Lesson 5 From Noah’s Ark: Look For Signs Of Hope
And God said, This is a sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on earth. Genesis 9:12-16
God is the author of impossible things and the curator of miracles, but He also comes incredibly close to us. The rainbow in Genesis 9 is a heartwarming reminder of His genuine love for us. There is nothing in the Hebrew to suggest that the rainbow was something new, Zondervan Bible Commentary explains, but rather that a new meaning was given to it. God is faithful to remind us of His presence. In Christ, we have the Living Word of God to reference in order to hear Him speak into our daily lives. We can see Him in creation, and in each other. All humanity was created in the image of God, beautifully diverse and individually wonderful and unique. God is faithful to place signs of hope in our daily lives. He promises, when we seek Him with all of our hearts, we will find Him.
Why Did God Save Noah And His Family
A consistent theme woven throughout history is Gods perfect justice not only in faithfully punishing sin, but also in faithfully rescuing the few who trust in Him. When the Lord rained burning sulfur on Sodom, He spared a believer named Lot. When Lot hesitated to leave, angels grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and daughters and led them to safety, for the Lord was merciful to them .
Among all the quarreling, backstabbing, greedy humans, Noah must have stood out like a sore thumb. Genesis 6:8-9 says he was a good man who had a good relationship with God. In His mercy, the Lord chose to spare Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives. He did so not because Noah and his family were perfect, but because they believed Him. Noah built the ark because He believed that God really would bring the Flood and really would save him .
Why Did God Flood The Whole World
God is holy perfect and pure, set apart from anything sinful. Sin separates us from the Lord because He cannot embrace wickedness. He is just He always does the right thing and He cannot turn a blind eye to sin. If He picked and chose when He would tolerate evil and who He would allow to sin, He would be unjust and unpredictable.
But the Lord hates all sin and loves all people. When He looked down upon the beautiful world He had made and saw His beloved people killing and beating and mocking and stealing from each other, His heart was filled with pain. He peered into their hearts and saw that their thoughts were bent on evil all the time. Grieved that the people He had made were so full of wickedness and violence, God wiped the slate clean by destroying every living thing not on the ark .
We then might wonder if God made a mistake when He created the world. Did He miss a step or botch Adams design? Ephesians 1:4 and 2 Timothy 1:9 are two of the many verses that tell us that our Lord knew what He was doing. He knew before He even created the planet that every human who walked on it would be full of selfishness and pride. During the Flood, he spared humanity from total destruction, knowing full well that He would one day sacrifice His Son to save us again.
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Did The Bible ‘steal’ The Flood Story From Gilgamesh
All signs point to yes, that the authors of Genesis were clearly aware of the divine deluge described in the earlier Epic of Gilgamesh.
“We actually have the smoking gun,” says Pryke. “Archeologists have found bits of the Epic of Gilgamesh all over . It looks like Gilgamesh was something that was in broad circulation at the time.”
Since both the Bible and Gilgamesh were passed along as oral traditions long before they were written down, it’s possible that the Mesopotamian flood narrative first entered Hebrew culture as a type of “contest literature” similar to 1001 Arabian Nights.
“People traveled somewhere and they’d compete to tell the most remarkable stories that they knew from their culture,” says Pryke, “and then you got this cultural discourse that was happening.”
What Happens In The Noahs Ark Bible Story
The book of Genesis shares the story of Noah and the ark. God saw that the people of the earth had disobeyed and become wicked in their ways. God spoke to Noah and told him how He would destroy the earth and all its inhabitants. God provided a way for Noah and his family to escape. God gave Noah detailed instructions on how to build an ark and what to put in that ark. Scripture says God spoke to Noah. Have you ever considered how that conversation happened? Did God speak to Noah in the morning or the evening? Was Noah shocked? How did Noah feel when he heard the voice of God? Noah walked with God, according to Scripture?
Noah followed the will of God. God surely chose Noah because of his dedication and obedience.
God provided instructions. Noah built the ark, filled it with pairs of every kind of animal, and prepared for the flood. Noah instructed his family to enter the ark. Noahs family listened and followed directions to enter the ark. Inside, they waited for the floodwaters to rise. Rain came and fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. Imagine the sounds of rain hitting the roof for that long period of time. Imagine the sounds and smells inside the ark.
