LIFE LESSONS
NOAH
DR. JIM DIXON
GENESIS 6:5-22, HEBREWS 11:7
SEPTEMBER 15, 2002
The Gilgamesh Epic is one of the oldest documents in the world. It was inscribed on tablets of clay by Babylonians in Southern Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago. Two hundred years ago, archeologists unearthed a complete copy of the Gilgamesh Epic in the ancient library of Ashurbanipal. Ashurbanipal ruled the Assyrian Empire from its capital city of Nineveh on the Tigris River 600 years before Christ.
Archeologists found this complete copy of the Gilgamesh Epic, and they were stunned. They were astounded when they looked at the 11th clay tablet and there they found inscribed the story of a global flood.
The hero of that story was a man named Utnapishtim. He was warned by the gods that the Council of the Gods—he was actually warned by the Babylonian god Ea—that the Council of the Babylonian gods led by Enlil were about to flood the world. And so, they said to this hero, “Build yourself a wooden ark. Build a wooden ark. The gods are going to flood the world. Bring onto the ark animals of every kind that they might be preserved, and bring onto the ark people of every trade, that those trades might be preserved on the earth.” The rains came for six days and six nights. Birds were sent out to see whether or not the water had dissipated and then the water came to rest on Mt. Nasser. Utnapishtim and his wife got out of the ark, and they built themselves an altar and they gave thanks.
The truth is virtually every ancient civilization has a legend or a story describing a great or global flood. This is true of the Sumerians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, the Greeks, even Native American Indians. Some Christians are disturbed by this. They think that somehow it discredits the biblical story of Noah and the great flood. But it actually lends credence to the biblical story of the Noah and the great flood because it proves that ancient civilizations had residual within their mind the memory the telling of a great and global flood. And, you see, you only understand the beauty and the majesty of the biblical story of Noah when you compare that story to some of these other stories from ancient civilizations.
Some of these stories from ancient civilizations are humorous because they are so ludicrous. For instance, in the Gilgamesh Epic, the reason the gods decide to flood the world is not because of the sin of man or the wickedness on the earth. In fact, it had nothing to do with morality at all, but gods in the Gilgamesh Epic decide to flood the earth because people are too noisy. It’s all about noise. The gods are getting a headache, so they decide to flood the earth. The reason the gods in the Gilgamesh Epic stopped the rain after only six days and six nights is because the gods were beginning to starve to death. The animals were dying. The people were dying. There were no more animal sacrifices, and the gods had nothing to eat. This is typical of the stories from those other ancient civilizations. They are just ludicrous.
In the Greek story of the great flood, the hero of the story is a man named Deucalion, and he is warned by the gods to build himself an ark of wood because Zeus is going to bring a flood upon the earth. After the rain and the dissipation of the water, Dedalian and his wife and the ark come to rest on Mt. Parnassus. Deucalion, in Greek mythology, was the son of Pandora and Prometheus. He comes out of the ark with his wife, and they notice that there are no more people on the earth. Strangely, they do not know how to repeople the earth. They cannot figure that out. So, they go to the Oracle at Delphi, who has miraculously and supernaturally survived the flood, and they say, “How do we repeople the earth?” The Oracle at Delphi says, “Cast the bones of your mother.” Deucalion and his wife understood this to mean that they were to throw rocks or stones from Mother Earth. Deucalion picks up a rock, throws it, and becomes a man. His wife picks up a rock, throws it, and becomes a woman. Their neighbors were literally only “a stone’s throw away!” By throwing these rocks, they repeopled the earth.
You see, this is typical of the stories that come from those ancient civilizations. But you look at the story of Noah in the Bible and you see the depth of its spirituality; the greatness of its moral essence and you also see that even zoologically and meteorologically and nautically the story holds together. I mean, the length of the ark was three hundred cubits—450 to 500 feet long. It had three decks. Those decks in the aggregate were 1,500 feet long. There was enough space in the ark to hold 8,000 species of animals. Indeed, scientists tell us that that approximates the number of species of animals known to have existed in the time of Noah.
The ark, as described in terms of its construction, would have been seaworthy. The 40 days and 40 nights of rain, meteorologists tell us, would have been sufficient to create the great deluge, particularly when combined with the rising of the subterranean waters described in the book of Genesis. The eleven months after the flooding that the Bible described would have been sufficient for the water to dissipate on the earth. I mean, it all fits together in incredible ways you see in no other story from any other ancient civilization.
