Should We Believe in Noah's Ark (Family Worship Week 4)

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What do you think about when you hear someone say Noah and the ark? Maybe something like this? Well hopefully after today's family worship video you'll have a better understanding of what the

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Bible teaches about Noah and the great flood. Welcome back to our family worship series.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I began this series a few weeks ago to help you as a parent lead your family through family worship.

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Now these videos are intended to be used one of two ways. Either you can use this video to help you prepare your family worship session or you can simply play this video during family worship and use it as an opportunity to have conversations with your family.

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Now in our last video I gave you a little bit of homework. I've been doing that each week and the homework for last week's video was to memorize two memory verses.

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The first one is Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 and 27. The second is

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Romans chapter 5 verse 12. Take a minute right now and see who remembers those verses.

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All right so now we're going to have another opportunity for a conversation with the family and this conversation is going to center around the person of Noah.

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Go around the room and ask everyone what do you think of when you hear Noah? When you hear the name

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Noah? All right

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I imagine some of you probably said flood, probably said rainbow, maybe some of you said ark and animals two by two, maybe some of you even said judgment.

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It's always fun to think of what we know going into a lesson so that we can build on the things that we already understand.

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All right so for anyone unfamiliar with the story of Noah from the Bible, Noah was a person who's introduced to us in Genesis chapter 6 during a time where the world was in a period of tremendous evil.

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The Bible says that the evil on the world had become so terrible that he was going to bring judgment on the world, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the

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Lord. So God spoke to Noah and he told him to build an ark. An ark is like a really big boat and on that ark he would take himself and his wife, his three sons and their wives, along with two of each of the animals and he would bring them onto the ark and he would be there in the ark to be protected from the wrath of God which was going to come by water.

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Water was going to come from above and from below and it was going to destroy the entire earth. Every living person and every creature that walks on the earth was going to be destroyed by the flood, but the people inside the ark,

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Noah and his family and the animals were going to be protected. So a big question that comes up is, is the story of Noah true?

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Well the Bible presents the story of Noah as a narrative, not an allegory or symbolism. The Bible gives

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Noah an ancestry and descendants. In fact, the Bible says we're all descendants of Noah through his three sons,

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Shem, Ham and Japheth. In fact, the term that is sometimes used as a prejudicial term against Jewish people is called anti -semitism.

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Well that word comes from Semitism or Semite which refers to being from the lineage or the descendants of Shem, the son of Noah.

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In addition to this, almost every people group around the world have in their history a flood narrative.

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That doesn't prove that Noah's story is true, but it does give evidence to the fact that there was this global flood because the story of that flood has made its way down to the generations of just about every people group around the world.

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And there's a mountain of evidence, pun intended, for a worldwide flood. In fact, there's an entire ministry called

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Answers in Genesis which is dedicated to proving the validity and truthfulness of the story of the worldwide flood.

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A common refrain which is often given of that ministry is that if there was a worldwide flood, what would the evidence be?

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Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the world. And what do we find when we look at our world?

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We find billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the world. The earth is filled with geological features which indicate a catastrophic worldwide flood.

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Now for a moment I want to talk a little bit about science because often when the story of Noah's flood comes up people say well that's very unscientific.

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There's a scientific term called uniformitarianism and uniformitarianism refers to the way that the world has come to have the geological features that it has today.

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It says that the same natural processes and laws that operate in the present have always operated in the past and it's often summarized by the phrase the present is the key to the past.

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So is there an opposing viewpoint? There is an opposing viewpoint and it's called catastrophism.

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Catastrophism says that the earth's features are primarily the result of short bursts of violent change.

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A single volcano, a single hurricane, or tsunami can produce major change in a short amount of time and the natural erosion and change that would take place in one of those events would take centuries through the natural process of wind and erosion.

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For instance in the year that I was born Mount St. Helens erupted and the resulting change in the surrounding area was enormous.

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Understanding Noah's flood as a worldwide event would be an example of catastrophism. The whole earth was covered with water and that would have changed everything and it would have left the earth completely different than it was before.

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But the best evidence for Noah's flood is actually in the Bible itself. It describes the events in great detail.

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Water came from above and from below and the waters covered the whole earth. Now some people teach that the flood of Noah's day was only a local flood, but I want to read you the scripture from this part of the story so that you can hear how the text describes this not as a local event but as an event that covered the entire earth.

