28  Noah: Obeying in  Faith (11:7)

By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. (11:7)

“Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). True faith always has actions to support its claim. Earlier in the second chapter of his letter, James condemns the man who says he has faith but who does nothing to help a fellow Christian in need. In order for faith to be valid, it must visibly radiate itself in good deeds. If you really believe in God, there will be evidence of it in the way you live, in the things you say, and in the things you do.

Abel illustrates the worship of faith, and Enoch the walk of faith. Noah, perhaps more than any other person in history, illustrates the work of faith—obedience.

Satan has continually tried to confuse and mislead people, including God’s people, about faith and works. If possible, he will convince a person that he can be saved by doing certain good works. If this strategy works, the person will be lost to God. If a person trusts in God and is saved, Satan then tries to convince him of one of two extremes—that he must do good works to keep his salvation (legalism) or that, now that he is saved by faith, he can forget about good works (license). From Genesis to Revelation, however, the Bible is clear that a person is saved only by faith, and that when he is saved, good works should follow as a result.

Paul, who so strongly proclaimed justification by faith alone, also proclaimed a life of good works for those who are justified. “Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share” (1 Tim. 6:18). Believers are, in fact, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). For all the saints listed in Hebrews 11, their genuine faith was made known in something they did. Faith cannot be seen except in the things that it does. And if it is true faith, it will do many good things.

Noah was a man of faith, and his life continually showed his faith by his utter obedience to God. “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6:9). He worshiped God faithfully, as Abel had, and he walked with God faithfully, as Enoch had. He also worked for God faithfully.

I once heard a sports announcer interview a professional football player shortly before he was scheduled to play in the Super Bowl. He asked the lineman what he thought his team’s chances were in the upcoming game. He replied, “We believe that if we just do what the coach says, we will win.” The team had absolute faith in its coach’s wisdom and judgment. But the players also knew that winning depended on their doing what he told them to do.

Noah’s faith was stupendous. It was stupendous because of his absolute trust in God and because of his unhesitating and persistent obedience for 120 years in an undertaking that, from the human perspective, looked totally absurd and absolutely impossible.

Three things in Hebrews 11:7 give proof that Noah’s faith was genuine. First, he responded to God’s word. That is always a characteristic of true faith. Second, he rebuked the world. He was such a man of God that his very life was a rebuke to the wicked people that surrounded him. Third, he received God’s righteousness. These are the classic marks of true faith.

NOAH RESPONDED TO GOD’S WORD

By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household. (11:7a)

When God told Noah that He was getting ready to destroy the world because of its wickedness and instructed him to build an ark (Gen. 6:13-14), Noah dropped everything and started building. Noah probably lived in Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a long way from any ocean or sizable lake. It is difficult to imagine how God’s message must have sounded to Noah. To most of us it would have been so strange, so demanding, so embarrassing, so absolutely overwhelming, that we would have done anything to get out of it. We would have thought up a thousand excuses for not doing it. We would have done our best to talk God out of the whole idea, or at least convince Him to get someone else for the job.

But Noah, who had but a fraction of the divine light that we have, did not argue, quibble, make excuses, complain, or procrastinate. He did not question God, but simply began obeying Him. He spent over one hundred years fulfilling this single command. True faith does not question, and Noah did not question. Among the countless faithful saints who have endured and persisted in obedience to God, Noah stands supreme, if for nothing else than the shear magnitude and time span of his one incredible assignment from the Lord.

Noah doubtlessly had a lot of things of his own to do. To surrender all his time and effort to building a boat took a special kind of commitment. He probably had little idea about what an ocean-going ship was like. Certainly he had never seen, or even heard of, a giant ship such as the ark was to be. He had no experience in shipbuilding, no easy access to building supplies, and no help except that of his sons. Even they were not able to help for many years after the ark was begun, because they were not born until after Noah was 500 years old (Gen. 5:32). One of the greatest practical acts of faith in all history was Noah’s cutting down the first gopher tree for wood to make the ark.

Noah was warned by God about things not yet seen. He had never seen rain, because it probably did not exist before the Flood. He had never seen a flood, since floods could not have occurred without rain. Noah responded to God’s message by faith, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). By faith Noah . . . prepared an ark. He had nothing to go on but God’s word, which for him was more than sufficient.

Noah built the ark in reverence. The Greek word (eulabeia) can be translated “pious care, or concern,” with pious taken in the original sense of genuine spiritual devotion. He treated the message of God with great respect and awe. He “was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6:9). He was a man of obedient faith even before God called him to build the ark. He had been faithful over smaller things, and now the Lord gave him a great thing to do.

The ark symbolized many of God’s future dealings with men. The Hebrew word for pitch, for example, has the same root (kpr) as that used for atonement. The pitch kept the waters of judgment from entering the ark just as Christ’s atoning blood keeps judgment from the sinner.

