Key: Blue=Bible, Red=Author notes
Hebrews 11:7 NLT
It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith.
Good Day World,
Today we made it to our 3rd member of the Hall of Faith, Noah! Most of us know the story of the Noah’s Ark, so I summarize the story quickly.
As I talked about in previous posts, finding a righteous person in the world is kind of hard. So hard that God got sick and tired of all the wickedness and decided to send a flood to destroy everything, even the animals who did nothing wrong. He did decide to keep a little group of people, and animals, safe, that is Noah’s family; Him, his wife, and his three sons and their wives, as well as 2 of every animal, with 7 pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean animals. It then rains for 40 days and 40 nights, and leading to the entire world being submerged in water, so much that even the mountains were covered. Soon after, the water subsided and Noah got to walk on land again. God then makes a covenant with Noah that he will never send a flood like that again, and a rainbow will represent that covenant.
That’s most of the story, but let’s look at it again from a different view. If you lived in those times, and God told you to make a gigantic ark in order to survive a flood that will engulf the whole world, would you do it? As Hebrews 11:7 says it is by faith that Noah built the ark.
“By faith,” this is a constant statement seen all throughout Hebrews 11. It was by faith that Noah built the ark. I don’t know about you, but I think it would require a ton of faith to be able to build this huge ark and trust that God can do what he says he going to do. The faith that Noah had is both tremendous and inspiring. And because he decided to obey God’s commands, he was able to save his family and be considered as righteous. But what about us???
According to the Bible, God speaks to people and people can hear the auditory sound of God. God spoke to Noah, telling him to create the ark. Nowadays, I personally don’t believe God speaks to people anymore. In fact, God does not need to speak to us anymore, since we have something that the Old Testament people didn’t have: the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. These are our gifts, from God, that we can use to communicate and understand his will in our lives. But with that being said, do we obey?
God may not be telling us to build an ark, but he giving us commands every day. We may not be building “the ark,” but we are building “an ark.” Our ark represents the obedience we show to God. When we obey God, just as Noah done, we can end up saving our families from the flood created by the world. That flood can represent money issues, marriage problems, or just sin. Obedience to God protects us from these things. And not only will we be saved, we will be considered as righteous.
Romans 6:15-18 NIV
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
As it says in vs 16, sin leads to death, but obedience leads to righteousness. According to the Bible, if we do not obey God’s will, we will die. This concept is seen all throughout the entire Bible and in life.
- Adam and Eve in the garden, they suffered a “death” due to disobedience to God.
- If Noah did not trust the Lord and obey his commands, he would have died with the rest of humanity.
- (Skipping a couple years) Uzzah touched the Ark of the Covenant, breaking one of God’s specific instructions, leading him to die. (2 Sam 6)
- (Skipping a couple more years) Ananias and his wife Sapphira was killed because they lied about money. (Acts 5)
There are many different examples, that I don’t know off the top of my head, but these are but a few.
God gives us commands through the Holy Spirit and the Bible. How are you doing following them? Do you feel like you are falling short? A wise man from my church gave me some good advice about dealing with this.
“Obeying God does not help God. It serves to help you.”
We must train our minds that this is not just for God, but it is also for us, so that we can become saved and remain saved. It helps us receive a new outlook to obey God’s laws. We are not just obeying them to obey them, we are obeying them because God loves us and want us to enjoy the world he created. The other option is to ignore him which leads to destruction, sin, lust, anger, rage, murder, war, and death.
I have to say, the Bible is beautifully made and beautifully written. Deuteronomy 28 is a great chapter that explains what happens when you obey the Lord and what happens when you disobey the Lord. I find it funny that the results for disobedience 2x as long as the results for obedience, more reason why to simply obey.
It is by faith that Noah obeyed the Lord, which then led to his righteousness by faith. If the great flood did happen, then we all descended from Noah, so let’s follow in our great ancestor’s footsteps and learn to obey the Lord as he did.
That was our 3rd installment to this series. The next one is the great man of God, Abraham. His is extra-long, so it may be a 2-part or 3-part series, but amen! I hope ya’ll have a wonderful day and week, and I pray for all those suffering from the hands of hurricanes, natural disasters, and illness. God be with us all!
With love,
Ayodeji Alaketu