The Bible tells us that Noah’s ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat, which is in modern-day Turkey, eastern Turkey. That mountain is 18,000 feet high, shrouded in clouds, and parts of it covered with glacial ice. There are people who still look for Noah’s ark there and there are, of course, rumored sightings of vast wooden structures partly protruding from glacial ice. But the likelihood is Noah’s ark disappeared from the earth long ago. I mean, it would have rotted. It would have eroded thousands of years ago.
Our purpose this morning is not simply to defend the historicity of the biblical account of Noah’s flood, but rather to receive that story as from God and enter the story—enter the story and see what God is saying to us through the person of Noah. What is God saying to us? Clearly God is saying two things.
First of all, God is saying He seeks a faithful people. In this generation, in all generations, God seeks a faithful people. The Bible tells us Noah was faithful in his generation, a righteous man blameless in his generation. He did all that God told him to do. He was faithful. Now, his generation was not faithful. In Genesis, chapter 6, we see the two great sins of Noah’s generation. They relate to sex and violence.
In Genesis, chapter 6, verses 1 through 8, we are told of the sexual promiscuity rampant in that culture in Noah’s day. In Genesis, chapter 6, verses 9 through 22, we see the violence growing on the earth, so disturbing to God. So, this was a culture preoccupied with sex and violence. We are to understand, in the midst of that culture Noah was faithful, faithful to his wife, faithful to God, and a man of peace.
In July of 1893, a woman named Katharine Bates came here to the State of Colorado. Katharine Bates was a professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, not too far from the city of Boston. A professor at Wellesley, she had come to Colorado Springs to teach a summer class at Colorado College. It was that summer in 1893 when Katharine Bates went up on Pikes Peak. There, from the top of Pikes Peak, she looked down on the beauty of the state that we are privileged to live in, and that inspired her to write the words to the song, “America the Beautiful.”
Katharine Bates was a devout Christian, the daughter of a Christian minister. She included within the words to that song these words: “God shed His grace on thee.” Of course, our nation is in desperate need of grace and mercy. All nations need God’s grace and mercy. All people, each of us in this room today, we need God’s grace and mercy.
But our culture, perhaps, is in particular need of God’s grace and mercy, and judgement cannot be far away because this generation in America is very much like the generation of Noah’s day. We are preoccupied with sex and violence. We look at our youth culture and we look at the public schools and we thank God for all the teachers in public education and private education, the women and the men who care about our kids in this nation. But the culture in the public schools is a culture becoming ever more violent. We are averaging 9,000 rapes a year in public schools in America; 12,000 cases of armed robbery; 250,000 recorded burglaries every year in public schools in America; and 200,000 cases of bodily assault. We are told, by school officials and government officials, that only one out of every five incidents are believed to be reported, so the problem is even greater.
Youth gangs in large cities of America, armed youth, outnumber police forces in those cities by ten to one. If they were able to get together, those youth gangs could create social and economic chaos. Our children are reared watching countless acts of violence on television and at the movies. We are a culture, a nation that views violence as entertainment.
If we view violence as entertainment, it is also true we view sex as recreation. We view sexual activity as recreation. Six hundred thousand teenage boys a year in the United States of America become unwed fathers, and one million teenage girls a year in this nation become unwed mothers. Hundreds of thousands of additional teenage girls have abortions. Venereal disease has increased over 300% in the last ten years in our nation. Pornography is rampant. More than one billion pornographic magazines were sold in this nation last year—four for every human being in the country. Pornography is rampant on the Internet, and available on videos and cable.
You can understand why Mark Twain once said, “Such a mess is humanity. ‘Tis a shame that Noah didn’t miss the boat.” Sometimes it does seem like humanity is a mess. Sometimes we all feel like we are a mess. ·What’s the answer?
Some people think the answer is more laws. We need more laws to regulate human behavior. We must regulate human behavior from the top down governmentally. But, of course, that is not the ultimate answer. What we really need is not more laws but just more obedience. What we need is not more laws but more morality, more self-control as a nation in matters of morality.
I saw in the Economist Magazine, a British publication, that the Islamic government in Nigeria has instituted Sharia Law. Four women have been condemned to death by stoning because they have committed adultery. The Economist Magazine portrayed one woman nursing her baby and the caption explained that when the baby was weaned, the mother would be executed. The mother claims that she thought this man was going to marry her. That was her grave mistake, and she will be stoned to death in accordance with Sharia law, Muslim law.
Throughout that country, people who steal are having their hands cut off and their arms cut off in accordance with Sharia law. Those who drink alcohol, even a sip, are being beaten and flogged to the point of hospitalization. In Nigeria, alcohol really is hazardous to your health!