After the rain ceased, the earth was flooded for 150 days.
The next step was to open the ark and see outside. Imagine the emotions of Noah and the group as they viewed dry land. The ark had come to land on the mountains of Ararat.
God provided more specific instructions to Noah and his family.
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What Is Noah’s Ark
When we picture Noahs ark, we often think of the nursery décor version a tiny, round boat bobbing along with giraffe heads poking out the top. Gods blueprints for the ark, laid out in Genesis 6:14-16, describe something a bit different.
The Lord told Noah to build a 3-story wooden ark with rooms inside and to coat it with pitch. The Hebrew word we translate as ark means a box or storage chest. Pitch is a black, sticky waterproofing material that can be made from pine trees. The ark sounds more like a black barge than a tan teacup.
The dimensions are staggering 450 ft long , 75 ft wide, and 45ft high. For comparison, the title of Worlds Tallest Giraffe is currently held by Forest, who stands at 18 feet, 8 inches. This boat covered over ¾ of an acre.
God also told Noah to store on the ark portions of every kind of food, enough for his family and two of each kind of animal. He made clear that the only way to survive the coming Flood was to be on the ark. Noah got to work and followed Gods instructions to the letter .
The Bible In Ancient Context
The Bible is a record of encounters between Almighty God and ordinary humans that lived thousands of years ago. As biblical scholar John Walton puts it, the Bible was written for us all, but it was not written to us. Thus, for us to understand what Genesis means, we first need to understand what it meant to those who wrote and received it.
It was common practice in the ancient world to use an event and retell it in a figurative way to communicate a message to the hearers. There is good scriptural and historical evidence that the Flood story is an interpretation of an actual historical event retold in the rhetoric and theology of ancient Israel. The Genesis account is one of many stories of catastrophic floods in the ancient world, including the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, which bears striking similarities to the story of the Flood.
This doesnt mean that Genesis 6-9 is borrowed from the stories of other cultures, but that it is based on a common cultural memory of a watery cataclysm.
The exact nature or date of this historical flood is not important to the meaning of the Genesis account, however, because the purpose of the biblical story is not to give a list of facts about that flood, but to communicate a message about God and humanity to the original hearers
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The Flood Genesis : 7
We dont know exactly how many years it took Noah to build the ark, but piecing together some of the ages and dates given between Genesis 5 and Genesis 11, it seems that Noah built the ark and preached for at least 55 years to as many as 120 years before the flood started. The popular number of 120 years comes from Genesis 6:3 when God said that mans days would be 120 years. He was 600 years old when he entered the ark.
Noah and his family entered the ark alone as there was no one else who joined them. They waited in the ark 7 days before the flood began. The Bible says in Genesis 7:12 and 17 that it rained actively for 40 days. The earth was flooded 150 days, or almost 6 months.
The Story Of Noah And The Flood
God saw how great wickedness had become and decided to wipe humankind off the face of the earth. But one righteous man among all the people of that time, Noah, found favor in God’s eyes.
With very specific instructions, God told Noah to build an ark for him and his family in preparation for a catastrophic flood that would destroy every living thing on earth. God also instructed Noah to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, both male and female, and seven pairs of all the clean animals, along with every kind of food to be stored for the animals and his family while on the ark. Noah obeyed everything God commanded him to do.
After Noah and his family had entered the ark, rain fell for a period of forty days and nights. The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days, and every living thing was destroyed.
As the waters receded, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Noah and his family continued to wait for almost eight more months while the surface of the earth dried out.
Finally, after an entire year, God invited Noah to come out of the ark. Immediately, Noah built an altar and offered burnt sacrifices with some of the clean animals to give thanks to God for deliverance. God was pleased with the offerings and promised never again to destroy all the living creatures as he had just done.
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After The Flood Genesis 8
The flood stopped and the waters began to recede. After 150 days at sea the ark settled onto Mount Ararat.
Noah released a couple of different birds to help him know if it was possible to leave the ark. The first was a raven that left and returned continuously until the waters receded. Then he released a dove. The dove, which he sent out three times, did not have any place to rest the first time it was released. It returned to the ark.
