My church is preparing for Vacation Bible School in a few weeks so I want to look at the 5 famous Bible stories we will be covering during the 5 days of VBS. In this blog, I'll share the story for the first day – God Rescues Noah, God keeps His promises.
Genesis 6:17-22
17 “Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will
destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die. 18 But I will confirm my covenant with you. So
enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 19 Bring
a pair of every kind of animal—a male and a female—into the boat with you to
keep them alive during the flood. 20 Pairs of every
kind of bird, and every kind of animal, and every kind of small animal that
scurries along the ground, will come to you to be kept alive. 21 And
be sure to take on board enough food for your family and for all the animals.”
22 So Noah
did everything exactly as God had commanded him.
Was There Really a Worldwide Flood?
There is ample evidence, even outside the Bible, of a tremendous flood that
devastated the Biblical world sometime in the ancient past. Scientists describe the earth at the end of
the last major ice age as a time of great flooding. Geological evidence confirms it. Glaciers melted and caused the oceans to rise
some 400 feet. (Look up… Football field…
40 story building…)
The Black Sea, once a freshwater lake, was flooded by sea
water after the last ice age.
It is now sat water. The ruins of hundreds
of villages now lie beneath water in the Black Sea,
the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, and in many other places around the
world—including Japan, China, and Thailand.
Flooding at the dawn of human civilization was terrible and catastrophic and survives in the memories of hundreds of cultures all around the world—The Epic of Gilgamesh from Ancient Mesopotamia, the ancient Greeks had a flood story, the Hindus have a deluge tale in India, as well as flood stories by the Aztecs in Mexico, and Native Americans. These stories have all striking similarities to the Noah story in the Bible—including boats, birds, animals, and heroes interacting with gods. If that many cultures from around the world remember a great flood, it's worth taking it serious.
But what does God want us to get from the story in the Holy Bible? A major theme from the Noah and the flood story is God keeps His promises. The sign of God’s faithfulness is the rainbow.
A lot of people ask, “How could a good God do something so terrible as flood the whole earth? You could ask the same thing of a doctor who amputates a person’s leg. Why would they do such a horrible thing as cutting off a leg? Well, if the leg was so badly injured or infected that keeping it would jeopardize the whole body, then the most caring thing a doctor could do would be to cut off the leg. And that’s what God saw when He looked at His world. Creation was so evil, the best thing to do was destroy what was too far gone and preserve what was salvageable: Noah, his family, and the animals on the Ark.
Despite humanity’s sin, which
corrupted God’s beautiful creation and broke our relationship with God, God
didn’t give up on us. He promised to save
the world and He kept His promise. And God started with Noah and his family. And God also saved the animals. God is always working to save us. And
God keeps His promises. But we must
trust God and obey
Noah had to trust God. God told Noah to build an ark. If Noah didn’t do it, he couldn’t be saved. But Noah trusted God and obeyed and he was saved. Noah’s obedience also saved his family and the animals. When we trust God and obey, it doesn’t just change our lives; it has the potential to change our family, our community, and even the environment around us. But we have to trust God to keep His promises and we have to obey.
There’s another important symbol in the story—the dove. In Genesis 8, we learn the flood was so great the water covered the earth for 5 months. Then the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, but only mountain peaks were visible for another 2.5 months. How would Noah know when it was safe to leave the Ark? He couldn’t see far enough to know.
Eventually, Noah opened a window and released 2 birds. Do you know what they were? He released a raven and a dove. I don’t know why Noah released a raven. I need to research that. I'm sure the Bible says that for a reason. One reason may be that ravens eat carrion, and there would have been a lot of dead carcasses floating around. The Bible doesn't tell us anything else about the raven, but that tantalizing mention of it makes me want to know more.
On the other hand, we know why the dove was released. A dove prefers to walk on dry land. The dove could fly around and see things Noah and his family couldn’t see and if it didn't find a dry place to land, it would return to the Ark. Genesis 8:9 says, “The dove could find no place to land because the water still covered the ground. So it returned to the boat.” Seven days later, Noah released the dove again and it returned with an olive branch. It had found something, but not enough to live on. So Noah waited seven more days and released the dove again. This time the dove did not return. That meant there was dry land outside for the bird to walk on.
Did you know that every Christian
who follows Jesus as their Lord has the Holy Spirit of God living inside
them? In John 14:15-17, Jesus said, “If
you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you
another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth.” The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. The Holy Spirit guides us.
Do you ever feel lost? I mean, we just can’t see what the future holds. We don’t know what’s up ahead. There might be a flood in our future or some sickness, or another pandemic. We don’t know, but Christians have an asset the rest of the world doesn’t. We have the Holy Spirit to show us the way.
When we pray and ask God to lead us into the unknown future, it’s like a window and releasing a dove. The Holy Spirit, who sees what we can’t see, tells us what to do. But we’ve got to be in tune. We’ve got to be listening. We do that through daily prayer and walking with God. When we walk with Jesus daily, and practice reading the Scriptures, praying, fasting, worshiping, then we grow more accustomed to hearing the Spirit’s voice and following where He leads.
And just like Noah, we have to
trust God and obey. If the Spirit says
build an ark. Build and ark. If the Spirit says, get off the boat, get off the boat. If the Spirit says, talk to that person over there. Talk to them. If the Spirit says, help with VBS. You
better help!
Now, when the Spirit says do something, you may not understand why. It may seem like the silliest thing in the world. You may even think, “I’m not gonna do that! That doesn't make any sense.” But you can’t see what the Holy Spirit sees. So you better just trust the Spirit and obey.
Closing
Noah trusted God and was saved—he and his whole family and all the animals. After it was all over, they all left the boat.
And Noah built and altar and worshiped the Lord. And the Lord was pleased and made a covenant (a divine agreement) with Noah and
his family.
In Genesis 9:12-16, God
said, “12
I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living
creatures, for all generations to come. 13 I have placed my rainbow in
the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. 14 When I send clouds over the earth, the
rainbow will appear in the clouds, 15 and I will remember my
covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the
floodwaters destroy all life. 16 When I see the rainbow in the
clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living
creature on earth.”