That’s not the answer. Top-down regulation of human behavior just always produces an abuse of civil liberties. What we need is revival. We’re in desperate need of revival here in the United States of America, that our hearts would turn toward God and that we’d long to please Him, and we would begin to exercise self-control.
How’s it going with you? Are you part of the group of faithful people that God seeks in every generation? Are you seeking to follow Jesus and please Him in all that you do every day?
We need to encourage each other. That is part of the reason that we have small groups in this church, that we might pray for each other, encourage each other, build each other up; that through each other’s prayers and friendships, we might be strong in a generation that is addicted to sex and violence, that we might be the faithful people that God is seeking on the earth. We need each other.
I recently read a true story about Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy, and how a few years ago, a decade ago, they were walking in a cemetery. Together they saw a gravestone. The gravestone said, “Here lies an honest man and politician.” Ronald Reagan smiled, and he turned to Nancy and said, “How about that? Two people buried in the same grave!”
I don’t know about two people buried in the same grave, but I do know that there are two natures in each of us. Because we were created in the imago Dei, in the image of God, and that image of God is at least residual still in every human being. But then there’s also this fallen nature the Bible calls the “sin nature” and there’s a war with it. When you become a Christian and you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the Bible tells us He actually sends the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to indwell you. You do not necessarily experience it or feel it physically, but God promises it is true. The Holy Spirit comes to indwell you and quickens your spirit so that you might experience a new nature and begin to have victory over the old nature, the fallen nature, the sin nature. But even for the Christian, it’s a struggle for the sanctification. You need to long to be righteous and long to please God to be part of His faithful people as Noah was.
We have a second and final message from Noah, and that second message is this: God promises to protect His people. He seeks a faithful people, and He promises to protect His people. Of course, that is really what the story of Noah is about—judgement and protection. God rescued Noah and the seven members of his family. God said to Noah, “I will establish My covenant with you, and you will come into the ark, you and your wife and your sons’ wives with you, to be kept safe,” God says. You see, the ark, throughout the rest of scripture becomes a symbol of safety, a symbol of salvation, a symbol of protection. God offers an ark. He offers to protect His people.
I know sometimes you feel like, “Where’s God? Where was God when this happened? Where was God when that happened?” Of course, in the aftermath of 9/11, that’s what a lot of people were saying, “Where was God on September 11th?” I, for one, believe that God was present and working. I believe that He grieved with the loss of life. I believe that He loved every person in those buildings, on the airplanes. I believe He was working in mercy.
Do you remember how, in the year 1993, a terrorist bomb exploded in the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center? Remember that? Six people died. It was a tragic thing. In the ensuing moments, there was just chaos in the World Trade Center. They tried to evacuate the buildings and they could not do it. In the stairwells, all the lights went off. It was pitch black for over six hours. After six hours, most of the people were still in the buildings.
In that case in 1993, it did not matter, but by the grace of God, it prompted authorities to change things. Battery operated lighting was put into the stairwells in the World Trade Center after 1993, glow-in-the-dark handrails. They began to do emergency runs, practice evacuation, practicing the evacuation of the buildings. All of that was mercy. So, on September 11 of last year, when that tragedy took place, over 90% of the people were able to evacuate the building in less than two hours. I do not know about you, but I see some of the mercy of God there. When you look at what could have happened—when you look at the World Trade Center, the Twin Towers, the four airplanes, the Pentagon,—75,000 people could have died if everything were at maximum occupancy. Current numbers suggest 3,056—every life precious, every death tragic, but mercy. Structural engineers now marvel that the Twin Towers that the Twin Towers stood as long as they did.
Three of the four airplanes were only one-quarter full; the other, one-third. The section of the Pentagon that was hit by the plane was the first of five sections to be reinforced. It would have been far worse. The mercy of God.
But understand that God’s primary focus on this earth is not the protection of human life. It’s not the salvation of physical bodies. God’s primary focus on this earth is the salvation of souls, the protection of the soul.
God promises to protect His people, to give you an ark. Sometimes His protection extends to the physical. As we saw in our small group video, as Christians pray God does intervene. We’ve seen many people healed, and we’ve seen God’s mercy in the physical arena. But, you see, God’s primary concern is the spiritual arena, and so He’s provided an ark to save the souls of women and men, and that ark is Christ, the gospel. He offers to protect your soul forever through this ark called Christ. We see this concern of God with the souls of men even with regard to the generation of Noah. It is in that mysterious passage in 1 Peter, chapter 3, where we read how our Lord Jesus Christ, while He was in the Spirit—between His death and resurrection—as He died on the cross before Easter Sunday. Between Friday and Sunday, we’re told in 1 Peter, chapter 3, “He went in the Spirit, and He preached to the spirits to those who disobeyed in the days of Noah.” The Greek word for “preach” there is “kerusso.” Kerusso is a Greek word that almost never refers to the preaching of judgement but always to the preaching of the good news of salvation, the offer to salvation to those who would believe.