The exact length of the cubit during Noah’s time is not certain, but using the lowest, most conservative figure it would be about seventeen and a half inches. On this basis, the ark was 438 feet long, 73 feet wide, and 44 feet high. In other words it was nearly one and a half times the length of a football field and more than four stories high. Since it had three decks, the total deck area was almost 96,000 square feet, and the total volume within the decks was about 1.3 million cubic feet. Naval engineers have discovered that the dimensions and shape of the ark form the most stable ship design known. The ark was not designed for maneuverability but for stability, in order to best protect those within it.

The ark is a beautiful picture of the salvation offered in Jesus Christ. The ark was easily large enough to hold all the animals needed to assure each species’ survival. It had plenty of room for every person who wanted to come to God for safety. The fact that only eight persons came into the ark means that only eight wanted to be saved on God’s terms. God does not wish “for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). God’s nature does not change. His will in Peter’s time was the same in Noah’s time. Only those perished in the Flood who rejected God’s way of salvation. Had more come to Him for safety, we can be sure the ark would have accommodated them. Just so, Jesus’ blood is more than sufficient to atone for all the sins ever committed since the Fall. That no more people are saved than are simply means that these are the only ones who want to be saved. Jesus declared absolutely that no one who comes to Him will be cast out (John 6:37).

When God first called Noah to his gargantuan task, He told him of the covenant He would make with him (Gen. 6:18). As the Lord explained later, the covenant was also with “every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth” (9:16) that survived the Flood, including, of course, all mankind. But the covenant was first of all with Noah, the man who had “found favor in the eyes of the LORD” (6:8).

Though Noah was “blameless in his time” and “walked with God” (6:9), he was still a sinner. He was a fallen son of Adam, as seen so clearly in his shameful display of drunkenness and immodesty when things began going well after the Flood (9:20-21). He was saved because of God’s “favor,” because of God’s grace, working through his faith. Noah’s righteousness, just as that of every believer before and after him, was “in the eyes of the LORD.” Noah was counted righteous, justified by God’s pure grace, applied because of faith. Not even Noah’s faith in itself, amazing as it was compared to that of most of us, saved Him. God would not be obligated to save a single person even because of faith, had He not in His love and mercy declared faith to be the condition on which He would save. It is God’s right to save whom He will, and He wills to save those who believe in His Son. He takes our faith and, by His grace, counts it as righteousness (Rom. 4:5).

That Noah’s faith was genuine is proved by his obedience to God’s word. In God’s economy, trust and obedience are inseparable. As we love to sing, there is no other way than “to trust and obey.” Just as Noah trusted and obeyed, God wants all who belong to Him to do the same. He wants us to trust Him in the trial we are going through, the temptation we are facing, the decision we are making. He wants us to worship Him rightly, as Abel did, and to walk with Him, as Enoch did. He also wants us to obey him, as Noah did. The Lord has arks for every believer to build. It is just as important for us to build the ark He gives us as it was for Noah to build the one God assigned him. Ours may not be as big or as awesome or as time-consuming as Noah’s, but it is the only one we can build that will please God. And, like Noah’s, when we build it in faith, according to God’s plan and by His power, it will accomplish what God wants it to accomplish. Also like Noah’s, our work for the Lord may look foolish and purposeless in the world’s eyes. But if it is His work, it will please Him, the only one a believer needs to be concerned about pleasing.

My father used to tell the story of a man who walked up and down the sidewalks wearing a sandwich board with “I am a fool for Christ” painted on the front. On the back was “Whose fool are you?” In a sense, every person is a fool for something in the eyes of someone. Many political activists and cultists are perfectly willing to look like fools for the sake of their causes. How much more should a Christian be willing to look like a fool for Christ’s cause.

Peter and his partners had fished all night and caught nothing. As they were washing their nets on shore, Jesus got into one of the boats, preached for a while to the crowd that was gathered there, and then told Peter to put out into the deep and drop the nets again. Peter let the Lord know he thought the effort was useless, but he obeyed anyway. They caught so many fish they had to ask for help, and two boats nearly sank under the load. Peter’s faith was small, but he obeyed and was rewarded far out of proportion to his faith. Like Noah, he faithfully obeyed God, and God honored his faith and his obedience.

Noah believed God’s word about the coming judgment, and about the right size and way to build the ark, and about the promise to save him and his family. He did not pick and choose what to believe and what to obey. He believed everything and obeyed everything God said.

NOAH REBUKED THE WORLD

By faith Noah. . . condemned the world. (11:7b)

Noah’s obedience included his passing on to the rest of the world God’s message of coming judgment. In 2 Peter 2:5, he is called “a preacher of righteousness.” God called Noah to preach while he built. The preaching was probably more difficult than the building. Hard jobs are always easier to deal with than hard people.

The times in which Noah grew up were among the most evil and corrupt in history. “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). If any man had reason to regret the time in which he lived it was Noah. But he did not complain about when he was born, his lot in life, or his calling. He obeyed as he was and where he was.

Noah’s job was to warn the people of his time that God would soon judge them because of their wickedness and unbelief. They had had the same opportunity to know God and His will as had Noah. The difference between Noah and everyone around him was not a difference in the amount of light but a difference in response to it.

