7 (NIV) tells us, “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.” 2 Peter 2:5 (NIV) calls Noah a “preacher of righteousness.”
Noah was trying to lead his corner of the world to the Lord. He was faithful in all ways. Not only did he listen to the Lord’s command to build the Ark, but Noah also testified to the Lord’s power and goodness.
But no one listened. Then the day came.
In our passage today, the title for the Lord changes again. We’re back to using LORD. This is the Lord’s covenant name. It’s His “first name.” It’s intimate. He isn’t Noah’s judge; He was Noah’s Savior.
In this passage, we also see the Lord telling Noah to gather clean and unclean animals, but we are a long way from the Law being given to Moses, which made this distinction. How would Noah know of this distinction if the Law had not been given?
Most Biblical scholars believe it wasn’t the Mosaic laws that introduced such distinctions between “clean” and “unclean,” but codified (or formalized) it. Genesis tells us that these were several practices done before the time of Moses. For example, Cain and Abel made sacrifices that the Law of Moses later codified. Even the city Cain built was a prototype for a “sanctuary city,” which the Law of Moses codified.
Regardless of how we understand it today, Noah understood it and obeyed.
We know another judgment is coming. As Jesus said in Matthew 24:37-39: As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
Are you obeying the Lord?
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Life Meets Theology 