Seven days later he sent the dove again, but this time it brought back an olive branch. Another week later Noah sent out that dove again, but it never returned. This told Noah that it was time to leave the ark since there was proof of vegetation and dry ground.
Noah and his children released the animals from the ark. When they exited the ark they built an altar to the Lord .
Searches For Noah’s Ark
Searches for Noah’s Ark have been made from at least the time of Eusebius to the present day. Today, the practice is widely regarded as pseudoarchaeology. Various locations for the ark have been suggested but have never been confirmed. Search sites have included Durupnar site, a site on Mount Tendürek in eastern Turkey and Mount Ararat, but geological investigation of possible remains of the ark has only shown natural sedimentary formations. While biblical literalists maintain the Ark’s existence in archaeological history, much of its scientific feasibility along with that of the deluge has been contested.
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The Meaning Of The Flood
To some, the view outlined here of the Flood account denies the divine inspiration of the text and instead makes the story entirely a human invention. But its important to remember that God chose to communicate his message through ordinary people, accommodating himself to their limited knowledge in order to draw themselves to him. God did not give the ancient Israelites scientific data, nor did he give the Israelites new genres of literature.
The story of Noah, the Ark, and Flood speaks an inspired and powerful message about judgment and grace, that has instructed Gods people throughout the ages about Gods hatred of sin and his love for his creation. Most importantly, we see Gods promise never to destroy the Earth again fully realized in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, where God takes the judgment for sin upon himself rather than humanity. Thus, through the lens of Christ, the biblical Flood story proclaims the marvelous news of Gods grace and love for his people.
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Major Themes And Life Lessons
The two major themes in the story of Noah and the flood are God’s judgment of sin and his good news of deliverance and salvation to those who trust in him.
God’s purpose in the flood was not to destroy people but to destroy wickedness and sin. Before God decided to wipe the people from the face of the earth, he first warned Noah, making a covenant to save Noah and his family. The whole time Noah and his family labored constantly to build the ark , Noah also preached a message of repentance. With the coming judgment, God provided plenty of time and a way of escape for those who would look to him in faith. But the wicked generation ignored Noah’s message.
Noahs story serves as an example of righteous living and enduring faith in the face of completely immoral and faithless times.
It’s important to note that sin was not wiped out by the flood. Noah was described in the Bible as “righteous” and “blameless,” but he was not sinless. We know that after the flood, Noah drank wine and became drunk . However, Noah did not behave as the other wicked people of his day, but rather, “walked with God.”
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What Is The Story Of Noah
When God saw how wicked and corrupt man had become, He regretted creating them and decided to destroy all of mankind . However, God gave Noah favor because he saw that he was righteous . God commanded Noah to build an ark to house and preserve his family, as well as every male and female species of land animal, from His punishment of a flood on the earth .
The rain fell and the floodwaters rose around the ark for 40 days, however, Noah and the other inhabitants remained safe .
After a dove that Noah had sent out returned with an olive leaf , these sole survivors of the flood disembarked where God blessed Noah and his children, encouraging them to be fruitful and multiply . He also commanded them to not eat flesh which still has blood in it , nor to spill the lifeblood of their fellow man .
Additionally, God made a covenant with Noah and his sons, promising to never destroy them, their descendants, nor any living creatures through a flood ever again . As a token of His covenant, God set a rainbow in the clouds to serve as a reminder of His pledge to all living creatures on earth .
Relating Science And Scripture
When discoveries in Gods world conflict with interpretations of Gods Word, Christians have three options:
Christians, by definition, reject Option 1. Option 2 has a terrible historical track record, and many prominent historical theologians have urged Christians not to ignore or dismiss the findings of science. Option 3 represents the best tradition among Christians, and history provides many examples of our knowledge of the natural world helping to correct faulty interpretations of Scripture. The discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo , for instance, changed the Churchs perspective on whether the Bible intends to teach us about Earths place in the solar system.
Because we take God to be the author of the book of nature as well as the divine author of the book of Scripture, we believe the proper interpretation of the Flood story will not be in conflict with what we have discovered in the natural world.
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