Mankind had become largely demon possessed. I believe the “sons of God” who came down and cohabited with the “daughters of men” (Gen. 6:2) were fallen angels, demons (cf. 1 Pet. 3:19-20). Because of this cohabitation, the fallen race fell even further. The evil of man’s own nature was compounded, and it became too much for the Lord to bear. Judgment had to come. Donald Barnhouse said, “Hell is as much a part of the love story as God in heaven is.” Righteousness and sin cannot coexist. God cannot establish righteousness until sin is destroyed.

As always, the Lord’s judgment was tempered by His mercy. He is never happy with judgment, no matter how deserved. God was “grieved in His heart” (Gen. 6:6) about man’s wickedness and the fact that he would have to be judged so severely. He allowed 120 years for the people to be warned and to repent, thereby staying the judgment (6:3). Actually a type of warning was given when Noah was born, 500 years before he started the ark. As he was being named, his father, Lamech, said, “This one shall give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD has cursed” (Gen. 5:29). And then, while God had Noah build the ark—a dramatic picture of the coming Flood—He also had Noah witness to the people, warning them. “The patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark” (1 Pet. 3:20). In other words, at the same time He was preparing judgment He was also preparing a way of escape.

The people had ample warning of judgment, and they also had ample knowledge of the truth. For one thing, they had the witness of nature. “Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). They also had Abel’s testimony about proper worship of God and Enoch’s testimony about proper fellowship with God. In addition to this positive light, God’s punishment of Cain should have been a constant reminder of what He thought of sin. God’s very Spirit was striving with men (Gen. 6:3), seeking to turn them back to their Creator. Then they had 120 years of righteous preaching by Noah. What more could God have done?

The people had no excuse for their sin before Noah began building the ark, and they had even less excuse after he finished. One hundred and twenty years, even when men sometimes lived to be nearly a thousand, was more than ample time for anyone to repent who wanted to repent.

C.H. Spurgeon said, “He who does not believe God will punish sin will not believe that he will pardon it through atoning blood.” Many people are glad to hear about God’s gracious promises but want to hear nothing of His judgment. Spurgeon went on to say, “I charge you who profess the Lord not to be unbelieving with regard to the terrible threatenings of God to the ungodly. Believe the threat even though it should chill your blood. Believe though nature shrinks from the overwhelming doom. For if you do not believe, disbelieving God at one point will drive you to disbelieve God upon the other points of revealed truth.”

Just as the people must have made excuses for not repenting or for putting it off, Noah too must have been tempted to make excuses about his qualifications for preaching and boat building. Surely Satan suggested to him more than once that he had plenty of time to build the ark “later.” One hundred and twenty years gives a great deal of opportunity for procrastination. But Noah did not make excuses or procrastinate; he simply preached and built, just as he was called to do. Amidst ridicule, wickedness, long years with little evidence of success, and many unanswered questions, Noah obeyed and obeyed and continued to obey.

Not only is God’s warning of judgment an act of mercy, but even the judgment itself has a merciful aspect. For the sake of the believing remnant on earth in Noah’s day, the Lord had to cut out the malicious and destructive spiritual cancer or it would have overwhelmed the world.

Against that wicked, cruel, and dark world, Noah’s life and testimony shined in glistening condemnation. Black never seems so black as when white is put beside it. The man of faith rebukes the world just by his living, even if he never utters a word of reproach. A young man of Athens told Socrates, “I hate you, because every time I meet you, you show me what I am.”

Perhaps the saddest lesson from Noah’s day is that men have not changed in their attitude toward God since then, and will not change until the Lord returns. “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matt. 24:37-39).

The parallels of Noah’s day to our own are sobering. In Noah’s day God’s message was rejected, as it is today. In his day, wickedness, immorality, violence, lewdness, vulgarity, profanity, lying, killing, and blasphemy were rampant, as they are today. In his day a remnant found grace, just as a remnant believes today. In Noah’s day or shortly before it, Enoch was translated, picturing the rapture of believers when the Lord returns, which could be in our day. We can be as sure as they should have been that judgment is coming, because God has promised it just as clearly and men deserve it just as much. Someone has said, “If God doesn’t destroy our world, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” The next judgment will be different in two ways, however. First, it will not be by flood (Gen. 9:15) but by fire (2 Pet. 3:10). Second, it will be the last. And again the only security is refuge in God’s ark, Jesus Christ.

NOAH RECEIVED GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS

Noah ... became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. (11:7c)

Noah’s faith was proved by his receiving God’s righteousness, which is only bestowed on those who trust in Him. “A righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6:9). He was the first person in Scripture to be called righteous.

All who believe in God are righteous, not always in practice but always in position. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us by faith (Rom. 3:22). The Father sees us as He sees the Son, holy and righteous, because by faith we are in the Son. If we put on colored glasses, everything we look at will appear that color. God looks at believers through the lens of His Son, and He sees us as He sees the Son. Thousands of years before Jesus became incarnate, God looked at Noah and saw the Son, because Noah believed.