Really, think about it. When was the last time you had yourself a REAL life adventure? I know I haven’t in a very long while. The closest thing I get to an adventure these days is when there are four kids who need to be fed at the same time!
Genesis 6:9-22
“This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark--you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them. 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”
God is always active. Even in righteous judgement and punishment of a corrupt creation, God is always doing something. He looks around at what He began so beautifully and realizes that it has all gone haywire. The seeds of rebellion that began in the garden grew like kudzu, strangling and pulling down everything in its path. He saw that the human hearts He had designed were full of black, greasy evil. And God was grieved.
But Noah was different, he had found favor in God’s eyes. How did he do it? What was it about Noah that prompted God’s mercy and kept Him from completely pulling the plug on the whole species and creating something new and improved? Who knows? Maybe it was merely the fact that Noah recognized God amongst all the chaos and mayhem and realized He was the source of all life and existence?
So God spares Noah, and for Noah’s sake, his family. His sons don’t impress me much, and won’t later on in the story either. Mrs. Noah is never named, so its hard to tell what kind of person she was. So the family was probably saved on the coattails of Noah’s virtue. But God has more in store for this plan of salvation.
How insane do you have to be to build a giant boat in your backyard? There’s no way it can be moved – its destined to become one of those weird tourist attractions found in small mid-western towns – “World’s largest ball of string” and other such nonsense. And two of every kind of animal in the world is supposed to fit inside?
A smelly adventure, to say the least, but at least it won’t be very tame. Mind those tiger claws, Mrs. Noah.
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