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This is Genesis chapter 7 beginning at verse 17. It says the flood continued 40 days on the earth.

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The waters increased and bore up the ark and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth and the ark floated on the face of the waters.

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And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.

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The waters prevailed above the mountains covering them 15 cubits deep and all flesh died that moved on the earth.

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Birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth and all mankind. Everything on the dry land and whose nostrils was the breath of life died.

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He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground. Man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens.

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They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left and those who were with him in the ark and the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.

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So it seems the Bible indicates that the flood was a worldwide catastrophic event and only eight human beings survived.

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So as we noted in our study of Adam, sometimes it's important that we look beyond just the story of these individuals and we look at the theology behind the story.

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What do these things teach us about theology and about God himself?

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Well, what theology do we learn from the story of Noah? First, the flood demonstrates the certainty of God's judgment against sin.

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In fact, the flood is often pointed back to in the Bible as an example that God does in fact bring judgment on sin.

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And how he brought judgment once through water, he will bring judgment again in the future through fire.

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And so the ark and the story of the ark and the judgment of God coming down in the water, the rain and the floods from above and beneath point to the fact that God's judgment is certain against sin.

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The second thing we learn in the theology of Noah is that Noah was an object of God's grace.

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It says Noah found favor in the eyes of God. The word favor there is translated grace.

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Here's your memory verse for this week. I want you to memorize Genesis chapter 6 verse 8.

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It says, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. That's the ESV translation and again

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I said you can also say Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Genesis chapter 6 verse 8.

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Another important theological truth we learn from the story of Noah is that the ark is about protection from the wrath of God.

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It's a real event but it points us to an even greater reality. The ark protected

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Noah and his family from the wrath of God. In the same way Jesus Christ protects the people who are in him from the wrath of God.

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The Bible says when Jesus Christ was on the cross he was taking the punishment.

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He was receiving the wrath that was deserved by the people who believe in him. So in that he received the wrath and we are then protected from that wrath and the

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Bible says if we are in him there is no condemnation. Romans chapter 8 verse 1 for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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And so if we're in Christ there's no condemnation. We are protected from the wrath of God like Noah and his family were protected inside the ark.

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And this would be a great opportunity to talk with your family about the concept of being in Christ.

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What does it mean to believe in Jesus and what does it mean to be in Christ? What does it mean to be a member of his new covenant?

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What does it mean to be a believer in Jesus? One final thought for today as we are thinking about the reality of the life of Noah and the fact that his story isn't just an allegory but is actually a true historical narrative.

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I want us to consider the fact that he's mentioned several times throughout the Bible and even in the New Testament he's used as an example of faith.

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So I'm going to leave you today with Hebrews chapter 11 verse 7. Chapter 11 of Hebrews is sometimes called the the hall of faith.

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It references several people and their faith and one of the people that is referenced is

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Noah. And it says in verse 7 of Hebrews 11, by faith Noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.

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By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

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See Noah is an example to us of faith and he's also an example according to this verse that righteousness comes by faith.

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The Bible tells us that we are declared righteous not because of what we do but because we trust in God's promises and we trust specifically in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. His righteousness becomes our righteousness. An important question that could come out of tonight's study if you're having a conversation with your family is to simply talk about how the story of Noah is understood by the world.

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Do people see this as a true story as it's presented in the Bible or do most people see this as some type of myth or simply an allegory for something else?

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A good way to end tonight's lesson might be to go around the room and have a conversation about how everyone understands the story of Noah and how they think the world views this story.

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Do you think the world views this story as something that's true or just a fable that is not actual true history?

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That can lead to really good conversations and about why we believe that what the

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Bible says is the truth. I hope you're enjoying these weekly family worship devotional videos and if you are please hit the thumbs up button and if you're not make sure to hit the thumbs down button twice.

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Also if you're enjoying the channel please hit subscribe it helps more than you realize and if you leave me a comment let me know these videos are helping you that does my heart good and it also encourages me to keep moving forward.

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Don't forget also that this week we do have a memory verse it's Genesis chapter 6 verse 8 but Noah found favor in the eyes of the

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Lord. Next time we're going to look at Abraham so I look forward to seeing you back next week.