It appears that even those who died in the generation of Noah, God is concerned with their souls. They’re precious to Him. And so, He sends us forth over the earth with the gospel inviting people to come onto the ark. Judgement is coming. Warning is given.
On March 7, 1915, the Lusitania went down. If you know history, you know that. On March 7, 1915, the Lusitania sank off the coast of Ireland. 1,198 people were onboard. 1,124 died. They never came up. 128 of them were Americans, and they’d all been warned. The Cunard Line, which operated the transatlantic crossing that included the Lusitania’s voyage, warned everybody. “Sail at your own risk.”
World War I was beginning. “Sail at your own risk.” They put notices in the newspapers. They warned everyone who was trying to buy a ticket. People didn’t care. They thought they would be okay. I think a lot of people in the world are like that, but God issues a warning. Judgement is coming on Judgement Day. There is an ark of salvation, and it’s offered through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I saw recently a survey that was taken of the richest 1% of people in the United States of America, those people who make over $350,000 a year and have net assets at $3.5 million or above. That top 1%, about a million people, were surveyed as to how much money they would spend for various things.
“How much would you spend for great beauty?” The average person said, “$83,000.” “How much would you spend for great talent?” The average was $285,000. “How much would you spend for great intellect?” The average was $407,000. “How much would you spend for true love?” The average was $487,000. “How much would you spend for a ticket to heaven?” The average was $640,000. Of course, the survey was bogus. It was bogus because you can’t buy any of those things. You can’t buy great beauty, great talent, great intellect. You can’t buy true love. You certainly can’t buy a ticket to heaven. It is all theoretical and therefore meaningless.
But how curious that the wealthiest people in our nation would spend less than 20% of their assets for a ticket to heaven. How important is it to you? It’s pretty important to Christ, so much so that He died on the cross. He gave His life. That is how important it is to Him.
How important is it to you? How important is it to you to take the message of Jesus to people in your neighborhood or people at work, or to enable missionaries to go forth to the corners of the earth? How important is that to you? Do you really believe judgement is coming? Do you really believe Jesus can save? Do you believe He is the Savior? Do you believe He is the ark of God? Do you love people? Do you want to invite people onto the ark? That is the question God asks us as a congregation today. Have you come onto the ark?
As we close, I’m aware of the fact that probably all of you know the story of Todd Beamer, the young man who died on United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed into a Pennsylvania field. You know that he was one of the heroes on that flight. You know that he, near the end of his life before he acted against the terrorists, said the Lord’s Prayer. You know his final words, “Let’s roll!” You have read the stories. You probably know his wife Lisa has been interviewed many times.
Just a few months ago, she was interviewed on CNN, and it was carried to the world. A group of people in Russia were so interested in what Lisa Beamer was saying and the testimony she gave that they flew over here to meet with her.
She demanded that they meet her at Princeton Alliance Church in Princeton, New Jersey, where she and her husband Todd had taught Sunday school. These Russians, some of them important officials, met her in one of the Sunday school classrooms. She put a little diagram up on the board that showed God and man and a chasm, a great gap between God and man because God is holy and mankind is fallen. Then she drew a cross across the chasm, the cross of Christ, a bridge. She said, “Mankind can have fellowship with God through Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross. Your sins will be forgiven you, and you’ll come into the family of God and receive eternal life.”
One Russian official, very important, was so moved by the Holy Spirit that he accepted Christ. They took the video report of everything that Lisa Beamer said including the bridge illustration with the cross back to Russia and showed it on national television. There have been people across Russia who have now accepted Christ because of this. Do you realize what God is doing when He says He protects His people? He’s talking supremely about the soul, and that’s what the ark is offered for and that’s why the gospel is given: The protection of the soul.
Lisa Beamer says her favorite verse is Genesis 50:20. “You intended to harm me,” (the word of Joseph to his brothers), “but God meant it for good to accomplish what He is now doing, the saving of many souls.” Isn’t that awesome? God’s all about saving souls. That is what we need to be about. Let us look to the Lord with a word of prayer.